Christmas According to Moses - Christmas Special

Hello! This is ReformedChildren's Christmas special. This was not originally written for the blog.

Merry Christmas! The word “Christmas” can invoke many differing thoughts that spring up. Yet, the original meaning of Christmas is in the Bible. Though the New Testament  is where it actually took place, the Old Testament, which is connected to the New, can also give us insights on the Christian holiday and celebration.

In a sense, the Old Testament is full of “teasers” and “trailers” for Christmas and the birth of Christ, just like a teaser that prepares for and anticipates a movie. One of these teasers is shown by a very important figure. 

The Old Testament is a storyfull, personfull segment of the Scripture. Out of many other Old Testament figures, Moses stands out as particularly important. He was a great leader of the Israelites. He performed the ten plagues through God, with the help of God parted the Red Sea, led the Israelites through the gruelling Sinai Desert, faced rebellion, received the Law, defeated the Amalekites, wrote 5 books of the Bible and performed many other miracles. Only a few Old Testament figures were given the abillity to perform miracles by God, and Moses is one of them. He is very important, but what is his stand on Christmas?

That is why today's Christmas celebration is titled "Christmas According to Moses". We will try to discuss and apply Old Testament verses to our Christmas celebrations and lives by reading one of the most, if not the most, influential Old Testament figure's near to last words. Reflect that one’s last words tend to be the most symbolic, the most overarching, and the most poetic.  read Deuteronomy 31:7-8. 

"Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The Lord himself goes before you and will be  with you; he will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.""

To better understand it, Let's view the context and setting of the verse. Deuteronomy is the last book of the Torah, also known as the Pentateuch: of which there are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is about a repetition in the Exodus process. Deuteronomy makes up of 34 chapters, therefore Deuteronomy 31 is one of the final parts of the book. In this portion of the Bible, Moses is growing old and this chapter is about the transition of leadership over the numerous Israelite peoples from an 120 year old Moses to a younger Joshua. Among the last public words of Moses, not the last, but almost the last - were these two verses of speech proclaimed to the Israelite public just before they entered into the Promised Land.

The relationship between said dialogue of Moses in Deuteronomy 31 and the Incarnation is relatively visible. "The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you" resonates well with Jesus' prophesied yet often neglected and forgotten name, Immanuel, or "God is with us". 

But what does this mean? The situation at hand is that Moses wants to advise the Israelites not be afraid of the unconquered Amorites in the land. Sure, but we aren't ancient Israelites, and what does not fearing or being afraid of the Amorites have to do with our modern situations, difficulties, challenges, and experiences?

Let's apply Reformed theology ideals to connect and link Old Testament verses with Christmas and all of our modern struggles. First, we must understand the method of interpreting Biblical verses, especially those in the Old Testament, which can be confusing to apply.

Hermeneutics is a category of theology dealing with the question "How do we correctly interpret the Bible?". Hermeneutics is very important. With wrong hermeneutics, heretical ideas spring up and will put us in the wrong because we misinterpreted verses. Your choice of hermeneutics is your choice of what lens you use to interpret Scripture, with different lenses resulting in completely different ideas. Within reformed theology, the accepted hermeneutical belief is called covenant theology. What is Covenant Theology? 

Covenant theology, also known as federal theology, is the traditional Protestant approach on how to understand and interpret the Bible, putting emphasis on the truth that the divine-human relationship is a covenantal one. For Calvin, he said all throughout the Bible  there lies solely one covenant - one covenant of grace - that just administers (acts/works) differently before and after Jesus' life. This differs from dispensationalist hermeneutics, which views the Bible differently. Dispensationalism views the Bible, especially the prophetic books (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc) more literally and vertically, meaning it separates and distinguishes Old and New Testaments rather than finding the numerous connected strings between the two. Dispensationalist theology gives rise to often strange theologoumenons, especially about the end times, whether when it is, et cetera. However, Covenant theology believes that Israel in the Old Testament is the church right now, because Israel was God’s chosen people, but now salvation is unlimited to all origins or nations, so the church is now God’s chosen people.. According to Heinrich Bullinger, a Protestant Reformer, practices  such as circumcision in the Old Testament are replaced with sacraments such as Baptism in the New Testament and beyond.

Shortly, Covenant Theology/Federal Theology is a hermeneutical view that views some Biblical verses as not completely literal, that the Old and New Testaments are of the very same covenant of grace that just administers (or works) differently, and that Israel is now the Church, though the ethnic people of Israel are still being kept by God. 

When we read Romans chapter 4 verse 17, we reflect that we to God are the descendants of Abraham in faith. What do biological Jews/Israelites boast on? Them being descendants of Abraham. In the same way, we are descendants of Abraham in the sight of God,  even when we are from other biological ethnicities, because Christ's sacrifice is not limited to the Jews only, but to all nations (though not everyone was saved). Let's now use covenant theology, a hermeneutical lens, to relate the said passage to our modern situation.  Now that we  understand the covenant theology basics and the verse,  now the final stage is to find  application by connecting the dots to answer the question "What is Christmas about according to Moses?", and become able to see Christmas in an even better vantage point.

Let's take that passage from before again:

"Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, "Be strong and courageous for you must go with this people into the land that the Lord swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The Lord himself goes before you and will be  with you; he will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.""

The passage told Joshua and Israel not to be afraid because the Lord himself will go before them and will be with them against their problems - the strong, fortified, and terrifying, yet ultimately wicked, Amorite people - who dominated and controlled the Promised Land at the time. If Israel is the church, it says we should not be afraid because of the Incarnation, but afraid of what? 

The Amorites can symbolize our problems, temptations, threats, fears, and challenges. In Ancient Israel's case, defeating the powerful Amorites and Canaanites were among the last stages of the Exodus and entry into the Promised Land. Israel could not do such a feat by themselves, and their enemies were a true, existential problem. We see in the era of the Judges some time later that a faithless Israel is often easily subjugated by their surrounding enemies like the Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, et cetera. In the same way, there are large problems for us we often cannot face ourselves, and are helpless against without God's coming through the Incarnation.

So Christmas according to Moses, ultimately, is a celebration of God's Incarnation, which gives us strength against great problems. Probably two of the largest of the many great problems we face are sin and death, two large, existential problems.

Both of them, however, were conquered by God who came down on earth and was with us. We cannot have defeated sin and death on our own, but God is with us.

We compare that if we are faithful and not fearful, we will succeed, but when we are not, we will fall short.

  That concludes the text. In all, let's remember to appreciate the Incarnation's courageous aspect and shrink our fears.