In the last few days I’ve picked up, totally unplanned and inadvertently, two books. One at Coles, thinking it was on sale. Another left behind and crying out to be examined.
The first book is a prayer book, the second an examination of a sacred text. The Jewish prayer book’s introduction on prayer is amazing. I’ve read many books on prayer from a Christian perspective. This book is succinct and a great approach to prayer. The second explains how the Koran is to be treated in respect — literally watching carefully how the paper and ink are transported, held and even placed.
I’m reminded that the written sacred text is important. In the past few years we have been dwelt on the statement “in the beginning was the Word” as referring to the living Word of God, found alive in the life of a Christian. We have underplayed the truth of the written Word of God — because our society is so bound to experience, a current happening and the sensual life. Words on paper seem so sterile!
Every once in a while we need to return to the awe that comes from the scrawlings on paper and parchment. These are the words of God.
As I read these books, though, I was reminded that one thing remains. For all the sacredness of texts which intersect Jews and Muslims, what we Christians call the Old Testament, there is yet one thing missing. They miss the Messiah — in flesh and blood — who affirms the written texts but is himself the living text.
So, if Christmas does one thing — for all the fuzzy feelings and family sensibilities our culture and media stress — Christmas is distinctive. Here is the Messiah come in flesh and blood. For the Jews this point allows for either a recognition that anticipation of the Messiah has been fulfilled, or a belief that anticipation still awaits. For the Muslim, this is a point of recognition that either the Messiah was enough, or that, centuries later, there was a needed fulfilment of “another” to come and reveal God more fully.
For the Christian, Jesus is both the anticipation and the fulfilment!