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25 December 2014

The Rees Family Christmas Letter 2014

Grammar saves lives. 

Someone has wryly said, and millions have probably seen the clever jpeg showing the huge difference that grammar can make.  “Let’s eat, Grandpa.”  … or …  “Let’s eat Grandpa.”  Grammar saves lives; or at least Grandpa’s life.  Little things like commas are not, in fact, merely little in the unfolding drama of our lives.

In a real sense, not merely relegated to quotable quotes that English teachers might thumbtack to their classroom walls, grammar saves lives.  It saved mine.

Threads or rhythms or cadences—whatever we want to call them—pre-existing themes exist and echo throughout the human experience.  You reap what you sow.  Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him and his family for a lifetime.  Every culture has its version of these, no doubt.  But there is one theme that the Christmas narrative slam-dunks; and its punch is built upon grammar. 

Jumping languages and linguistic grouping from English back to Greek, back to Aramaic that the common people in Bethlehem would have called their mother tongue, we can see the dignified power that continues the theme that reverberates throughout Scripture: believing is seeing.  The counterfeit of this theme pumps its fist in the air seemingly daily—seeing is believing.  But the theme of belief unto sight is bedrock in the biblical worldview. 

Ancient Greek didn’t use commas as modern English does, and word order is not as rigid with the biblical languages as with the Germanic languages, but still there is a grammar rule that reflects the Christmas message; the tidings of great joy.

The first sentence—the initial phrase of the first sentence—that the angel speaks to the humble shepherds encapsulates this belief-unto-sight theme perfectly.  “Fear not, for behold.”  “Fear not” is a command; the most frequent command recorded in all of Scripture.  It requires an active, personalized faith.  And notice how this command arrives—“and the angels said.”  Later on, the Apostle Paul pressed the same point when he said to the Romans, “Faith comes from hearing and hearing through the Word of God” (Romans 10:17).  Belief/faith comes from/through the Word of God.  And then, but never before, comes the seeing.  It is not necessarily physical seeing, but it can include it.  The seeing that is so often repeated in Scripture is the sight that happens from the heart.  The shepherds would see the Christ-child with their eyeballs, but they would see Him with the hearts first.  Why?  Because believing is seeing.

It is a simple grammatical structure: fear not, for behold.  But it cannot be inverted and maintain its grammatical integrity.  We cannot say, “Behold, for fear not.”  The grammar simply won’t allow it and I am so glad that it doesn't allow it.  We cannot see/behold before the act of faith and the act of faith cannot come before the Word of God.  The grammar demands faith first.  Faith receives Jesus for who the Word of God says He is.  Therefore, grammar saves lives.  To get it backward; to try to see our way into faith is exactly what cannot work—not in grammar nor in theology.   Yet it makes the gospel so miss-able for us who insist that seeing comes before everything. 
 

We as a family are riveted to this truth this Christmas season; that belief precedes sight.  We are actively believing the truth of the Word of God is dominate and definitive instead of what we see with our physical eyes.  Our physical eyes look at the bald tires on the Jeep, the inbox full of rejection emails from our many job application attempts, the dwindling numbers in our bank account and the enemy of our souls whispers with his forked-tongue, “Now is the time to fear.”  But the Scriptures say, “Fear not” first … then there is a strong conjunction “for” … then there is the possibility to “behold” the mind of the heart of God.  

There, right there--that is our manger where the Word of God and the human experience meet.  That is our crucible where the promises of God and the fears of the unknown clash.  That is our night sky that is pierced by the Bethlehem Star.  That is our believe-and-then-you-will-see theme that floods our December this year.  Jesus is the first Word.  And Jesus is the last Word.  May all our words in the middle find Christ’s cadence … for believing is seeing.  And we are genuinely well because of that truth, built on the principles of grammar, revealed in the Scriptures, embodied in Jesus.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
His truth is marching on.

Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
"As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal";
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succor to the brave,
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
Our God is marching on.

Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
(Julia Ward Howe, 1861)