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This essay first appeared in the Fredricksburg Free Lance-Star on April 4, 2010.  

Of all the Christian holidays, it's Christmas that gets the most attention. And can you blame us for that? Light and life in the dead of winter, gifts galore, and cookies to boot -- no wonder it's a favorite. Yet Easter is the most important Christian holiday and was celebrated long before Christmas became what it is today. We can be comfortable with Christmas, its jollity and twinkling beauty, the stable, newborn, and serene mother. Easter, on the other hand, is different and a bit unsettling. For one thing, it is preceded by a gruesome, torturous death by crucifixion. What's more, it's based on an utterly unnatural event -- the coming back to life again of a definitely dead man. Let's face it, being born is nothing special. We've all done it, and in every case at least one person was on hand to witness the occasion. But resurrection?... 
 

Today, Christians celebrate Palm Sunday -- the day when Jesus rode into Jerusalem to great "Hosanna!" acclaim. But just exactly how did he do it? The stories disagree in a puzzling way... unless you know something about the conventions of biblical Hebrew and that the New Testament writers (Matthew, especially) often looked to the Old Testament, for ways to understand Jesus. 

Mark and Luke agree that Jesus rode in a donkey, and that's the story that's told in thousands of churches today. Matthew, on the other hand, has Jesus riding two beasts at the same time. An odd, albeit remarkable(!) feat to include. Unlike the other two, Matthew explains that Jesus did so to fulfill the scriptures (Hebrew Bible), and he partly quotes the reference in Zechariah, writing, "Tell the daughter of Zion, 'Look your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.'" That quote usually makes it into contemporary Palm Sunday retellings because of how it underscores the unusual nature of Jesus' kingship -- humble, in this case. But the bit about simultaneously riding both a donkey and a colt gets glossed thanks to Mark and Luke.

Zechariah's text appears as poetry, and the primary characteristic of biblical Hebrew poetry is parallelism. In its purest form, one line is followed by another that repeats its sense. Here's a great example from Proverbs 4:6 (about the importance of wisdom): "Do not forsake her, and she will keep you/ love her, and she will guard you." Get it? "Do not forsake her" is parallel to "love her," "she will keep you" is parallel to "she will guard you." Sometimes the parallelism is not so tidy, though, but rather integrated into a sort of stepped structure that builds with repetition. That's true in Zechariah 9:9 which ends, "riding on an ass [hold the jokes here];... on a donkey, the son of a she-beast." Now add this additional bit of info about Hebrew convention: one single letter serves as every conjuction (our "and," "but," or "or"), and sometimes it shouldn't really be translated at all.

That little letter appears right before "on a donkey," so together with what you now know about Hebrew poetry, you can see that Matthew went literal with his quote. He read Zechariah without poetic parallelism (but rather as a straightforward narrative) and translated the shadow conjunction literally, too. The result: Jesus enters Jerusalem straddling two animals. Spoiler alert: this will not be Jesus' final miracle. The "good news" gospel writers agree on that.

  

A whirlwind trip to MN for a few bookstore events, and I am reminded how lucky I am to have such a great family and truly wonderful friends. Besides meeting some new people, interested for a variety of intriguing ways in Bible Babel, I got to catch up with friends and family that I haven't seen in years. As my sister Deb put it, "It's like a funeral, except no one died!" And here's a treat: seeing the great big moon coming up over Lake Superior. Walking along the shore, its boulders covered in glossy sheets of ice, icicles pinpointing down from frozen outcroppings, well, I could look and look and never lose interest. Add the sound of waves rolling in, tumbling the slush and floes, and if it weren't so darn cold, I'd be there all day and straight through the night. But now I'm heading home to sweet Virginia and can't wait to arrive. A few flight snafus, but I can see that same moon, a silent friend over the airplane's wing, and it comforts me somehow. Is it any wonder that the ancients marked holy days by the moon? Is it any wonder that the most important Christian holiday, Easter, is marked by the moon?

 Out of the heaps of snow we've been getting lately, someone in my neighborhood has fashioned a great big Cupid in her front yard...or is it a cherub? Shoot, is Cupid himself some kind of cherub? I stood contemplating those questions for a minute or so until my dog started snuffling about at the smooshed remains of a sandwich beginning to emerge from under the packed snow, and I figured it was time to move on.
 Christmas came and went with its cards adorned by chubby-cheeked winged babies. Now it's Valentine's Day, and they're back again. We're accustomed to calling these charming figures cherubs. But it's a biblical word, and in the Bible, cherubs are nothing like that.

 I love the movie Groundhog Day. It's such a great story about redemption, and I for one, an accomplished bumbler, would love a few do-overs to get things right. Besides, the film's hilarious. I might have guessed that it would have some sort of religious theme to it, but until recently, I didn't imagine that Punxsutawney Phil and Jesus share that auspicious day... and not by mere coincidence. Groundhog Day is exactly forty days after Christmas Eve, and Jewish religious tradition required that certain things happen forty days after a boy's birth. Those traditions, together with ancient legends, ultimately led to the connection of that cheeky little varmint with the Christian "light of the world." 
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The Christmas story, whatever one does or does not believe, is a story of reversals. It's a story of tipping things over to set things right. Yet it all seems so familiar that we forget how much it requires wild imagination. The starring actors a poor family, the grand setting a tiny backwater town, heavenly angels speaking only to the sketchy demographic of sheep herders, and at the heart of it: a Jewish bastard (or so it would seem) in the Roman empire whom foreign envoys call "king," the God of the universe a naked baby. When you let yourself take it all in, well, it seems frighteningly relevant, (again) whatever one believes. I say frightening because no one really wants to embrace the unexpected, question assumptions, and allow that what is isn't always what should be.Yet it's time to do just that. I don't mean to suggest that chaotic anarchy is the answer. Not at all. But a cold hard look at what is love, what is justice, what is our place in the world, adopting a compassion so severe that we have to laugh,... and then to lighten up and change accordingly. Terrifying and exulting. Imagine.

Wonder and awe, wise men and shepherds, and the angels say, "Fear not." These are the days of extraordinary happenings, and in their very marvelousness, unnerving. The angels say, as biblical angels do, "Fear not," even while they dazzle and disturb. These are also the days, in pop culture, of vampires -- terrifying and dangerous. They, too, go in the between-places, and sometimes act as powerful guardians, just like the angels. Yet vampires and angels are categorically different, as Anne Rice recently noted. Or are they? I'm investigating the biblical shape, ways, and doings of angels, these days. And as I do, I can't help but think about our fascination with vampires, about life and death, courage and fear. In the biblical Christmas stories, the angels are heralds of life; vampires of death (no, no, they're not in the xmas stories; you know what I mean). The angels encourage; vampires terrify. But when we dig a little deeper, their roles are more nuanced and the boundaries less clear. And as we dig, we confront our own fascinations and repulsions and the wide wide realms of wonder and awe, mystery and possibility.

In this time of glad tidings, there's also no small amount hand-wringing on the one, er, hand, and disdain on the other. While some cry for a return of a Christ-centered to Christmas, others say "hey, it's not our holiday, so buzz off." Brit Robin Parry calls for a distinction between Advent and "Mad-spent," Christmas and "Wintermas" in his Christ-out-of-Christmas post, which finally is shares a lot in common with Russell King's put-Christ-back-IN-Christmas plea -- make space for those who celebrate differently. Peace, those greeting cards say. peace.

I'm sitting in a cafe on 58th and Broadway, far from home. So far from home,... and yet. It's Christmas time in New York, and I'm here for a quick turn-around visit, counted in hours. Breakfast this morning at a little scandinavian cafe. nothing fancy, but good good good. It brings to mind the picture-perfect holidays I remember from childhood. Northern Minnesota among strong, quiet Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes. And oh, the sight! Pine trees heavy laden with snow perched impossibly on feathery branches. Branches extended and bending to hold a weight, only possible because the snow fell flake by flake, gently, patiently. There's something there of Christmas, besides the charming red wooden horses and tomte figurines, the pepparkakor and saffron-dyed buns. I'm far from home -- the home of Minnesota, the home of Virginia, the home of the one I love farther still. Still, what is home? What is home?, especially in this time when the dominant story is of God (God!) determining to know what it is to be human, to be so far from home. Cast as a baby on the beautiful mercy of a small world. (A God to care for?!) Christmas to contemplate.

 As my dear friend and colleague Jack Spiro says of this and other Jewish holidays, "They tried to kill us. We survived. Now, let's eat!" Good wishes to Jewish friends and family celebrating this Festival of Lights! Latkes for all. You may enjoy this column by Ben Romer, a Richmond-area rabbi -- a thoughtful meditation on the season. Did you know that although the book of Daniel is set during the periods of Babylonian exile and Persian diaspora, its apocalyptic sections (chaps 7-12) were probably written around the time of the great Hellenization crisis (167 B.C.E. and Jewish victory) that Hanukkah commemorates. Go, Maccabees!