Time Measured by RootsTech

When I was a kid, I measured time by school years. As a college student, time was measured by semesters. And then I discovered the beauty of connection; time was measured from how long it was until my favorite Orthodox college student conference every winter. In my 20s, my year was measured by my vacation time. And now, in my 30s, I measure time from genealogy conference to genealogy conference!

So guess what's coming y'all! RootsTech Connect!

This year, RootsTech is all virtual - thanks 2020 - and it's going to be FREE! If you haven't registered  yet, it's SUPER easy and fast. Just click here, put in a few details, and you're all done! 

Join genealogy enthusiasts from around the WORLD from 25–27 February 2021 for around the clock family history education and connection. 

Soon, you'll be able to see all the classes you can attend from the comfort of your home.

On top of all the great speakers, you'll get to listen to four keynote speakers: Lorena Ochoa, professional golf player from Mexico; Francesco Lotoro, pianist from Italy; Sharon Morgan, African American writer and genealogist; and Nick Vujicic, motivational speaker from Australia. Click here to learn more about them and why they'll be speaking at RootsTech Connect. 

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Have you registered yet? What are you waiting for!?

Your ancestors deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's encounter your ancestors through family history and remember the past made present today!

Christmases Long Long Ago - Part 2

Merry Christmas y'all!

In today's post, I'll be sharing the second part of the sermon I gave on 20 December 2020. Before reading on, make sure to read Christmases Long Long Ago first! 

Scripture & Hymns

Scripture and our hymns reveal that Christmas has nothing to do with a pagan holiday and everything about our radical belief that Jesus Christ is God became man – that God, the creator of everything – came and lived a life like us. That God is with us!

Let’s look at St. Paul’s letter to the Church in Colossae. Here St. Paul is talking about Christ:

"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities - all things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent." - Colossians 1:15-18

This is a radical, radical passage for a Jewish man in the first century to be writing about another human being. He’s saying that Jesus Christ is God, that He didn’t somehow become God, or that he appeared like God. But that Jesus Christ is the image of God the Father, that He is the only way that we see God. That He’s the first-born, that He before all creation was begotten of the Father as we say in the Creed. That everything that we see and everything that we don’t see is because Jesus – before He took on flesh from the Virgin Mary – made it so.

This is an amazing passage that echoes through into the Creed that we say every Sunday. Now, I also want us to look at some of the hymns that we sing during Christmastime to show what it is that we’re celebrating.

One says:

"I see here a strange and paradoxical mystery. * For, behold, the grotto is heaven; * cherubic throne is the Virgin; * the manger a grand space * in which Christ our God the uncontainable reclined as a babe; * Whom in extolling do we magnify."

 

It’s talking about the cave that the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ in. Oftentimes we think of it as a barn but the Church in its icons show it as a cave where the animals were living in. And the Church refers to the cave as heaven itself – reflecting on this mystery. Similarly, the icon above the altar shows the Virgin Mary with the words Πλατυτέρα των Ουρανών (Platytera ton ouranon), the one that is wider than the heavens. The one who in the mystery of the incarnation contained Christ. In this icon we also see Christ on the Virgin Mary’s lap, as if she is the throne of God. So the hymn is also comparing her to the angels that form the throne of God.

During Christmas, Orthodox Christians greet one another with, “Christ is born” and respond “Glorify Him!” This greeting comes from the katavasias hymns of Christmas:

"Christ is born; glorify Him! * Christ is come from heaven; go and meet Him. * Christ is on earth; arise to Him. * Sing to the Lord, all you who dwell on the earth; * and in merry spirits, O you peoples, praise His birth. * For He is glorified."

In another hymn, the Church refers to Christ as the tree of life that is blossoming forth at Christmas.

"O Bethlehem, prepare, Eden is opened unto all. * And be ready, Ephrata, for the Tree of life * has in the grotto blossomed forth from the Virgin. * Indeed her womb is shown to be spiritually * a Paradise, in which is found the God-planted Tree. * And if we eat from it we shall live, and shall not die, as did Adam of old. * Christ is born, so that He might raise up * the formerly fallen image."

As opposed to the tree in the garden of Eden that after eating from it, Adam and Eve began to die, now we have this tree that through Him we have life.

And then we have a BEAUTIFUL hymn in the Hours on Christmas Eve. This hymn echoes Holy Friday’s hours during Holy Week. On Holy Thursday night, while Christ is being brought around the Church on the cross, we sing, “Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon a tree.”

A similar hymn, but referring to Christ’s birth is sung during the Hours of Christmas Eve morning:

"Today, He who holds the whole world in His hand is born from a Virgin. (3) He who is impalpable in essence is wrapped in swaddling clothes as a mortal. God, who in the beginning established the heavens of old, is lying in a manger as a newborn babe. He who rained down manna for the people in the wilderness is nursed by His mother. He who is the Bridegroom of the Church is summoning the Magi. And He is accepting their gifts, now as the Son of the Virgin. We adore Your Nativity, O Christ. We adore Your Nativity, O Christ. We adore Your Nativity, O Christ. Also show us Your divine Epiphany."

It's showing this paradox about what we believe as Christians. That this mystery of this great God who has showered his love upon His people throughout the Old Testament is now living among us in this mystery. So why does any of this matter?

Why celebrate Christmas?

Why does it matter that we celebrate Christmas? Why do we celebrate Christmas?

After all, I love the lights, I love the Christmas trees and the presents, the tinsel and the ornaments. But that’s not what Christmas is about. I love family, I love carols and Christmas meals – especially pecan pie - , but that’s not what Christmas is about. And I love the hymns and the scripture readings, and the night-time service on Christmas Eve. But that’s not even what Christmas is about. We have Christmas because CHRIST IS BORN!

What I mean is: Christmas isn’t about this or that. It’s about Jesus Christ Himself and us preparing our hearts to meet Him together with the Church.

We believe in a God who is bigger and greater than we can ever imagine. Yet…that God who is greater than everything came to experience life as we live it. He came to sanctify this life, to make our existence holy, to renew creation, and ultimately to die (not to take our place but) to destroy the power of death and sin in our lives by rising from the dead.

We believe in a God who became man, born into an imperfect family just like we were born into imperfect families. Because it shows us that God doesn’t wait for us to be perfect first, but He comes to us and makes us holy.

Christ is risen because Christ is born. And this is joy because we’re connected to Him through our baptism, through Holy Communion, and through all the sacraments of the Church.

Grandma Nora's Decorations

Recently, I heard a story from Christmastime about my Grandma Nora that gave me goosebumps. She passed when I was only 2 weeks old, so I never got to make Christmas memories with her.

She loved nature, she loved her garden, and she loved her family. It must have been painful for her once my family became Jehovah’s Witnesses and they could no longer celebrate Christmas together.

But one Christmas, my Grandma Nora had found all these praying mantis nests which she had placed around the house as decoration. Well, you guessed it. They hatched! So somehow years later, at my first Christmas, when she couldn’t be with us, God was letting us know that we could share a little bit of her joy too.

I pray that your Christmas is filled with just as much JOY – hopefully a few less praying mantises – and that you have the peace in knowing that Christ is born! Glorify Him!

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I love getting to share family stories and these special memories with all of y'all. Thank you for humoring this not-entirely genealogy related post and I wish you and yours a blessed remainder of the Christmas season and a happy new year!

Your ancestors deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's encounter your ancestors through family history and remember the past made present today!

Christmases Long Long Ago

Christ is born! Glorify Him! I love this traditional Orthodox Christian greeting at Christmastime. 

In today's post, I'm sharing with you a sermon I gave on 20 December 2020 at my parish in Virginia Beach. I've transcribed the 15 minute sermon from a recording and I've edited it some for you here.  

To make it easier to read, I'll be posting it in two parts. I hope you enjoy these humble reflections on Christmas and that you'll join me for part two!

My First Christmas

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen!

Everyone that knows that I’m a genealogist might be expecting that I’m going to talk about genealogy; after all, this morning’s Gospel passage came from Matthew 1:1-25 on the genealogy of Christ. Instead, I’m going to talk about Christmas because it’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about and it’s right around the corner. It has me reflecting back on my earliest Christmas memories. Every year around this time of the year we all tend to get a bit nostalgic.

As a little kid, I LOVED nature! My first books were actually Audubon field guides. They weren’t normal kids’ books like Doctor Seuss but were books about nature: trees, mammals, birds, insects and spiders – I had and still have a dozen of them. When my family decided to become Christians when I was 5, I found it pretty exciting that we’d have a huge tree standing in the living room at Christmas.

We had been Jehovah’s Witnesses, a group that doesn’t celebrate any holidays (birthdays or Christmas) but now we were Baptists. So we could have Christmas! Our house had an overlook so from the second floor you could look down into the first. With that in mind, my dad managed to get the tallest red cedar tree that he could find. My dad was so proud of that tree!

This particular Christmas morning was so exciting for me! My first Christmas! But this day, my house was filled with more nature than just this tree…because unbeknownst to us, that tall, beautiful red cedar also had a praying mantis nest inside. And Christmas morning, nature-loving Sam woke up to a house with seemingly billions of itty-bitty praying mantises all over the house. For me it made for an amazing Christmas, but for my 12-year old sister, not so much.  

For my family, this Christmas was especially significant because for us it was the first time that we went from self-identifying Christians that didn’t celebrate Christmas to now identifying as newly converted Christians and celebrating it.

Today I want us to look at some of the history of Christmas: why we do celebrate Christmas, what are some of the hymns that we sing in the Orthodox Church, and what we as Orthodox Christians believe about Christ.

History of Christmas

As Christians in our modern society, we often get trapped – especially as Orthodox in America – in other peoples’ culture wars. Notice, I said *other* peoples’, not ours. For example, there are many Christians who say there’s an “assault on Christmas!” They’ll say, “we know there’s an assault on Christmas because they say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas’” (Ignoring that we actually do have a lot of holidays from December to January.) And then people will respond with either of these two voices: 

Protestants will say “Keep Christ in Christmas!” 

And then Roman Catholics will say, “Keep the mass in Christmas!”

We have these two sides and then sometimes we as Orthodox get stuck in the middle of it.

But the assault on Christmas that we may be seeing did not come from other religions, it didn’t come from atheists, it didn’t come from politicians. It came from within the Christian world. 

You see, in the 1600s, the Puritans in New England had outlawed Christmas. And even before that, Protestant reformers had shunned the holiday saying that it had pagan origins. These Protestant reformers used this myth or partial-truth as a way of justifying the Reformation.

And then you have later on in the secular world, our atheist or agnostic friends will say, “well you know, you shouldn’t even be celebrating Christmas because it’s a pagan holiday celebrating the sun!” as a way of discrediting the feast. But ironically, those atheists and agnostics are actually using Christian arguments against the celebration.

What’s the truth? The history of Christmas – just like any history – is complicated!

We don’t know exactly when Christians first celebrated Christmas, but we do know that there was a later pagan holiday in Rome celebrating the sun that started in the 270s – over 200 years after Christ. It didn’t exist before Jesus. And that was only in Rome, yet Orthodox Christians were celebrating the feast all over the Christian world - not only in Rome. From Egypt to Constantinople, from Jerusalem to Armenia, we celebrated Christmas. So we know it can’t just be because there were some people celebrating the sun-god as if somehow they’re who gave us Christmas.  

We also know that the way we celebrate Christmas evolved over time. There’s another holiday around the corner: Epiphany or Theophany, the day we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord. Originally, for several hundred years, the Orthodox Church celebrated the Baptism and the Nativity of Christ on the same day. But in the West, the Church of Rome celebrated Christmas separately. Eventually by the late 300s and into the 400s, the Orthodox Church started the celebrate these feasts on two different days. And you even see in the Church in Armenia that they still celebrate these feasts together in January.

Today, there are many people who identify as Christians but who refuse to celebrate Christmas because they think we stole it from Roman pagans. But this ignores WHY we celebrate Christmas – what we believe about Christ and why this matters for our salvation. 

Next time, we'll look at some scripture and the hymns for Christmas and see what they can teach us about what we believe about Christ and why we celebrate this feast.

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My two worlds – Orthodox Christian ministry and genealogy – rarely combine quite like they did during this sermon, so I knew I had to share it with all of y'all here. Genealogy in the Bible, history of a family celebration, and even some stories of my childhood all together! 

I hope you'll join me for part 2 as I finish the sermon...and maybe even the praying mantises will make another appearance! 

Your ancestors deserve the best researcher, the most passionate story-teller, and the dignity of being remembered. So let's encounter your ancestors through family history and remember the past made present today! 

*Photo by freestocks on Unsplash