© 2013 The Wired Word
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We are using the arrival of Christmas itself as the news this week. As a way of talking about it, we suggest you take the following "Christmas IQ Quiz," which comes from Ray Pritchard at Keep Believing Ministries and is reproduced here with his permission. Also, we suggest you include the additional two quiz questions offered by The Wired Word.
1. Joseph was originally from ... (Luke 2:3)
A. Bethlehem
B. Nazareth
C. Hebron
D. Jerusalem
E. None of the above
2. What does the Bible say that the innkeeper said to Mary and Joseph? (Luke 2:7)
A. "There is no room in the inn."
B. "I have a stable you can use."
C. "Come back later and I should have some vacancies."
D. Both A and B
E. None of the above
3. A manger is a ...
A. Stable for domestic animals
B. Wooden hay storage bin
C. Feeding trough
D. Barn
4. Which animals does the Bible say were present at Jesus' birth?
A. Cows, sheep, goats
B. Cows, donkeys, goats
C. Sheep and goats only
D. Miscellaneous barnyard animals
E. None of the above
5. Who saw the star in the east?
A. Shepherds
B. Mary and Joseph
C. Three kings
D. Both A and C
E. None of the above
6. According to the Bible, how did Mary and Joseph get to Bethlehem?
A. Camel
B. Donkey
C. Walked
D. Joseph walked, Mary rode a donkey
E. Horse-drawn chariot
F. Who knows?
7. How many angels spoke to the shepherds? (Luke 2:10)
A. One
B. Three
C. Multitude
D. None of the above
8. What did the angels say/sing? (Luke 2:14)
A. "Glory to God in the highest, etc."
B. "Alleluia"
C. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given"
D. "Joy to the world, the Lord is come"
E. "Glory to the newborn King"
9. What is a heavenly host?
A. The angel at the gate of heaven
B. The angel who serves refreshments in heaven
C. An angel choir
D. An angel army
E. None of the above
10. There was snow that first Christmas ...
A. Only in Bethlehem
B. All over Israel
C. Nowhere in Israel
D. Somewhere in Israel
11. What is frankincense?
A. A precious metal
B. A precious fabric
C. A precious perfume
D. None of the above
12. In Matthew, what does "wise men" or "magi" refer to?
A. Men of the educated class
B. Eastern kings
C. Men who studied the stars
D. Sages
13. What is myrrh?
A. Middle Eastern money
B. A drink
C. An easily shaped metal
D. A spice used for burying people
E. None of the above
14. How many wise men came to see Jesus?
A. 3
B. 6
C. 9
D. 12
E. We don't know.
15. Where did the wise men find Jesus? (Matthew 2:11)
A. In a manger
B. In a stable
C. In Nazareth
D. In Saudi Arabia
E. In a house
F. None of the above
16. When the wise men found Jesus, he was ... (Matthew 2:11)
A. A babe wrapped in swaddling clothes
B. A young child
C. A boy in the temple
D. A grown man
17. The "star in the east" that the wise men followed ... (Matthew 2:9)
A. Stayed in the same place their entire journey
B. Disappeared and reappeared
C. Moved ahead of them and stopped over the place where Jesus was
D. Was just a mirage
E. None of the above
18. The wise men stopped in Jerusalem ... (Matthew 2:2)
A. To inform Herod about Jesus
B. To find out where Jesus was
C. To ask about the star
D. To buy presents
E. None of the above
19. Where do we find the Christmas story?
A. Matthew
B. Mark
C. Luke
D. John
E. All of the above
F. Only A and B
G. Only A and C
H. Only A, B and C
20. When Joseph found out Mary was pregnant, what happened?
A. They got married
B. Joseph wanted to break the engagement
C. Mary left town for three months
D. A and B
E. B and C
21. Who told (made) Mary and Joseph go to Bethlehem? (Luke 2:1-5)
A. The angel chorus
B. Mary's mother
C. Herod
D. The shepherds
E. Caesar Augustus
The answers, along with a few comments from Pritchard, may be found online here.
Here are two more questions we at The Wired Word would add:
1. As related to the birth of Jesus, "nativity" means ...
A. The ethnicity of Mary, Joseph and Jesus
B. The prophecies about the Messiah
C. The facts of Jesus' birth, including place, time and situation
D. A and B
E. B and C
2. As related to the birth of Jesus, "Incarnation" means ...
A. Jesus was half human and half divine
B. God the Son "became flesh" by being conceived in the womb of a woman
C. Jesus took on a human body and nature and became both human and God
D. The choices and acts of the pre-existent Son of God to become fully and truly a human being without ceasing to be fully and truly divine
E. A and C
F. B, C and D
For answers, see "Answers to the Additional Questions," below.
More on this story can be found at these links:
Christmas IQ Quiz. Keep Believing Ministries
Answers to Christmas IQ Quiz. Keep Believing Ministries
The Meaning of Incarnation. Patheos
The Nativity of Jesus. About.com
The Big Questions
1. What is Christmas all about?
2. Putting aside secular and commercial "meanings" of Christmas, in what ways do Christians sometimes distort the message of the nativity of Jesus? What should be emphasized more? What should be emphasized less?
3. Is there a difference between Jesus of Nazareth (the person born in Bethlehem) and the risen Christ? If so, what is it? If not, how are they the same? Is the birth of Jesus or the life of Jesus more important? Which events in his life do we celebrate more?
4. What does it mean to you personally that Jesus was both human and divine? Why?
5. Thinking about Jesus' birth and his death, which of the two did Jesus ask his followers to remember? Why?
Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:
John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and lived among us ... full of grace and truth. (For context, read 1:1-14.)
This verse is a clear biblical statement about the Incarnation of Jesus. The term John uses to describe the pre-existent Son of God is Logos or, in English, the "Word." According to New Testament scholar Ben Witherington, Incarnation "refers to the choices and acts of a pre-existent divine being, namely the Son of God, that the Son took in order to become a human being. He took on flesh, and became fully, truly human without ceasing to be fully, truly divine. Divinity is not something Jesus acquired later in life, or even after his death and resurrection. According to the theology of Incarnation, he had always been the divine Son of God, even before he became Jesus, a human being."
Lutheran Bishop Stephen Bouman tells of standing behind an altar in a small crypt chapel of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth in the Holy Land, supposedly at the location where Mary heard that she was going to have a baby. He saw some Latin words carved into the altar: Verbum caro factum est, "The Word was made flesh." But then he noticed that there was one other little word in Latin. That word: h - i - c. Hic. "Here." Verbum caro hic factum est, "The Word was made flesh here." Probably whoever authorized that inscription meant it to refer to that specific location, but in reality, the Incarnation means God became flesh here on earth, for all of us. The Incarnation means that we can speak of the "hicness" of God, the nearness of God. Incarnation means that God walks with us on earth, and that if we are saved anywhere, it is right here on earth.
Questions: In what ways do you allow Jesus to dwell with you? In what ways do you keep him standing at the door?
Matthew 2:1
In the time of King Herod ... Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea. (For context, read 2:1-6.)
Both Matthew and Luke are careful to place the birth of Jesus into historical and geographic context. Matthew does it by naming the local king at the time and stating the birthplace: "Bethlehem of Judea." Luke does it by naming both the emperor and a specific event in his reign (the census), and also by telling of Joseph and Mary's journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem (Luke 2:1-4). In those contexts, the gospel writers were talking about Jesus of Nazareth, the person born in a stable in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
But both writers went on to identify Jesus in a larger context, as the one whose blood would be poured out for the forgiveness of sins for "many" (Matthew 26:28; cf. Luke 22:20) and who rose from the grave (Matthew 28:1-10; Luke 24:1-12). Here they were talking about the risen Christ whom we can meet personally and whose blood saves us from our sins. Jesus of Nazareth and the risen Christ are the same Jesus, to be sure, but unless we personally meet the risen Christ, he is no more to us than a historical figure. The risen Christ is not confined to a manger or to Palestine in the first century. The risen Christ challenges us today to walk in the ways of God. The risen Christ calls for commitment, for service, for reformation of our lives.
Questions: Share briefly a story about your own birth or about the birth of someone important to you. Are our birth stories important in defining who we are? When you define yourself, is it in terms of who you are now, or where you came from? Which is more important? How does your experience of Jesus affect how you live?
Philippians 2:5-8
... Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death -- even death on a cross. (For context, read 2:5-11.)
This is another biblical statement about the Incarnation. This one stresses Christ's Incarnation as the ultimate pattern for the humility and obedience requested of Christ's followers.
Questions: Besides Christ's humility and obedience, what else does Christ's Incarnation model for you? What attitudes about yourself might need adjusting in order for you to follow Christ's pattern here? Compare or contrast the circumstances of Jesus' birth with Paul's description of Jesus' life and mission. Are they consistent with each other?
Titus 3:4-5
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy ... (For context, read 3:1-8a.)
Titus was one of the apostle Paul's lieutenants, a younger coworker, and this letter presents itself as a communication from Paul to Titus while the latter was in Crete. Although the letter discusses Jesus Christ, none of the references are about his birth. Yet in the church, a passage from Titus is often one of the recommended readings for Christmas.
Paul encourages Titus and offers advice about how the younger man should go about his ministry. Some of the advice is what we'd expect, but then Paul makes reference to the deeper human condition: "For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another" (v. 3). Paul wasn't saying that he and his comrades alone were deep sinners; he meant his comment as a statement about humankind in general.
Paul, however, knew of the fix for the situation, and it is in his very next sentence that the letter to Titus becomes a Christmas message: "But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy ...." Then Paul goes on to say that God poured his Spirit "out on us richly through Jesus Christ" (v. 6). In other words, by sending Jesus to our world, God was giving humankind a gift, the way to deal with the darkness of the human condition that afflicts us all.
This is the heart of the Christmas story. God didn't send Jesus as a reward because we've been so good; he sent Jesus because we had gone astray. So Jesus came, and still comes, as a gift to help us out of our dilemma, to help us reshape our lives and rise above the darkness that hides in corners of our human nature.
Question: When have you sensed that Jesus was a gift to you?
Answers to the Additional Questions
1. Correct answer is C -- the facts of Jesus' birth, including place, time and situation. Actually, the word "nativity" can apply to the facts of anyone's birth, but it's most commonly used to refer to the facts of Jesus' birth.
2. Correct answer is F, which includes B, C and D. The only wrong answer is A, because Jesus' nature is understood as fully human and fully divine, not a half-and-half mix.
For Further Discussion
1. "That's what Christmas is all about." That expression and ones like it get a lot of use every year around this time. For example:
• On a news station interview, we heard a woman talking about her family all getting together, including those members who live far away coming home for the holiday. Then she said, "That's what Christmas is all about."
• An ad for a supermarket chain says that "Family, fun and food" is what Christmas is all about.
• The song "Christmas is for children ..." says that children are what Christmas is all about.
• Some say that what Christmas is all about is doing good for others.
• If you are a child, your idea of what Christmas is all about may center on getting presents.
• Though we suspect he was kidding, we heard one man say "Cookies are what Christmas is all about."
Would you say that these things are some of what Christmas is about? Why or why not?
2. Respond to this, heard in a sermon: "Although Incarnation is a highfalutin word, the concept is not that difficult to understand. Consider what we've learned about human DNA, the basic stuff of life. Each person has something like three billion digits of DNA. That's a huge number, of course, but do you know that we can compress that many digits onto about four CDs? Given that, the idea of God incarnating or 'compressing' himself into the baby of Bethlehem seems quite logical."
3. Comment on this: One of the things the Incarnation means is that God came in the flesh to show us how to live the life God wants for us. Several years ago, there was a story out of the International Crane Foundation in Wisconsin about a rare female whooping crane named Tex who for some reason seemed to have an emotional attachment to male humans but not to male cranes. That was a problem because Tex wouldn't perform the usual crane mating dance with a male crane, and the birds must dance to become excited enough to produce an egg that will hatch. And having new chicks was important because whooping cranes are endangered. Over the years, Tex's keepers at the foundation had managed to get Tex to lay several eggs by means of artificial insemination, but none of them hatched. So finally, they tried another approach. They used artificial insemination again to impregnate Tex, but this time, the foundation director, George Archibald, to whom Tex was strongly attracted, moved into the pen with Tex and, in a way, became a crane -- a human "incarnated" as a crane. Several times a day for six weeks, Archibald and Tex did the mating dance together. And eventually Tex produced an egg that hatched, producing a live chick. Archibald taught Tex how to be the crane she was meant to be. Jesus, coming to earth, taught us humans how to be the people God wants us to be.
4. Is the Incarnation of Jesus important to us if we don't see ourselves as sinners? Why or why not?
Responding to the News
This is a good time to remind ourselves that by becoming flesh, Jesus showed us some of what God is like.
Closing Prayer
O God, thank you for the gift of your Son. Help us to keep our lives as a fit place for Jesus to reside. In his name. Amen.
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