The Missing Chapters
This Christmas I entertained myself by trying to notice all the traditions surrounding the birth of Jesus that are not in the Bible. The story is really very unadorned. It tells some simple facts with no extra information. We embellish to add to the tragedy and drama of the story. The Easter story is similar. The bible is pretty straight forward and just states some facts. We have embellished it with lots of drama and gore. These two stories seem to be the primary focus for the Christian faith. There are lots of people who only go to church for these two events. They even have a name - CEO Christians (Christmas and Easter Only). I was working with some volunteers at a church sponsored fund raising event and mentioned one of Jesus’s parables. They had never heard of it and didn’t think it was in the Bible. Well, it was, and it started me thinking about why we focus on the beginning and end of the story and leave out the whole middle. Luke has maybe 1 ½ chapters about th...