From all of us here at Urbana Seminary…Merry Christmas! And Happy New Year! I hope that your Advent season has been excellent—with friends and family, safe travel, and most of all with remembering God’s gift of Himself in the person of Jesus.

I encourage you to prayerfully include Urbana Seminary in your Year End giving for 2011. Each year we rely on a significant proportion of donations coming in during December. Many of you have given generously this year, others yet plan to, and we are so thankful for each and every one of you. We know we couldn’t do it without you. God is always at work and it’s exciting to trace what He’s been doing and anticipate what lies ahead in the New Year. Reflecting back on 2011 brings to mind several signal moments. . .

• Outstanding accomplishments of alumni: planting a church that launched very successfully this year, coming home from a furlough in India after a fruitful first term abroad, daring work planting the church in a land closed to the Gospel, and many others working for the Kingdom of God.
• The first seminar on Bioethics jointly sponsored with Carle Hospital. This year’s focus was Anti-Aging Science.
• Significant progress in the process of accreditation for the school, with a deeply encouraging annual visit from a representative of the organization.
• The ongoing life of a school that prepares God’s people for serving Him.

Praise God! For all of this we are so thankful! As President, I’m so grateful to all those who serve Christ here at Urbana Seminary . . . to faculty—Dr. Joe Thomas, Dr. Todd Daly, our Lecturers, and Adjuncts—as well as to those who have tended the administrative side of the work—Ann, Carrie, Katie, Brent, Gee. And on behalf of all of us, we’re most grateful to you for your support and prayer and encouragement through 2011. Thank you!

Merry Christmas!
Ken Cuffey
President, Professor of Biblical Studies

written by Rick D. Williams

Anyone whose life work centers on education or ministry experiences the familiar rhythm of the annual cycle. Our years are marked in quarters and semesters, by “ordinary” time contrasted with the “strong” seasons of Lent, Easter, Advent, and Christmas. We are come once again to the major transition point in both our academic and liturgical calendars. Reflection often accompanies transition, and this particular turn has brought me to a fresh consideration of Advent through an exchange of images from Isaiah chapter 9 and John chapter 1.

Let’s begin with Isaiah 9:2: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of darkness, a light has dawned.” The starting point of all humanity—even the people of God to whom this is addressed–is darkness. We are born “blind” into a broken world over which a dark deception has been drawn. We are unable to “see” who we really are or even to understand why we are really here. As 1 Corinthians 13:12 recognizes, our perceptions of reality are but a dim reflection of how things really are. At its most basic level, our dark deception is this—that “we are on our own”; in fact, that “we are our own.”

But by God’s loving mercy glimmers of grace peek through the cracks. In this land of darkness, a light shines on dawn’s horizon. The nature of this light is poetically set forth in John 1: “Life was in Him,” we are told, and contrary to our lot, “that life was the light of men.” This one born in light “shines in the darkness,” with power even “the darkness did not overcome.” What is so brilliantly illuminated by this Life that is “the light of men?”

In this “child [who] will be born for us,” this “son [who] will be given to us,” Isaiah sees the full reason for His coming: “The government will be on His shoulders.” With his coming, the oppressive darkness of our self-deception—that we are in control—is lifted for those who desire to see. The awful consequences of humanity’s hubris is set right when we rightly acknowledge the Lordship of He who is named “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.”

Perhaps this is why lights play such an important role in this annual journey through Advent and Christmas. Our neighborhoods come alive with light (and, alas, so much more!). Our sanctuaries are illumined with brilliant candlelight. Our hearts are strangely lit by hope, whether we believe or not. All because, one day long ago, the Light “became flesh and took up residence” in our hearts, our sanctuaries, and even our neighborhoods.

Because He is Light, we are able to see through the darkness that blinds us. Because He is Lord, we are set free from the deception that we are. Because He was “born in the flesh,” we are “born of God.” No wonder these days we mark are so filled with wonder. Whether we count ourselves among “those who receive Him” or amidst those still “walking in darkness,” the Truth is that the Light has come. Let us rejoice and be glad.

*Scripture passages quoted are from the Holman Christian Standard Bible.

by Michael Himik

Last week, I wrote there’s an elephant in the room when it comes to putting Jesus’s teaching into action in the West. Specifically, the elephant is this: God says that to love Him, we must love our neighbors. But loving our neighbors requires real community, and our culture has virtually obliterated real community. All too often, we have few, if any, deep and loving relationships outside of our own “nuclear family.”

So what, as Christians, should we do? It is highly unlikely, and not at all biblical, that God will exempt us from His word simply because our culture has made it difficult to follow His command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” It is more likely, and entirely biblical, that He expects us to change our culture, and to build real community in His name. But how?

Friends, there is a biblical tool that can be used to build real community – a biblical tool that can build deep and loving relationships among God’s family and welcome others into that family. It is the agape feast practiced by the early church. You can call it a community feast if you like, because that is what these feasts build in God.

What is an agape feast?

Agape (pronounced “ah-gah-pey” or “ah-guh-pey”) is the New Testament Greek word for God’s love. An agape feast is how the early church celebrated God’s love. In fact, it is how the early church celebrated communion. When Jesus said to break bread and to drink “in remembrance of me,” early believers took Him at His word and came together over a shared meal where He was host.

During this shared meal, those following the Way “communed” not only with the Lord, but also with each other in the Lord. The Lord’s Supper was supper – an actual meal that knit the community of believers together in Christ’s love. The early church in Jerusalem even met and ate together daily:

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:42-47)

For the early church, communion meant community. Moreover, all were welcome at Christ’s table. Agape feasts were an opportunity to live out Jesus’s command that

“when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (Luke 14:13)

Those with food shared with those without. Those with wealth shared with those who had need. Those in possession of the gospel invited others to hear this good news. The fellowship of believers was real and deep in those days, and earthly distinctions were erased by the Cross.

Just as Jesus promised, when the church did this, it was blessed, “and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” When the church failed to do this, or did it in a way that promoted division rather than community, it was condemned (1 Corinthians 11:17-34).

Friends, let’s restore this practice of the early church and reap its blessings. There’s never been a better time for these community feasts – because today, everyone who comes to a community feast shows up in need. Some who come need the food. But all who come need the community.

Despite our material wealth, we are poor in community, poor in relationships, poor in true Christian fellowship. Let’s drop our idolatrous individualism and prideful privacy — and embrace this poverty. Let’s become “poor in spirit” and be blessed. Let’s recognize that others need us and that we need them. Let’s give a feast in Jesus’s name and invite all the poor, including ourselves, to come.

Jesus asks us to love our neighbor. We try, but in our honest moments, we raise our hands in frustration and cry out, “Lord, I don’t know even know my neighbor.” We have let our culture define the way we follow Jesus, rather than letting our walk with Jesus define our culture.  But it doesn’t have to be this way. Jesus gave us a way to build real community in Him.

————————————-

Michael Himick is one of the people working to make Sunday Action happen. He is a publisher, writer, and internet consultant.  You can register to attend a community feast right here in Champaign-Urbana at http://www.sundayaction.com. The next Sunday Action feast is December 18.

written by Dr. Todd Daly

The quest for longer life has been around as long as humankind has. Having been thrown out of the Garden and barred access, we have been trying to forge pathways back to the Tree of Life through hygienic practices, alchemy, and now technology. While Ponce de Leon’s quest for the fountain of youth proved futile, the mythical nature of longevity has steadily eroded over the last decade in the face of stunning scientific breakthroughs. It seems that hyper longevity has gone from legend to the laboratory, as researchers continue to both discover and modulate the mechanisms of aging.

Indeed, while none of the ‘anti-aging’ products on the market actually slow the aging process, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes have observed:

Scientists are on the threshold of discoveries about aging that are likely to have consequences for personal health and longevity that we could only have dreamed of just a few decades ago. We are optimistic that aspects of the aging process will eventually fall within the control of the biomedical sciences—permitting humanity, for the first time, an opportunity to influence the biological forces that govern life and death.[1]

Recent scientific breakthroughs with six-fold lifespan extensions in nematode worms and mice have been splashed across the pages of Science and The Wall Street Journal, echoing what Olshanksy and Carnes predicted ten years ago.

What exactly are the mechanisms of human aging, and what are the real possibilities that we may one day experience health spans of 150 years? How should Christians respond to this quests? How might these successes alter our understanding of death, including our ability to know when to forgo further treatment? On December 10^th you’ll have the opportunity to hear S. Jay Olshanksy speak to both the science of longevity, and some new work on the religious aspects of living longer. Dr. Todd Daly of Urbana Theological Seminary will offer one Christian response to anti-aging science, and Dr. Robert Cranston of Carle will speak to the issue of knowing when to ‘say when’ with regards to care for the dying.

This unique one day interdisciplinary conference affords a rare opportunity to explore the quest for hyper longevity from scientific, theological, and medical perspectives, and will include a panel discussion directed by your questions. Registration information is available at http://www.urbanaseminary.org/events/

——————————————-
[1]S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes, The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), 14.