A Comma and a Dash

Dave Brisbin | 1.27.19 Nearing the end of the liturgical season of Christmas that spans 40 days from Christmas Day until the feast of the Presentation on February 2, we are now living between Christmas and Easter, between Jesus’ birth and death. People have commented on the fact that a tombstone lists dates of birth and death with only a mere dash signifying the entirety of a person’s life. But Jesus didn’t even get a dash; he only got a comma. In the earliest creed of the church, the Apostle’s creed, Jesus’ birth and death are listed in a series of beliefs only separated by commas. Everything that Jesus lived and breathed and taught and loved is not mentioned in a list of events the church understood as theologically significant. But how can we understand the theological significance of an event in Jesus’ life without knowing the life of which those events are a part—the context for any event in his life? Early in its history, the church shifted from a focus on Jesus’ life and Way of living it, to a focus on his death as instrument of salvation and promise of resurrection. But Jesus’ life informs his death, and if we’re to be authentic followers of Jesus, we must find the balance between the two—learning to trace the shape of his life before we consider the significance of his death, or our own. Here, now, between Christmas and Easter, we’re living in his comma, the perfect time to consider our dash.