Joy to the World: How Christ's Coming Changed Everything (and Still Does) by Scott Hahn, Part 1

Leading into to Christmas, the Catholic Thought Book Club selected and read Joy to the World: How Christ's Coming Changed Everything (and Still Does) by Scott Hahn.  It proved to be a wonderful selection as a Christmas read.  I’m going to post a series derived from my summaries and comments from the discussion.

If by any chance you don’t know who Scott Hahn is, you can read about him here.  He is probably the most important Catholic convert from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism in the last fifty to a hundred years.  He started out as a Presbyterian minister and PhD theologian but as he explored the roots of Christianity was shocked to find the truth in Roman Catholicism, both from a historical point of view and a Biblical point of view.  His conversion story went viral through recordings of his speeches, his conversion story, Rome, Sweet Rome, and finally through the internet.  Do a YouTube search of Scott Hahn and you will find his conversion story.  From his conversion story, a slew of Protestants have followed suit, including many Protestant clergy.  You can find him on many theological discussions on EWTN and he teaches at Franciscan University of Steubenville.  He has gone on to write many books on the faith.  He has a remarkable ability to find eye opening theological insights, in many ways like Pope Benedict XVI, but still be able to communicate them to the laity.  Joy to the World is a great place to start with a Scott Hahn book.

Summary

Chapter 1: “A Light Goes On In Bethlehem”

Using his daughter’s love of children, Hahn locates the Christmas story as wrapped in the human institution of the family.

Chapter 2: “What Happens in Bethlehem…”

Hahn provides the justification that the Gospel’s recounting of Jesus’ birth is history and not fable or folklore.

Chapter 3: “A New Genesis”

Hahn distinguishes the different objectives between Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels, especially considering the differences in genealogies. 

Chapter 4: “The Counterfeit Kingdom”

Hahn details the expectations at the time of the imminent coming of the Messiah. 

\\\\

How unexpected to start the Christmas story with Hahn’s twelve year old daughter, having a baby placed in her arms.

Yet that young woman, long centuries ago, found fulfillment in Bethlehem—in a baby placed in her arms. Everyone who saw her remembered her radiance, and after two thousand years we still remember it.

Looking at Hannah as she looked at those babies, I could understand why.

The effect on Hannah was long-lasting. She was changed—visibly changed and inwardly transformed. You could see it in her face and in her deeds. Months later, she organized a fund-raiser to send clothes to “her orphans” in Bethlehem. She had undergone a spiritual awakening, but still more than that. It was a kind of maternal awakening—a coming of age—a transition from being a little kid to caring for little kids.

I’m just curious.  Since we have so many women in this book club, do any of you remember the first time an infant was placed in your arms and did it have some maternal effect on you?

\\\\

Great comments all. Nadine, I may have once known about the genealogy differences but I had long forgotten what the differences were.

And Scott Hahn is very big on the family dimension of Christianity. It did not surprise me that he would expand on it here,

As to the Holy Family, I keep a small medal of the Holy Family on my neck chain, along with a crucifix and another of St. Catherine of Siena, who I consider my patron saint. But the Holy Family is special to me. My wife and I adopted our only child, a son, late in life. So we are father, mother, son, a mirror of the Holy Family.

\\\\

Hahn finds it important—and rightly so—to emphasize in chapter two that the events narrated in the Gospels are true fact, historical fact, not some fable or folklore.

Though the Gospel is certainly rich in allegorical meaning, it is first of all history. If there is allegory in the infancy narratives, it is fashioned by God, and not simply with words, but rather with creation itself—with the very deeds of sacred history. God writes the world the way human authors write words. Spiritual truths are everywhere to be found in the events at the beginning of the Gospels, but the events are nonetheless real and nonetheless important. They are no less historical for being extraordinary. To invoke Pope Benedict again: “If God does not also have power over matter, then he simply is not God. But he does have this power.”6 And so he can (and has) guided history and creation, just as he guided the prophets, to tell his story.  (p. 20)

If these events are only fable, then it is meaningless.  That sort of skepticism is what has caused western culture to lose faith in God.  What separates Christianity from any religion that I can think of is the incarnation of God into man for the salvation of mankind. 

\\\\

In chapter three I think Hahn makes what might be the most important point of the book.  Hahn points out that through the genealogy, St. Matthew is joining with St. John in the fourth Gospel that Christ’s arrival is a reformulation of genesis.

Saint Matthew’s first readers knew nothing of the field of genetics, but the title spoke still more loudly to them. To those first readers, the evangelist was suggesting a new Genesis, an account of the new creation brought about by Jesus Christ. In the fourth Gospel, Saint John accomplishes something similar when he begins by echoing the first words of the Torah: “In the beginning” (John 1:1; see Genesis 1:1). Saint Matthew introduces the same theme, though in a different way. The message in both is clear: with the arrival of Jesus, God brings about a new beginning, a new creation, a new Torah, and a New Testament. (p.24)

Christ’s birth is monumental.  It is the incarnational entrance of God into world, the one and only time in human history.  And with Christ’s entrance, the world is renewed.  The fall from Eden will be reversed. That is the reason for our joy, which is reflected in the book’s title.  That is why we celebrate Christmas.