A campus landmark at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is known as the \u201cfree table.\u201d Here, one can explore an ever-changing collection of\u00a0 items searching for a new home \u2013 a package of unused file folders, a rice cooker that didn\u2019t quite make the move with a recent graduate, and, most commonly, a stack of books. As a Master of Divinity student here, this table was one of my favorite places because you never knew what you were going to get.<\/p>\n
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Take one of my all-time greatest finds: Mike Slaughter\u2019s Christmas Is Not Your Birthday<\/em>. Sandwiched between a stack of home decor magazines and a set of plastic bowls, it caught my attention and I decided to bring it back to my bookshelf \u2013 not as a challenge to the consumeristic ritual of the holidays but because of the book\u2019s ironic title. You see, Christmas actually is my birthday<\/em>, and I could not pass up the novelty of owning a book that tries to tell me otherwise.<\/p>\n Christmas is, of course, as much about giving as it is receiving. However, Christmas has largely been about sharing for me. Since I was a child, Christmas has meant opening gifts alongside my siblings, giving gifts to other people, and, naturally, sharing the birthday limelight with this guy named Jesus. Over the years, I\u2019ve shared my birthday as gracefully as I could, but ultimately it feels at times like I\u2019ve been cheated of a the birthday experience that so many others have \u2013 a day that is all about me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In my three years as a student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, I didn\u2019t necessarily learn how to be better at this sharing with Jesus, in large part because the Seminary doesn\u2019t need to teach this. Seminary taught me instead that sharing my birthday with Jesus is about more than each of us blowing out candles on our respective cakes. Christmas, and my birthday, are a recognition of Jesus\u2019 humanity. Just as I was born into this world, so was Jesus. Just as I have grown and experienced the wide range of human emotion, stubbed my toe, gotten bad haircuts, and been at a loss for words (for better or for worse), so has Jesus. Not only have I participated in community and been privy to the realities of this beautiful, broken, lovely, and all too human word, so has Jesus.<\/p>\n In the chaos of Advent and Christmas, sharing a birthday with Jesus is a stark reminder that we all<\/em> share, regardless of when your birthday may be, in the incarnate life that our God takes in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n Christmas is<\/em> my birthday, contrary to what any book title may say. But just as importantly it is an opportunity for all of us to remember that the God we love breaks into the cosmos in our likeness through Jesus Christ. God meets us in our particularity because, above all else, God wants to know us and be known by us. Thanks be to God for the gift of life, the gift of the incarnation, and the gift of each other, no matter the day of the year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chris Taylor, MDiv \u201919 and admissions counselor, first came to Seminary as a teen in the Miller Summer Youth Institute. After graduating from the University of North Carolina in 2015, Chris spent a summer in Acadia National Park and served as a youth director in Raleigh before moving back to his hometown of Pittsburgh to attend PTS. Chris has also been serving at Parkwood Presbyterian Church in Allison Park since 2017. You can often catch Chris watching Pittsburgh sports, Carolina basketball, reading a good book, or exploring the outdoors.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A campus landmark at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary is known as the \u201cfree table.\u201d Here, one can explore an ever-changing collection of\u00a0 items searching for a new home \u2013 a package of unused file folders, a rice cooker that didn\u2019t quite make the move with a recent graduate, and, most commonly, a stack of books. As…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-3828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theological-reflection"],"yoast_head":"\r\nSharing Birthdays with Jesus<\/h2>\n