Here is a little talk I gave yesterday introducing Lent in way that keeps the focus on the work of Christ.
Pilgrim Notes
Reflections along the way.
Author: dougfloyd (page 3 of 65)
Image by EJP Photo (via Creative Commons)
Some words cannot be said fast. Whether singing and speaking or thinking the Lord’s Prayer, it seems “Hallowed be Thy name” always brings pause. Ha-llowed. This odd word does not want to be rushed. We don’t say “hallowed” very often. This makes sense because the word has to do with otherness. Not the ordinary. Not the common. Rather, the set apart. Specifically, relates to things or places or even people set apart for Temple service.
The articles in the Temple cannot be used anywhere else. They are holy. Set apart. The priest goes through consecration process as he enters to serve in the Temple. He is set apart.
So I’m sitting back at the coffee shop, re-hearsing, re-membering, re-citing the Lord’s Prayer yet again. “Hallowed be Thy Name” almost always brings the prayer to a standstill. In the middle of the common, every day, secular space, I am uttering “Hallowed be Thy Name.”
The Lord dwells in unapproachable light, yet I dare approach Him in the midst of lattes and laptops. I’m aware of the warning from the third commandment, “Thou shall not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain.” Yet here I am praying, “Hallowed be Thy Name” while voices chatter and the Beatles sing “Hey Jude” in the background,
Hey Jude, don’t be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you begin to let her under your skin
You begin to make it better.
The song reminds me of our longing for restored relationships, and our struggle to make that a reality. Even as the Beatles were singing a song about healing a love relationship, they struggled with their own breaking bonds.
The Beatles mirror the weakness of each one of us sitting here today. It is in my absolute weakness, I appeal, “Hallowed be Thy Name.” I’m lifting up the name, holding it up above me and above all those around me. I may actually be moving closer to the third commandment.
For this command is warning about “bearing the Name in an empty way.” But if we lift up the Name, acknowledging our Lord as the only refuge from ourselves, we might we be bearing the name faithfully. Lifting up our voices and our hearts to the only faithful and true One. Praying “Hallowed be Thy Name’ in the midst of the chatter and the music could be a speech-act of speaking, turning, facing, seeking, longing for His faithful Name to be revealed in our midst. I think of Jesus eating with the sinner Zacheus. The Word Made Flesh, the Holy One goes to eat, dwell, commune with an evil man. In so going, he may be enfleshing Isaiah 57:15,
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
“I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.
(Isaiah 57:15 ESV)
So even as I lift up His Holy Name in worship, I am asking Him to remember us lowly humans. We cannot stand in a high and holy place. “We cannot come to you Lord. Might you have mercy upon us and come dwell in the midst of fretting and failing, our broken relations and wounded souls? Might you come and sup and heal us like you did Zacheus? Might this little coffee shop be a place of Your Presence and Your Glory for a just a few moments?”
I worship and entreat, “Hallowed be Thy Name.”
Image by ImageMD via Creative Commons.
After praying, “Our Father,” the words “Who art in heaven” slip out almost unaware as I say “hallowed be Thy Name.” I’m sipping on coffee, gazing at a room full of strangers. Each person in the room is facing something different.
A woman is apparently texting on her phone behind me because her husbands keep saying, “Who do you keep texting!” Each time he raises his voice slightly. After the third exclamation, she practically shouts back, “I’m checking on our daughter.” Silence. Then I notice both of them talking sweetly to a grandchild who sits between them.
People struggle.
Bound in relationships that intertwine love and anger. Searching for jobs. Trying to work up the strength to face the stress of an unpleasant work environment yet another day. Awaiting news from the latest round of medical testing. Finances, health, relationships, and beneath all the surface troubles a deeper anguish that lacks description.
So I sit drinking coffee quietly praying “Who art in heaven” in the midst of people who need a God that is here, present, answering their griefs and not off in heaven. Tom Waits moans,
God’s away, God’s away
God’s away on business
Praying “Who art in heaven” has an inherent tension. Our Father, our Creator is present in some way, but He’s also absent. We don’t always see Him. We often feel alone and thrust back upon ourselves to survive. We wonder why is He in heaven when people are suffering?
If I pause over “Who art in heaven,” I see the Grand Inquisitor thrusting his ticket to heaven back in my face, rejecting the God who is silent to his accusations. Dostoevksy doesn’t answer the charge, but he does not ignore it either. He confesses human doubt alongside human faith. Alyosha, the true believer, remains present to his brother’s story of unbelief. He continues to love unceasingly.
Remembering Dostoevsky’s story of faith and unbelief, I hold the confessions of those who doubt, those who struggle, those who grief, alongside my confession of faith. Even as I utter “Who art in heaven,” I cry out silently for those who feel abandoned in absence. I know that absence. I’ve lived in it and practically died in it. But I have also known the piercing light of our Father’s love in the midst of my brokeness.
Even as I mumble “Who art in heaven,” I am addressing the Lord who created this world, who relates to this world, who loves this world. He loved this world that rejected Him so much that He sent His Son into the suffering of this world to redeem it and us. He is well aware of suffering and struggle and pain. He understands depths that I cannot grasp.
And yet, He overcame and in the mystery of His grace, He promises that all the evil will be vanquished in the end. As I meditate on the story of the cross, on Christ who bears the evil of the world, who suffers, who dies and who is Risen even now, I have hope that evil does not have the last word. “Who are in heaven” becomes a promise that there is a hope hidden in some ways behind the veil of this life. But this hope is an assurance that death shall die.
The voices that question and struggle and search for God in darkness are not abandoned. Even as I pray “Who art in heaven,” I realize that by His Spirit, Jesus is already present in their cries and that He is inviting me to pray alongside Him.
He is inviting me to love and to enter a love that is not afraid of suffering or success. He is inviting me to embrace the world around me. He is inviting me to see and to hear and to love the people in this coffee shop, on the highway, in the store and even on the phone.
“Who art in heaven” is promise that there is a place where evil cannot enter. Love does and will conquer. Trusting in His faithfulness, I pray to Him and in Him and through Him, I love those around me even in this moment.
Image by Andrew Griffith via Creative Commons
Some mornings I start my day listening to the hum of people in the coffee shop. Sitting quietly in a corner, I read and listen. The stir of people meeting, getting their morning coffee, greeting one another, and ordering drinks helps keep me alert. Recently, I’ve taken to quietly mouthing my morning prayers. Something about reading words aloud (even at a low, low-level) is different from simply reading silently “in my head.”
One day recently, I softly mouth the Lord’s Prayer. I feel the words change meaning. Lifting up these words in the coffee shop cause me to hear them as prayer in the midst of the earthi-ness of the world. The words leave my mouth. Step outside of me. Echo back to me. They seem to take in and take up the environment in prayer.
“Our Father” is present in this room. I am lifting up this simple prayer on behalf of every person standing or sitting around me. For this moment in time, we are present together, and I am saying, “Our Father.” Not simply “My Father.” “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3). All people were created in and through Him. Even as I lift up my own weakness and needs, I am lifting up the beautiful and beloved people all around that have been created in and through the Word.
All of us were called by the Father above into existence. Even as the word “Our” rises, I hear the blessing of “Father” for the single mom struggling to contain her child, the rowdy businessmen behind me, the tired Barista leaning up against the bar. Now even as I continue praying, I realize that I am also praying in concert with the saints across the ages. In some mystery, we join together and pray “Our Father” in relation with and on behalf of a wounded and weary world.
Prayer cleans the eyes and opens the ears. A moment ago, I was sitting in the midst of chattering room. Now I am beholding light shining upon and out from these creatures of wonder that our Lord created for His glory. I catch but a momentary glimpse of “on earth as in heaven.”
To be continued.
Photo by Daniel Stillman (used by Creative Commons Permission)
God rest you merry! Gentlemen (and Gentlewomen). We’ve been invited to a feast. Twelve days of rejoicing alongside Mary and Joseph, of beholding with the shepherds, of singing with the Holy Innocents and all the saints, of kneeling with the wise men before the babe who holds the world in His hands.
One moment we were longing and waiting and crying out in the darkness of Advent, and the next moment, the Son of God appears just down the street, just round the corner, in a nearby field. One moment we were in our homes, our jobs, our busy lives, and the next moment we heard an angel say, “Rise up shepherd and follow.” We followed into the small Palestinian village of Bethlehem to behold the “Peace on Earth Good Will to Men.”
Awestruck, we are called to worship and eat, laugh and sing, dance and make merry. Heaven and earth are joined in cosmic celebration of Emmanuel, God with Us, the Hope of Israel.
But all this rejoicing is simply too much for most of us. So we open few presents, sing a few songs and pack up the tree and decorations for next year.
In some ways, the Advent fast is easier to understand than the Christmas feast. During Advent we face the darkness of our world and our soul, but during the Christmas feast we behold the Light of the World in a manger. Crouching in the dark is easier than dancing in the light. We’re simply too weak for sustained happiness.
As Chesterton reminds us, “Happiness is a mystery–generally a momentary mystery–which seldom stops long enough to submit itself to artistic observation, and which, even when it is habitual, has something about it which renders artistic description almost impossible. There are twenty tiny minor poets who can describe fairly impressively an eternity of agony; there are very few even of the eternal poets who can describe ten minutes of satisfaction.”[1]
Happiness is a momentary mystery.
If that’s true, how can we sustain happiness for twelve days of feasting let alone throughout the joyous season of Epiphany? We are simply too weak and too old for such a task. Once again, I turn to the master. Chesterton writes, “we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”[2] Sin weakens our capacity for the deep joy of our Heavenly Father.
True feasting is far harder than true fasting. True feasting enlarges, opening up the depths of wonder within and around us. Sadly, we live in a world that confuses sensuous gluttony for feasting. Our drunken stupor actually deadens the senses and reduces our capacity to know happiness or deep joy.
One of the weaknesses in some medieval expressions of the Christmas feast was this gluttonous indulgence that led to violence, sexual immorality and damaged souls. Sickened by the deadly extravagances, some U.S. colonies simply outlawed Christmas altogether.
But you can’t keep a dead man down. Christmas returns in the industrialized world of America and England in a new form, stripped of the twelve days of feasting. This new holiday focused on a day of celebration for family and friends.
Christmas became and remains sort of a national holiday for the secular religion of our culture. This isn’t a recent change. It actually is part of the reformulation of the modern Christmas that happened in the nineteenth century. Jack Neely recently posted an interesting quote that diminished any spiritual connection with Christmas from the turn of last century,
“Don’t think that Christmas is not your holiday because your religious beliefs don’t run that way,” ran the cheerful squib in the Republican daily, the Knoxville Journal, in December, 1911. “It’s your holiday, if you want it, and its religious significance is its smallest element.” Reprinted from another paper, it ran without comment.[3]
We inherited a holiday that had lost connection with its roots in fasting and feasting. Most of us grew up by celebrating Christmas all through December and culminating in the big Christmas Day that came too fast and was over too soon. For many people, Christmas could not live up to the promise of restored childhood innocence.
We attempt to overcome this disappointment, this emptiness by making movie after movie about keeping the spirit of Christmas alive, or by falling into the trap of gluttony and gorging on more and more and more stuff. It Santa doesn’t bring me what I want, I’ll charge it and buy it myself! In the process, we actually deaden our ability to wonder.
Even in indulgences, the grace of God cannot be thwarted. By celebrating Christmas, singing carols, decorating trees, and telling stories, we edge ever closer to a thin place. We enter into the danger of encountering something much deeper than a secularized festival. We tread on the holy ground of the Christmas Feast. Chesterton writes, “The great majority of people will go on observing forms that cannot be explained; they will keep Christmas Day with Christmas gifts and Christmas benedictions; they will continue to do it; and some day suddenly wake up and discover why.”[4]
One Christmas in the later 80s, I asked, “Why?” Why do we have a tree? I decided no tree. No pagan festival in our home. Kelly prayed for a tree. Someone showed on our porch with a tree. I thought, “Well if the Lord wants to answer her prayer, I’m not going to stand in the way.” We made homemade decorations.
I kept asking why. Why do we celebrate Christmas? Why do we sing about 12 days of Christmas? As I continued to ask questions, I moved closer to the mystery of happiness and the absurdity of the Christmas Feast. How the could angels sing when wars did not cease? How could this story seem sweet when innocent babes died under Herod’s cruel hand?
The paradox of the Christmas Feast is that it does not deny the presence of pain and sin and struggle in the world. The Slaughter of the Holy Innocents is actually part of the feast. And yet, against the backdrop of this pain, the Christmas Feast taps an ancient mystery far more ancient than the utter sinfulness of sin. Reaching all the way back to the earliest moments of Creation, the Christmas Feast celebrates the Lord who beholds His creation and sees that “It is good!”
It Is Good.
At the heart of all things, we hear the ringing observation of God Himself, “It is good.” The Hebrew word for good is “towb.” This richly textured word means far more than good. Inherent in the word is beauty, kindness, happiness, and more. Our Lord creates a world that is beautiful, full of joy, pleasing to the senses, and truly kind. His creation is not only good but Very Good.
The Christmas Feast celebrates this good and wondrous world our God created by enjoying it: eating, drinking, laughing, playing, embracing, giving, and worshipping. Our feasting is extravagant but not the empty gluttony that seeks to feed to sin sick soul. It is doxological. Worshipful. Grateful. It holds joy and sorrow together in a dance of sacred awe.
By juxtaposing the dark yearning of Advent with the bright gaiety of Christmas, the church invites us to worship God in the midst of a world that has been scarred by sin and evil. We do not deny the anguish, but we bring it into perspective by focusing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.
As we behold Christ, we behold the Word Made Flesh. “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”[5] On Christmas, we celebrate “God with Us” in the midst of His own good and beautiful creation. All things created in and through Him. All things restored in and through Him. Though His world is scarred by sin and evil, He does not abandon it, but redeems it. He defeats evil, and restores it.
We tune our hearts and minds and bodies to behold the babe, the Lord, the Savior, the King of Kings. We choose to rejoice, to laugh, to sing serious and silly songs, and to sing praises to the One who created this world of wonder. Our praise is prophetic for it points to the ultimate defeat of all evil and the ultimate enthroning of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Even as we choose to delight in the Christmas Feast, we mock the power of death, knowing that death itself will die and every oppressing ruler will fall and fully submit to the good God who created this good and wonderful world.
It is absurd to rejoice when we are weak and frail and so fully aware of our own sinfulness. And yet we do. We turn from the darkness; we look to the light. In the turning, we open time and space for surprise. Our Lord so often surprises us with a happiness that we cannot grasp, cannot evoke and cannot sustain. And yet, we can delight in it. We can celebrate His faithfulness to immerse us in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Let us not abandon the Christmas Feast too soon.
God rest you merry dear friends!
[1] Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (2009-12-15). Works of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. (350+ Works) Includes The Innocence of Father Brown, The Man Who Was Thursday, Orthodoxy, Heretics, The Napoleon of … What’s Wrong with the World & more (mobi) (Kindle Locations 5712-5714). MobileReference. Kindle Edition.
[2] Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (2009-12-15). Works of Gilbert Keith Chesterton. (350+ Works) Includes The Innocence of Father Brown, The Man Who Was Thursday, Orthodoxy, Heretics, The Napoleon of … What’s Wrong with the World & more (mobi) (Kindle Location 51605). MobileReference. Kindle Edition.
[3] Neely, Jack. “Christmas in the City, 1911.” Metro Pulse, December 21, 2011.
[4] Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (1990). The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton, Volume 33, page 478. Ignatius Press, 1990.
[5] John 1:3. English Standard Version (ESV), The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
Adoration of the Magi (Leonaert Bramer)
On Christmas Eve, time is full and taut like a balloon about to burst. At any moment, the Light of Christmas will break forth. At any moment, the angels will sing. At any moment, the ordinary day will be overtaken by “O Holy Night.” The Lord’s appearing is so very near, and so very hidden.
A long wait precedes this sudden appearing of Word Made Flesh.
Those who’ve kept the vigil have been waiting all through Advent. But is not Advent just a way of focusing the deep anticipation we’ve felt throughout our lives? Christmas but the rehearsal of His sudden appearing in the middle of the night. He is so very near, and so very hidden until the sudden moment of appearing.
This vigil for the coming of the Lord burns in the hearts of God’s people from age to age. It may be that we are called to wait and watch on behalf of all creation. Daniel knew this calling, this yearning. Three times a day he faced Jerusalem; he watched and waited, longing for the call of God that would bring His people home.
The call came in the command of King Cyrus. The exiles began a new story of exodus and restoration. Hope pulsed in their hearts. They were like people who dreamed. Their mouths filled with laughter. The Lord turned the captivity of Zion. Old things passed away. All things became new.
But all things didn’t become new instantly. The Promised Land seemed old and worn out. The promises weak and feeble. The milk and honey didn’t flow. The land had become harsh. Alien people and alien gods surrounded them. Israel felt crippled by the enemies around them and within them. Even their own memories betrayed them.
They remembered Solomon’s Temple when the glory was too thick to see. That temple would not, could not be rebuilt. They were too poor, too short of resources. This second temple would be shameful in comparison. The old things that passed away seemed far more glorious than the meager new things.
They lost hope, lost heart and shrank into the shadow of stronger foes. They quit watching and waiting. The unbuilt Temple abandoned. The darkness of Palestine overcame the light of faith.
Zechariah appeared as a voice in this wilderness saying “Prepare the way of the Lord.” He saw a man dwelling among myrtle trees who was the Angel of the Lord. He revealed that the glory of the Lord was in their midst, and they didn’t even know it. He was so very near and so very hidden. They were called to watch and wait, trusting the faithfulness of the Lord. By His grace, they rebuilt the Temple, they rebuilt the city, and they looked for the coming of Messiah.
After 400 years, Jerusalem still watched and waited. When would Messiah come? When would evildoers be overthrown? When would light overcome the darkness? The dark shadow of Rome covered the land.
Into this dark night, a light shined. A babe was born who was Christ the Promised King. In the birth of Jesus, the shepherds beheld the “man among the myrtles” born as a babe. Emmanuel, God with us, was revealed. He came to live in the midst of His people and in the midst of their darkness. The angels sang and the sky lit up in doxology.
But a glorious night passes into a dark day of bloodshed as Herod sought to kill all the male babies. After the grand announcement of “Peace on Earth,” this babe of peace was whisked away and hidden in the deserts of Egypt. The Light came into this world and promptly hid from the darkness.
As we wait and watch, we may wonder if the darkness has swallowed the light and overcome it. Like the exiles returning home, our Christmas joy often fades into promises that seem weak and feeble.
Staring into the bleak landscape of the Civil War, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knew this discouragement firsthand. His wife burned to death in an accidental fire. His son entered the war against his wishes and was severely wounded. His nation, the shining city on a hill, now sunk into dark valley of bloodshed. He cried out,
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said,
‘For hate is strong and mocks the song,
Of Peace on earth, good will to men.’
But he was not forsaken in the dark. He too would come to know that there is a “man among the myrtle trees.” Longfellow would behold the One is who so very near and so very hidden. He continued writing,
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Longfellow, like us, had to discover that darkness could not swallow the Light of Glory. Jesus was born to enter that darkness and overcome it. In His Life and Death, He defeated the power of the sin and darkness and arose in the light of Perfect Love.
He ascended to the Father. Yet even now Jesus, “the man among the myrtles,” dwells among us by His Spirit. He dwells with and in us as we traverse dark lands. We may lose hope and even lose faith. But He has already overcome this momentary darkness. We are bound to Him by His Spirit, so even as we stumble in the valleys of death and affliction, we are not forsaken. Even as we waste away, we are being renewed.
So we watch and wait for His appearing.
We yearn for Christmas Light in a dark and weary world. We know His light shines ever brighter in and upon us though sometimes it is veiled from our eyes. He is so very near and so very hidden. Paul reminds us, we must not lose heart even when it feels like the darkness is growing stronger and we are growing weaker. He is glorifying, perfecting, completing the work begun in us and in His creation. We are growing brighter and brighter in the Light of our Lord.
This transformation, this waiting and watching for the Light is truly rehearsed in our Christmas celebration. In the fullness of time, the Holy Night of Christmas bursts forth the from expectancy of Advent. The sudden surprise of Christmas appears. The Son is fully unveiled in Glory. We behold Him even as we shine in the Light of His Glory.
So let us keep the vigil in and out of season.
Merry Christmas as we celebrate the sudden surprise of His coming and look forward to the sudden surprise of His coming.
At some point between the moment I lifted the cup of coffee and the moment it reached my lips, I started to doze. My grip loosened, the cup slipped, and…somehow the cup landed back on the table with a small splash. I jolted wide awake.
How can you fall asleep while drinking a hot cup of coffee? Apparently, I can fall asleep almost anywhere at anytime.
When my sister studied at the University of Tennessee, she was walking across campus one day when she saw a body in the middle of the field. At first she was concerned that someone had passed out or had a heart attack. When she walked up to the body, she realized it was me sleeping. While walking to class, I felt dozy and sat down minute. Then I stretched out and went straight to sleep.
It seems early morning prayer in a coffee shop is particularly conducive to sleeping.
Sometimes the short doze is exactly what I need. I awake with a renewed clarity. Other times, I’m sleeping in my wakefulness.
I was wide awake on a recent morning, when I felt the Lord convict me of sleep, but I was not asleep. I was convicted of a sleep that might understood as distraction, as numbness. This kind of sleep is what some of the Church Fathers might call “sloth.”
Sloth may be indicative of our era. We all are bombarded with so much information that it causes a certain deadness, a certain of loss of focus, a certain emptying of presence. Like falling under an evil spell, we fall into a waking slumber. This slumber is full of motion, activity, busy-ness. This sloth may even be full of prayer, meditation, and study.
Constant motion hides our numbness to existence, our absence of attention or awareness. We exist, but we don’t really see, we don’t really hear, we don’t really live. The world around us and the life within us is dulled and darkened. Our vision grows dim. We lose heart. We become dis-couraged.
In the middle of prayer, the Spirit convicted me of coldness, of self-sufficiency. Beneath this self-sufficiency hides the dehumanizing power of idolatry. This conviction brought to mind something Ole Hallesby says in his classic book called, Prayer. He writes, “Only those who are helpless can truly pray.” As I heard these words echo in my memory, I knew that sloth had sapped me of helplessness.
Hallesby continues, “Prayer therefore consists simply in telling God day by day in what ways we feel that we are helpless. We are moved to pray every time the Spirit of God, which is the spirit of prayer, emphasizes anew to us our helplessness, and we realize how impotent we are by nature to believe, to love, to hope, to serve, to sacrifice, to suffer, to read the Bible, to pray and to struggle against our sinful desires.”
He recognizes that our realization of helplessness is a gift of the Spirit. When the Spirit penetrated my heart, I felt like I had been jolted awake by almost dropping the cup of coffee. Right in the middle of prayer, my soul was sleeping, drifting, dozing. Suddenly I was awake. “Oh God, I don’t want to be cold. To be absent. To be numb.”
Listening to Rickie Lee Jones respond in song to the Gospel on her album, “Sermon on Exposition Boulevard,” deepened this sense of call from the Lord. She asks, “How do you pray in a world like this?” Then later she cries out like the Publican, “I’m down here too, I’m down here too, I’m down here too.” In her cry, I hear the posture of helplessness.
How do we maintain this posture in the midst of the land of plenty? Or how do we maintain a sense of hunger and desperation for God while seeking to live with daily intention? Even the pattern of daily devotion can become the place where our sinfulness hides. We cannot find the answer within ourselves, within our methods of prayer, within our theologies. The answer is beyond us, above us.
During Advent we are looking up. We are looking for the Coming One. Only our Lord can save us from our idolatries. The Spirit compels us to look for the Coming One, the Savior who convicts and redeems. Even in His prodding, His convicting, His exposing, He is healing us of the deadening numbness of a world immersed in self-sufficiency.
He is calling us beyond ourselves. Hallesby writes,
“Jesus comes to sinners, awakens them from their sleep in sin, converts them, forgives their sins and makes them His children. Then He takes the weak hand of the sinner and places it in His own strong, nail-pierced hand and says: “Come now, I am going with you all the way and will bring you safe home to heaven. If you ever get into trouble or difficulty, just tell me about it. I will give you, without reproach, everything you need, and more besides, day by day, as long as you live.”
In His gentle and fiery provocations, our Lord turns us much the like he turns the planets. He orients us around His life, His strength, His love. In Him, we are turning into humans, into lovers. By His Spirit we become lamps lit, burning out in the darkness with the oil of lovingkindness.
I am grateful for His wake up call. Repentance comes as the gift of resurrection for we are turning from death to life. During this Advent season of waiting and watching, I pray that we may hear His call to turn away from our numbness, our coldness, our blindness, our hopelessness. By His Spirit, may we turn toward His redeeming power, His transforming love, His sudden appearing.
Photo by Eyeline-Imagery. Used by Creative Commons Permission.
An apostate king sits on the throne of an apostate people. Under threat from Jezebel, Elijah runs away and cries out to the Lord.
I’m the only one left!
But he is not alone. In the midst of his groaning, the Lord reveals that there are 7,000 who have not bowed down before Baal. Think about that for a moment.
Israel has been judged and found wanting. The land and the people suffer the wrath of God. In the middle of this dark place and dark age, 7,000 people remain faithful.
As we follow the journey of God’s people across time, we discover hidden, faithful pilgrims struggling to walking in the midst of dark places and dark times. Daniel suffers the judgment on Judah and is thrust into the lair of Babylon. Renamed Belteshazzar, he bears the title of a Babylonian deity.
How does he live faithful to the Lord in an alien land and under the name of an alien god? In this new land, Daniel faces the threat of seduction. Power and privilege are his. How can he remember Jerusalem from the palaces of Babylon?
Like Daniel, the hidden faithful are often called to live in alien places among alien gods. How do we wait? How do we watch? How do we long for the coming kingdom while living in luxuries of alien kingdoms?
The prophets calls us to our true hope, and call us away from false hopes that ultimately enslave. The watching and waiting of Advent are about tuning that hope toward our only hope, the Coming Lord.
As I think of watching and waiting in the land of plenty, I am reminded of a game I learned many years ago from my professor Darlene Graves. She divided us into pairs. One person wore a blindfold and the other person guided the blindfolded person across the room and to the door.
Then we repeated the exercise only this time the guide merely spoke and never touched the blindfolded person. Then we repeated the game again. But this time, Dr. Graves covered the floor with obstacles that could easily trip up the blind folded person. Other voices called out to the blind folded person, trying to distract and confuse. The guide could only whisper. The blindfolded person walked slower and listened carefully, attuning her ears to the whisper.
We listen for the whisper in aliens lands among alien gods. The way may seem clouded and confused. The promised land so far away. Does it still even hold promise for us? The temptation of discouragement may encircles. We may hear the sirens of discontent and fear and anguish. We may hear the call to trust in lesser gods. We may grow weary and lose heart.
When all hope seems lost, our hope rests in His faithfulness, not ours. He alone is faithful. Our Savior also heard the voices of distraction and seduction in the wilderness, in the streets of Jerusalem and even in the Temple. He walked attuned to the voice of His Father.
Even now, He tunes our hearts to His voice, to the gentle rhythm of His grace. Let us look up from these alien places and alien gods. Let us watch and wait for His coming. And let us listen for His call, inviting us to sings songs of love and deliverance over the people and places where we walk.
Photo by Picture this Patty. Used by Creative Commons Permission.
“The year has known conversion.” – Bobi Jones
The world keeps turning.
Nations, cultures, communities and families are changing. In the past 12 months, several dictatorships have fallen. Economies totter on the verge of collapse. The political world swirls in confusion, disagreement and uncertainty.
The world keeps turning.
We keep moving from birth to death. During this last year, we’ve welcomed new people, new friends, new places and new opportunities in our lives. We’ve also said goodbye to family members, old friends, old places, and old jobs.
The world keeps turning.
We feel the strain of uncertainty displacing us, forcing us to adjust, pressing us into anxious places and clouded paths. The way forward seems unclear, unsure and even unsafe.
The world keeps turning.
We stand on a planet that never ceases to circle. Even when standing still, we cannot stop the turning.
In the tumult of the turning, we find orientation in the One whose Appearing orders all things and all persons. As Augustine once wrote, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
During Advent, the people of God across the ages have looked for the appearing of our rest, our anchor, our peace, our Lord.
In the end, all time turns in to Christ.
Let us turn. Let us join the ages of saints before us who watch and wait for His Appearing. Let us tune into His Word in the heart our turning world.
The disciples gather around Jesus in the upper room. Before the meal begins, Jesus surprises and disturbs his followers by laying aside his garments, kneeling down, and washing their feet. Peter is shocked. In spite of his objections, Peter still submits to Jesus. All the disciples yield to the washing, blessing, cleansing act of Jesus.
Then he gets up, restores his clothes, looks at them and says, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do. I’m only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn’t give orders to the employer. If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life” (John 13: 12-17, The Message).
Let’s pause this story for a moment while I tell another story. A love story. Not a typical love story. At least, not the typical love story we’ve grown up hearing. It’s a story about a people living outside of love, outside the community of the faithful, outside the city. A people living by the dump, Gehenna. A people used to breathing the toxic fumes of society’s waste. It’s a people who have completely forgotten that they are beloved.
God comes to these tax collectors, prostitutes, demoniacs, and he eats with them. He drinks with them. He loves them. In the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God comes to His people to love and heal and embrace them. But they are so far in the dark that their initial response is not to turn toward Him but away from Him. He comes into the lives of the dark people, the forsaken people, the abandoned people, the lost people, and loves them fully, completely.
His love is unpredictable and everyone misunderstands. Jesus keeps loving, confronting, and immersing them in the surprising shape of His love. He is loving this mixed community into family. He pursues His people like a groom running toward His bride. Eventually, they behold the complete form of His love, and much to their surprise it looks like suffering and death.
People tell stories about the pain of lost love, forsaken love, unrequited love, but the most painful love story is the complete unveiling of true love. It is the deepest sorrow and the deepest joy. In the mystery of the Love of Jesus, death and life are intertwined and reversed. Sorrow becomes singing. And by the Spirit of Resurrection, death gives way to Life Unconquerable. This is the love story that gives birth to all true love stories.
We return to the twelve, sitting around Jesus, yielding to His service. Before His death, before His crucifixion, He gathers the twelve together. And he kneels before them. If not for the revelation of this action in John’s Gospel, the horror of this act seems almost unspeakable. Consider for a moment the implications of such an act.
An immoral woman kneels before Jesus and washes His feet with her tears, wipes them with her hair, kisses them with her lips, and anoints them with her perform. Jesus acknowledges her act of adoration and blesses her, “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.” He speaks as the true king. He speaks as the Son of God. He speaks as the Creator and Redeemer of the World. “Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
The posture of kneeling is the posture of submission before a ruler, and adoration before a god. Kneeling, bowing is a significant act of humility and worship. The second command warns against bowing down before false images of any kind.
Jesus kneels before the disciples.
What could this mean? How could the Creator of the World kneel before His created? How can we even begin conceive of the humiliation? We may miss the deep humiliation of the cross if we cannot see the unspeakable humiliation of Jesus kneeling to wash His disciples feet. He assumes the posture of the supplicant.
At first, the disciples are distraught and confused with Peter speaking as usual on behalf of the rest, “No Lord!” But Jesus says, “Yes and Amen.” There is no choice. Peter must submit. The Lord of Creation kneels before Peter and washes His feet.
Jesus does not violate the second commandment because these are not false images, they are true images. Created in His image, they’ve been disfigured by sin, but they are still imaging the Lord. He gathers, cleans, restores, heals the images of God. He begins in love, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son.” And now He ends in love, “Having loved his dear companions, he continued to love them right to the end.”
He loves them completely. This kneeling is but a foretaste of the deeper humiliation to come that will also express His love, His Father’s love. Jesus reveals the love of the Father in His every word, His every action. He also reveals the pattern, the shape, the form of love in His complete person. Love is Word, Body, Act. His whole person patterns, images love.
As He restores these broken images, He tells them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You address me as ‘Teacher’ and ‘Master,’ and rightly so. That is what I am. So if I, the Master and Teacher, washed your feet, you must now wash each other’s feet. I’ve laid down a pattern for you. What I’ve done, you do. I’m only pointing out the obvious. A servant is not ranked above his master; an employee doesn’t give orders to the employer. If you understand what I’m telling you, act like it—and live a blessed life.”
He also says, “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
Jesus enfleshes the shape of love, in Word, in Deed. In serving, in humbling Himself, in honoring His people. In life, in death, and in life eternal. Just as he gathered those twelve unto Himself, He is still gathering, still comforting, still healing, still cleansing, still loving. He invites us into His action.
From the vantage of kneeling, we see the other person in a whole new light. The light of Jesus cleansing, glorifying, beautifying love. In Him, the world is made new. In Him, the broken is made whole. In Him the abandoned is welcomed. In Him, the mournful finds joy. In Him, the image is restored.
So we serve and wash and even kneel in Him by the power of His Spirit. We are becoming lovers His love. And His love is sending out into all the world to love, and embrace and reconcile all things to Him.
* – All Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
Recent Posts by Folks I Like
© 2024 Pilgrim Notes
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑