Advent - "Meanwhile..."

Shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem

There were shepherds in that region, out in the open, keeping a night watch around their flock. An angel of the Lord stood in front of them. The glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ the angel said to them. ‘Look: I’ve got good news for you, news which will make everybody very happy. Today a savior has been born for you – the Messiah, the Lord! – in David’s town. This will be the sign for you: you’ll find the baby wrapped up, and lying in a feeding-trough.’

Suddenly, with the angel, there was a crowd of the heavenly armies. They were praising God, saying,

‘Glory to God in the highest,
     and peace upon earth among those in his favour.’

Gospel of Luke, chapter 2 verses 8 - 14, New Testament for Everyone (NTE)

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If you've ever listened to one of those old radio programs, the ones your grandparents tuned in every night when they were kids, you'll know what I'm talking about. The hero is crushed with problems, the background music is somber, things are looking bleak. But then the narrator intones, "Meanwhile, on the other side of town...!" And the entire scene changes.

That happens in this scripture.

True, Mary and Joseph had both seen angels nine months ago, and great things were foretold about this child Mary carried. They were told that this was the prophesied one, the Messiah, the hope of all Israel. But since then, nothing much had happened. They remained poor peasants. No other angelic visitations occurred. They eked by on Joseph's job, for which there was precious little demand in a tiny backwater village like Nazareth. The holy infant grew in Mary's womb, but she still had to fetch water, bake bread, fix holes in Joseph's sweaty clothes. Life just went on, like it always did.

And God didn't even do something about that census; the increasingly pregnant teenage girl and her husband still had to make the dangerous, arduous, dusty 90 mile journey to Bethlehem. Why would God allow the woman who carried the "Son of the Most High" to risk having a miscarriage?

Now here they are in a feculent stable -- not even a house! -- while the mother of the Messiah writhes through her birth throes in a pile of bloody, insect infested straw. Look where they would, there was nothing to validate that this was the Messiah being born. For such an event shouldn't there be at least something slightly glorious? It was all so dirty, so pedestrian, so ordinary.

But meanwhile, on the other side of town...

Light

It was ordinary there too. Ordinary shepherds (not an occupation with the best reputation) watching their ordinary sheep, as they always did. And then -- then for a very brief time the curtain between Heaven and Earth parted.

The renowned Angel of the Lord, mentioned throughout their sacred scriptures, stood before these ordinary shepherds, and shafts of indescribably bright, glorious light flooded and transformed the hills. And the Angel proclaimed in heart shaking tones that this ordinary night was not ordinary at all, that in reality the most important event in the history of the universe was happening right here, right now -- right among the filth and the sheep and the bloody straw and the pains of an exhausted young woman in labor. The choir of "heavenly forces" that joined the Lord's Angel sang a hymn that linked these two realities: "Glory to God in heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors."

Where the angelic host lived every being was alive and electric with the overwhelming magnitude of what was taking place in tiny Bethlehem; where Mary and Joseph and the shepherds lived it looked for all the world like business as usual.

As it can for us -- but it's not. As followers of Jesus we serve the High King of the universe, and we are called to perform an all-important mission: To build his Kingdom through self-sacrificing love and the power of the Gospel. We don't have the chance too often to be encouraged by angels and we may get caught up in the sheer ordinariness of our lives, or in our sufferings, or our grief. Is there any significance to my life at all? Do I make any difference?

But there is another reality, the ultimate reality. Meanwhile, on the other side of that curtain is a world that is quite sure of the extraordinary nature of our ordinary lives.

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Prayer: Lord of all realities, please give us the miraculous gift of Faith so we can see our ordinary existence through your eyes.  In the name of our King, Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.

Advent - What Was So Important?

What was so important to God that he did this?

Photo credit: Bob Swain

The snake was the most clever of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. The snake spoke to the woman and said, “Woman, did God really tell you that you must not eat from any tree in the garden?” 

The woman answered the snake, “No, we can eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But there is one tree we must not eat from. God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch that tree, or you will die.’”

But the snake said to the woman, “You will not die. God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree you will learn about good and evil, and then you will be like God!”

The woman could see that the tree was beautiful and the fruit looked so good to eat. She also liked the idea that it would make her wise. So she took some of the fruit from the tree and ate it. Her husband was there with her, so she gave him some of the fruit, and he ate it.

Genesis 3.1-6, ERV

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We can get so used to the Christmas season that we may not notice how peculiar the whole story is.  Doesn't it strike you as odd that the transcendent God of the universe decided he should spend 9 months in a young woman's womb and then find himself a helpless baby laying in a feeding trough (that's what a "manger" is), dependent on two subsistence-level peasants (Mary and Joseph) for every last little thing?

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight we know that this was the miracle of the Incarnation and that it led down a path that culminated in the only event even more absurd: God being executed by his own creation.  But that only deepens the mystery.  This was an incredibly drastic move on God's part -- almost desperate, if one can say that about God.  What could possibly be so important that he would commit himself to a plan so extreme?

The Genesis scripture quoted above may seem a strange choice for the beginning of a series about Advent, but actually it's integral to the Christmas story. Why was the King of Creation willing to become a tiny infant? Why would a being used to everything being done with just a word voluntarily put that all aside and throw himself into a life of utter powerlessness -- into having his diapers changed in a dirty, frigid stable? 

What was so important to him?

At its core the Genesis story tells us that we and the world around us were created good, but our disobedience to God's simple, loving request doomed his children. Why are there wars and slavery and economic meltdowns, but also first responders, Shakespeare and Mozart, and sunsets that move you to tears?  Because this is a good world that is broken, and we are the ones that broke it. We ourselves released the terminal disease of evil upon the world, we don't know how to cure it, and it eats away at our souls. There is no cure, no hope, unless...

Hope

Unless, as Advent tells us (and as we will discuss as we move through this series), God himself enters into the stream of time, becomes a finite human, fights the climactic battle that defeats Evil, and absorbs the disease of sin into himself so that his children can live. 

In other words, unless the child comes.

Traditionally, on the first Sunday of Advent, members of the Christian Movement light a candle called The Candle of Hope. When we were without hope, God did not turn his back and walk away, counting us as a failed experiment. At the crucial time, he came for us. Amidst all the presents and joy, the ho-ho-ho and mistletoe, this is what we must never forget about Christmas: The thing that was so important to God was us.

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Prayer: God of hope and of love at all costs, although we rebel against you, you do not give up on us. Thank you for going to the utmost extreme to save your helpless children. Thank you for being the wondrous child who came to our rescue.  In the name of Jesus Christ we pray.  Amen.

Like Children

"Become like little children. I used to think that meant break out the Crayolas. Our big interpretive problem is we tend to read this text from our own vision of a highly coddled middle class six year old living in the suburbs somewhere in the United States. When Jesus placed the child among the disciples [in Matthew 18.2-5], he was identifying the lowliest, status-less, unseen, person in the kingdom of the world as the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. This is not about playing dress-up. It’s about dressing-down. This is about becoming profoundly humble."

-- J D Walt