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.

God's Colony

Christians eating the Agape meal soon after "Mathetes" wrote.

Painting from the Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus

As I wrote on Thursday after the US election, the true country and first allegiance of a member of the Christian movement is not any nation on earth. "My kingdom is not from this world," said the one who is our king. Writing to Jesus' followers living in a Roman colony, the Apostle Paul made sure they recognized what nation they were really a colony of...


But our citizenship is in heaven – and we also await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform these humble bodies of ours into the likeness of his glorious body by means of that power by which he is able to subject all things to himself.

Philippians 3.20-21

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Today I've asked an anonymous 2nd century writer (traditionally called Mathetes but never named in his letter) to explain what this meant to his fellow Christians then. 

The Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity...

They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, 5 (AD 130 - 200)

"All Humanity Will Come"

All Will Come

Photo by svickova

On Sundays I like to let some ancient writer or thinker of the Christian movement explain something about a passage of scripture. Today I enlisted Ambrose of Milan, the mentor of the great Augustine of Hippo and considered a "Doctor" (i.e., authoritative teacher) of the Church. Ambrose sees the 'marriage feast' of Christ, when he and his people become one, reflected in the 65th Psalm.  


Praise waits for you in Zion, O God,
     and it is to you that vows shall be paid.
O you hearer of prayers,
     to you all humanity will come.
Wicked deeds have overwhelmed us,
     but for our crimes you will atone.
Blessed is the one you choose
     and allow to draw near,
          to live in your temple courts.
Satiated we will be
     with the goodness of your house --
          your holy temple.
By fearful, righteous deeds you will answer us,
     O God who saves,
     security of the uttermost earth
     and the far distant sea.

Psalm 65.1-5 (My own translation)

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And your soul shall see your marriage feast, O Lord Jesus, wherein the bride is led from earthly to heavenly dwellings, as all sing in joyous accord, “to you all humanity will come,” now no longer subject to the world but espoused to the Spirit, and shall look on bridal chambers adorned with linen, roses, lilies and garlands. For whom else are the nuptials so adorned? For they are adorned with the purple stripes of confessors, the blood of martyrs, the lilies of virgins and the crowns of priests. 

Ambrose of Milan (AD 333 - 397)

On His Brother Satyrus 2.132, (quoted from Fathers of the Church 22:258)