Advent 4: A child is born

Of all the joyful celebrations, there are few that rival the birth of a new child.

Yesterday (as I write this), a friend of mine needed to organize her things and so briefly handed me her daughter Molly, born four months ago. Holding her awakened that deep human need to love.

I find that holding an infant is always something of a spiritual experience for me. Molly harbors no hate and no suspicion. She brings no ulterior motive. She practices no unkindness, attempts no manipulation, brings no emotional risk other than having my heart stolen. I am free to set aside any vigilance against attacks or traps, and simply connect. Little Molly is at the age where she can make meaningful eye contact, and can smile. Freed from any need to watch my back, I can experience genuine amazement at a remarkable little person. Holding an infant reminds me how much other human connections may be tainted in comparison -- and wondering how much of the cause is within myself. But the longer I hold a child, the more this self-cynicism passes -- not because it's wrong but because there are better things to do. No matter what's in me, the infant offers a fresh start. I find myself free to be more relaxed, more authentic, more joyful in return. There's a connection to be made, and nothing to poison it.

In reaching out to us, God chose weakness. Some scoff at the idea of God in a human baby: foolish! But the weakness of God is stronger than our strength, and the foolishness of God is wiser than our wisdom. That purity that I experience when holding an infant is something that many of us also experience when we are around nature, or any time that we find ourselves in the presence of the holy. Considering God as an infant reminds me how much my other connections with Him may be tainted in comparison, wondering how much of the cause is with me, and finally letting the self-cynicism pass. There's a connection to be made, and nothing to poison it. There's a fresh start: For unto us a child is born.

Advent 3: If Not for Mary?

God has chosen certain people for very specific roles at different times. Consider Abraham: without Abraham, how and when would monotheism have gained a lasting presence in the world? Or Moses: without Moses, how and when would the world have gained the idea that the worship that pleases God is when we treat each other with honesty and compassion? In both of these cases, Christians will see the hand of God -- and yet God chose to work through a person. We can honestly say that the world is different because of the people through whom God works, like Abraham and Moses. And in both cases they were just the beginning, and the world began to fill with a stream of people who saw their service to God in terms of honesty and compassion towards their neighbors.

It's unfortunate that so many arguments have occurred surrounding Mary, mother of Jesus. She also holds one of the era-defining roles in history. And the virgin consented to remain a virgin while others would think of her as an immoral woman. That is so different from the way of the world, where so many of us would gladly settle for the appearance of decency, for hiding our sins, if only we could keep our reputations. Here's the temptation: Will the appearance of being good become more important to us than the reality? For Mary, the reality was more important than the appearance. In some small way she shared in her son's suffering, if only for a short time: numbered among the transgressors, despised and rejected without deserving it.

And again God chose to work through a person. The world is different because of Mary. "Wait," someone might say, "All she did was bring Jesus into the world." Well, that's like saying "All Abraham did was move to a new place." Some of the world-changers didn't do complicated things. Some of the controversy about Mary has been this: By focusing on her, do people take credit away from God? How much mention of her is appropriate? In Scripture, she focuses not on herself but on her son. That's exactly how she brought light into the world.

Since everything happens because of God, it is easy to think that we do not matter. But God has chosen to make a world in which we matter. God typically works through people. When he heals people or rescues people, it's generally done through someone else with human flesh and blood. Our struggles matter. When he feeds the hungry or visits the sick, it's through us. Even in matters of redemption, at every point we see that people matter. That is, after all, the point of redemption.

In dark times, we are called to bring light into the darkness. We are the vessel that carries Christ. For those hostile to Christ, we carry a quiet and humble form of Christ: feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and serving God by honesty and compassion towards our neighbors. Because God works through us, and we matter.

Advent 2: Centuries ahead of his opponents ...

Reading Matthew's account of Jesus' conception and birth, the second chapter recalls prophecy after prophecy of God's plans for the age of the Messiah. Centuries before, the prophets wrote: "born of a maiden ... called Immanuel (God-With-Us)", in "Bethlehem of Judea". But if Jesus was to be King of the Jews, then the man who held that title wouldn't keep it forever, or pass it to his own descendants. So he set out to kill an infant.

At that point in the narrative, it is easy -- and right -- to look with disgust on someone who would kill a child. We see a lot of evil in this world, and if we didn't already know how that story ended, it would be easy to worry if enough evil could overcome God's purposes for the world's redemption. How could God make so much depend on a baby who couldn't keep himself safe? Joseph and Mary were not incredible super-heroes. They were no match for the soldiers dispatched by a murderous king.

We know what happened: in a dream, an angel warned Joseph to take the family to Egypt. But the soldiers didn't know the exact identity of the child, and still killed the remaining boys of similar age in that town. And ... centuries before, the prophets wrote: "out of Egypt I will call my son", and "a voice is heard ... Rachel weeping for her children, and will not be consoled." God knew. He knew the evil of his enemies. He knew their plans. He knew how low they would go. While his enemies were trying to undermine God's plans, in reality they were fulfilling prophecies as God foresaw how they would try -- and fail -- to undermine his plans. So even their attempts to stop him were confirmations of God's predictions.

One reason we can worry about evil is because we have a suspicion that it could get out of hand. We worry that it is out of hand already. We recognize that the level of evil in our world is sometimes beyond our ability to overcome it (as it was beyond Joseph and Mary). We worry -- in some quiet, unrecognized part of our minds -- that it is beyond God, that things have gotten away from him. (That thought is behind some streams of atheism, as the common answer for why they do not believe in God: it's the evil in the world.) Almost all Christians agree on this: evil is contrary to God's will, by definition. If God does not desire evil -- and here it comes anyway -- does that mean that things are beyond his control?

I think that is one reason why God tells us some events in advance. He knew what his enemies would do then. He knows what evil is doing now. He knows what evil will do tomorrow. He told us in advance, centuries in advance. Evil has not outsmarted God, has not taken him by surprise, has not thwarted his plans. At this point in the world's story, it is easy -- and right -- to look with disgust on the evil in the world. But if we have listened to what Mary and Joseph's -- and God's -- son said, we may be a little less self-righteous, a little slower to blame God for not having eradicated us yet. We may begin to suspect that God is not a slacker, but patient. We may find ourselves trusting him.

Advent 1: The peace-bond

I think sometimes we forget, those of us who live in "melting-pot" countries, how much of human history has been lived in tension with people of different nations, where different bloodlines and different tribes meant the risk of war, where the enmity ran in the blood and was part of the cultural heritage. The ancients had a way of creating peace, of cementing a bond between two nations: to join the bloodlines. And in our melting-pot age, we generally only notice negative things about these alliance-marriages. But if we can drop our modern arrogance towards earlier cultures, we can see how an arranged marriage looks through their eyes:

                           ... The highly-famed queen,
Peace-tie of peoples, oft passed through the building,
Cheered the young troopers; she oft tendered a hero
A beautiful ring-band, ere she went to her sitting.

Beowulf, XXIX: 54-57

The woman became both queen and ambassador. And her child changed the relations further: the future king of the tribe had the blood of both nations. No warrior of either people could take up arms against the other without turning against their own.

In creating peace between God and man, Jesus is that child. He is the Word of God, revered by the angels, and the Son of Man. The ancients might see him differently, the mediator between God and man: The powers of heaven would not turn against man, because man includes one of God's own. The people of earth who acknowledge Jesus can no longer turn against God, for Jesus' sake. To turn against God becomes a form of self-betrayal now, because Christ is also one of our own.

For unto us a son is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder. His name will be called: Wonderful, Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Thesis #2 On Church Unity

2. Scripture is our light in discerning the truth: not because it answers every question that we wish, but because it contains all the words known with certainty to come from God and from Christ, and because no disciple is above his master.

Again, while it is tempting to add some of the more obvious corollaries to that, at this point they might introduce less clarity instead of more.

Thesis #1 on Church Unity

1. Visible, acknowledged unity of all the followers of Christ is desirable: not because the See is infallible, but because fellowship is indispensable.

So tempting to add more right now, but here and now I want to focus on only this thought. 

Thanksgiving: Foretaste of the Feast

My thoughts are turning to next week's Thanksgiving celebration, and to which favorite dishes I might prepare, or someone else might. One thing is sure: those of us working in the kitchen sample the food as we work. Anticipation is part of the celebration, and we take a foretaste of the feast to come.

Communion, or the Lord's Supper, is said to be a foretaste of the heavenly feast. As we come together, as we remember Jesus, we have one watchful eye turned toward the feast to come: the table and the gathering guests and the festive preparations. The wait is so long. We gather for a foretaste now, and next week, and again the week after ... like we did the week before, back for our lifetimes. The wait lasted through our parents' lifetimes, our grandparents', back into generations where the names are dim memories. The great saints of prior ages took the same foretaste as we do; we are joining them. The chain goes back unbroken to that upper room that Passover long ago: our Lord, on the night in which he was betrayed, took bread and gave thanks and broke it and gave it to them all. He took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them all, and said he would not partake again until the kingdom of God had come.

The Lord has been gone a long time. It is tempting to adapt the Jewish Passover refrain: "Next year, in the Kingdom!" It is hard for us to imagine "forever", a kingdom which never ends, and never fails. It is hard for us to understand "eternity" in a way that is possible for God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal. I think we can get a glimpse of the feast to come, and the depth of time in "eternity", when we realize how many lifetimes have come and gone in the time that it takes for preparation.

May I remember to anticipate, and not grow tired of waiting. Anticipation is how the joy of that celebration is drawn forward to brighten the holidays, so that they are not just a day but a season.