After Thoughts: First Sunday in Advent

Matthew 24:36-44

One week out from Thanksgiving and it is so tempting to rush headlong into Christmas, skipping right over Advent. So that is another reason I appreciate the lectionary and liturgical calendar. It gets our attention, plants us firmly in this time of waiting, and gives us a gift of four weeks to fully ponder what is about to happen.

Skip Advent and we miss the deep truth of Christmas. We miss Isaiah’s invitation to walk in the light of the Lord, and we stumble into the season wrapped in darkness. Skip Advent and we trade the Light of the World for the fleeting giddiness of artificial twinkle lights and cheap merchandise wrapped in shiny paper. Skip Advent and we can get obsessed with all the wrong things – the perfect Christmas card, the perfect Christmas tree, the perfect Christmas gifts. Well, you get it. We miss the point entirely. The Light comes into the world and we don’t know Him.

So before we jump in and celebrate Christmas, let’s observe Advent and wait together for the Messiah, waiting both for the remembrance of the Incarnation in the birth of Jesus, and for the future return of Jesus. This future aspect to our waiting is made clear in our Gospel lesson for the first Sunday in Advent. Jesus will come again. His return is promised, but the time is unknown. So we are instructed to keep awake, to be alert, to keep the faith, to walk in the light, to put on the armour of light. Already, and yet again anew each Christmas, we have received/do receive the gift of God’s Son in the manger in Bethlehem. We can live boldly because of what Christ has done for us, secure in God’s promises even though our earthly lives still have illness, heartbreak, tears, and death. But there is a day when death will be defeated and there will be no more tears. A day when Christ returns. Until then, we watch and wait, prepare and hope.

Think of Thanksgiving like Mardi Gras and Christmas like Easter with Advent the Lenten period in between. The time to slow down, to reflect, to have the courage to see just how lost we are when left to ourselves. We need a Saviour. He has come. He is coming. We don’t want to miss His arrival in a blur of busyness. In slowing down to breathe and pray this Advent, may we awake to be surprised anew by the coming of the Light.

After Thoughts: Christ the King Sunday

Luke 23:33-43

I grew up in Indiana, a four-season climate with blistering summers, splendid autumns, bitter winters, and glorious springs. The rhythm of life was visibly manifested in the sights and sounds and smells of nature all around me. So it wasn’t until I lived in Singapore, a tropical climate with much more subtle variations in the seasons, that I came to fully appreciate the liturgical calendar. The seasons of the church year bring a structure and shape to life that is comforting, hopeful, and empowering, albeit often under-appreciated and under-utilized.

In the Colossians lesson for this week we read that Jesus is the image of the invisible God. Jesus is Eternity stepping into time, Everlasting stepping into human history. Just as Jesus is the image of the invisible God, so the liturgy, the lectionary, and the liturgical calendar are the Church’s images of the life of Christ. They bring enlightenment to a great mystery, and profound truths to the story of who we are. In the rhythm of the church year, we affirm our faith and our identity. The sights, the sounds, the songs, the colors, the Word, the meal – all of these are tangible manifestations of our heritage and our hope. The mind-blowing incomprehensible beauty of our story is that it only gets sweeter each year as we plumb the depths of its riches and God opens the eyes of our hearts to new truths, new realities, new hopes.

We began the season of Pentecost all those weeks ago with Holy Trinity Sunday – God revealing himself to us as relationship: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now we end this season and the year on Christ the King Sunday with a King who is hanging on a cross seemingly powerless to thwart the earthly rulers determined to put an end to his life and his ministry. All hope for a King, a Messiah, a Savior, has been nailed to that chunk of wood, pounded into despair, headed to the grave. The leaders and soldiers are taunting Jesus – if he’s who he says he is why doesn’t he save himself? One of the two criminals by his side agrees – why doesn’t he save himself and, while he’s at it, save them, too?

Somebody in this story saw beyond the immediate reality. He accepted his guilt and condemnation as proper punishment for what he had done and, in that harsh reality, he saw a glimmer of hope. Beside him was the true source of salvation. Here was God at work making peace through the blood of the cross, through the sacrifice of this Innocent Man. And what does this thief ask? In his humility, he asks simply to be remembered.

Remember me. Not save me. Not justify me. Not free me. Not rescue me. Just a plain and simple – remember me. This reminded me of a story a friend told me a few years ago. One of our college classmates who had also grown up in our neck of the woods had enjoyed a considerable degree of political success since graduation. One day, at the local grocery, my friend had run into this fellow who greeted him warmly, shook his hand, commented nicely on his son who was with him – and added grandly: “If you’re ever in D.C., let me know. I’ll get the lad a tour.” A few months later, my friend and his son were headed to Washington and attempted to make contact in advance to arrange a visit to the politician’s office. No reply ever arrived, not even an acknowledgement that the messages had been received. So it often is with earthly leaders.

But Jesus is no earthly leader. He isn’t out to save himself. He is out to give himself up completely and totally in order to save us. He is the King who bends down to lift us up to new life. He will not and cannot forget the works of his hands, his creatures made fellow heirs and children of God through his sacrificial atonement. He remembers us. And, in that remembering, he creates for us a place in his kingdom.

So now the last Sunday of the church year is past, but we have one final observance. Thanksgiving is upon us. Let us take this time to slow down, breathe deeply, close our eyes, join hands with friends and family, and give thanks to God.

After Thoughts: Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 21:5-19

On the surface, today’s Gospel reminds me of Chicken Little. Remember the story? An acorn falls on her head, she takes it to be a bit of the heavens that has landed upon her, and begins running hither and thither crying “The skies are falling! The skies are falling!” She decides she must report this to the king, but she’s not sure where to find him. As she runs along, others join her, all hoping to help her find her destination. At last, along comes Fox Lox who assures the fowlish group – Henny Penny, Duck Luck, Loose Goose, Turkey Lurkey – that he knows the way. Fox Lox leads them straight to his den, ushers them in, and that’s the end of the story.

Yes, on the surface this reading seems to be all doom and gloom, the sky is falling. Wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues. It goes on and on from bad to worse to downright terrifying. But keep reading. We are not lost like Chicken Little. The King has found us. And promises that the realities of this earthly world are temporary. Whether the glory of the Temple or the end of ages, through good and bad, God remains. With this assurance, we can remain humble in times of prosperity and brave in times of trouble.

In all times, but especially in those hard times, we can rejoice because these circumstances are an opportunity to testify. What a cloud of witnesses I am blessed to know. My mother facing and fighting cancer at the age of 42. My grandmother saying her goodbyes at the age of 90 certain of her reward. My dad’s steadfast love and support despite his broken heart as my brother wrestled the demons of addiction. So many who have faced financial, emotional, physical, relationship, and mental hardships, earthquakes that shake life to its very foundations, and yet they have carried on, their faith strengthened through the trials, their very being witnessing to the glory of God.

Jesus tells us these things will happen, not to frighten us, but to prepare us. But he doesn’t want us to dwell on them. He says to “make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” Do not prepare your defense; that is, don’t live like you’re under attack already. If you run around with the belief that the sky is falling, every little nut that drops into your day will have you predicting the end of the world. Preparing a defense is about proving yourself right – your perspective gets out of focus. So let us choose what we know for certain. And what we know is that this is the day the Lord has made – we will rejoice and be glad in it. We will live today. We won’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring enough worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

When that day comes – when the worst for us happens, whatever that may be – God will provide. We will have words and wisdom and peace that passes understanding. We will know that God is God in those darkest moments. Malachi tells us that there will be healing and – I love this image – that we will go out leaping like calves from the stall. Can you see it, too? All gangly and uncoordinated and newly-made, dancing into freedom.

So do not fear, little flock. God is in control. Let us not be like Chicken Little and her gang of cluckers who believe Fox Lox and follow him to their doom. Oddly, Fox Lox himself never believed the sky was falling – he played to their fears to feed his greed. But we know where to find the King. He has told us there will be days and times when it seems the sky is falling. But do not despair. Not a hair, not one single hair of our heads, will perish. And by our endurance we will gain our souls.

Or as Eugene Peterson interprets it in The Message: Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry – you’ll be saved.