The mystery and wonder of Advent

Advent begins in the dark, says Fleming Rutledge.

The authentically hopeful Christmas spirit does not look away from the darkness, as you will note later in the presentation, but straight into it. The true and victorious Christmas spirit does not look away from death, but directly at it. Otherwise, the message is cheap and false. - Fleming Rutledge, "Advent Begins in the Dark,"

                                                                                                         

“The season of Advent reminds us that there is something on the horizon, something holy, the likes of which we have not seen before.

It’s possible to miss it, and then to realize what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s back fade in the distance.

So in the Advent season, we need to stay put, to linger in the darkness, to ponder, to watch, to wonder, to wait for the light.”  [Jan L Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas]

To wait, and ponder, and wonder.

 That’s what we’ll do this morning.

As John Bell put it in Westminster Collection of Christian Prayers:

You, the God of all time, Want us to wait/ For the right time in which to discover/Who we are, where we are to go,/Who will be with us, and what we must do./…

“He came down from heaven,” the creeds and hymns tell us.

It’s a journey that begins in mystery.

A Presbyterian pastor once tried to catch something of that mystery in a parable.

It goes like this:                                                         

Once upon a time, when the pain of mankind had become unbearable and the human cry could be heard all the way to the throne of God, before the presence of God a congregation of the heavenly host gathered to plead with God on behalf of the pilgrims still on earth.

They met to elect representatives on earth who had suffered most, who out of the pain they had endured could most eloquently communicate to God the terrible human dilemma and need on earth.

        “We want someone,” they said, “who can explain to God what it is to be despised and hated. 

We want someone who can describe for God what it is to be starved, beaten, tortured, robbed, maligned and killed. 

We want someone who can explain to God the loneliness of a person when he is rejected by his fellow humans.”

And so they chose a Jew….

But they decided that they also needed someone to explain to God how hard it is for human beings to do the right thing, and how easily they slip into sin.  So they chose, to accompany the Jew, a convict, a prostitute, a liar, and an unfaithful husband.

As the committee moved off toward the throne of God, a little child spoke up.

        “I am too young to argue with God,” the child said, “but I have a question for him.  Ask God if He’s ever been a child himself.”

So they took the child along too.

When they arrived at the throne, God listened to them patiently, and asked a question of his own:

        “What would you have me do?”

They held council together and agreed that God should become a man if only for a season.  And the little child said,

         “Then first he must be a child.  Let him know our dependence on others.  Let him know how it feels not to belong.”

Another member of the committee spoke up and insisted that God must be “a real man” and not just a divine being in human disguise.

         “He’s not to put on his heavenly robe when he gets tired or sick, or hurt…let him be thrown in with shady people and seedy publicans and super patriots.  Let him know human injustice.”

Then someone else shouted for attention.  It was not enough, he said, for God to live as others lived.  If he was truly to partake of the human condition, God must learn what it is like to die.

After the committee had departed, God weighed the demands carefully.

And then one day, he appeared on earth, under exactly the conditions that had been prescribed for him.  [Rev. Herbert Meza, First Presb. Church, Texas City, TX]     

It was a journey that began in mystery.

The mystery of heaven, where God saw how desperately the world needed him.

And he loved the world.

But that love had to be embodied.                                                              

God had to be embodied, or else we people with bodies would never in a million years understand about love.  (Jane Vonnegut Yarmolinsky in “Angels Without Wings”)

But it fills us with wonder, that the Power of all Creation would stoop so low as to become one of us.

With wonder, that God’s love is so immense that he wanted to come down,

to come down and touch our ground, and touch our flesh.  -Madeleine L’Engle (A Stone for a Pillow)

Launching

To launch--a universe, with constellations, planets, life, people.
At the launching pad, a Creator?  Or Nothing? 
From inanimate to animate by Mystery?  Or Science?
Eons later, still trying to figure it out.

To launch--a baby, a new-born life with heart beating, blood circulating, limbs moving.
At the launching pad, parents.
Everyone, watching in wonder.

To launch--a poem, with a dance of the imagination and the strong beat of a feeling heart.
At the launching pad, a truth-seeker, a language lover, a burden-bearer.
A few, observing, pondering, responding.

To launch--a world, a life, a poem, a story, a ship, anything.
Purpose-driven, with unknown destinations.
With unknown consequence.

To launch a book--one with much thought, hard questions, and currents of gratitude:
Talking with God...
At the launching pad, a God-seeker.
Holding to the light on Thanksgiving Day before family and friends
a volume of prayers and reflections and meditations.
Purpose-driven, with unknown destinations.
Its consequence known only to God.

Thanksgiving

Confession: my life is not a constant litany of praise.

For some of us have more than others, and when I look

at those whose burdens look much larger than their blessings,

I feel they need my prayer more than you need my praise

for all that’s good and right with me.

Then my moments of grateful adoration often turn into

contending with a God of inequalities.

It’s the all-night struggle at the Jabbok that still engages

me more than the green pastures where sheep do safely graze.

Serenity eludes me in a world where beasts of prey

transform green pastures into bloody killing fields.

Dear Lord, I want to revel more

in all that’s good and Godly and gracious,

even when I smell the sewers

and see the fissures of this broken world.

                                                                  -from Talking with God...

Average

I'm neither tall nor short.
I'm average.

I'm neither brilliant nor dumb.
Maybe, though, I was born in Wobegon.

I'm neither a leftist nor a rightist.
But I wonder: is the middle of the road a good place?

I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist.
Yes, of course: a realist...I think.

I'm neither an idealist nor a cynic.
Just keeping hope alive.

I'm neither always merry nor a constant scowler.
Just trying to smile more.

Average?
Is anyone?

Sometimes there's the echo of a voice from the past:

"I will drink life to the lees.
...this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star...
...my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset...
Made weak by time...but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find...."

Ulysses: he was not average.

When and Where?

Think of this at the end of the day:
25,000 children under the age of five died from hunger and hunger-related causes
over one billion people will go to bed hungry
over one billion people will have lacked access to safe and clean drinking water
nearly 5000 children died because of water-borne disease
over 40 million people are displaced from their homes and lands
over 14 million children are orphaned by HIV/AIDS
5500 people will have died that day of AIDS
thousands of children will have died of malaria.

When, Lord, and where, Lord, did we see you?

Autumn

as Mildred Zylstra put it in her “Autumn” poem:

            The lily bulb is buried deep in earth.

            Onion-layered skins, brown-tissue thin,

            Will crumple off.

            Green shoot emerge, tall stem,

            White bell will ring out joyfully

            In blue spring sky

            With tongues of gold.

            This fragile sheath of skin,

            Brown-spotted, wrinkled flesh,

            Will shrivel up.

            What flower, with what form

            Will blossom forth in unknown joy

            In new spring sky

            Only the Gardener knows.

                                                        -from Talking with God

Why can't I

I know a man of 80 who biked from one ocean to the other.
He pedaled up steep mountain grades, mile after mile.
He pedaled into winds strong enough to make trees sway.
He pedaled when the pelting rain lashed his cheeks and nearly took his sight away.
He pedaled when the summer sun shimmered on the desert and parched his tongue.
He pedaled when the rising sun painted the sky in
He pedaled, all the way, from coast to coast.
Why can't I?

I know a man who learned to carve in his retirement.
Birds at first, and horses.
But later, with finer tools and more creative skill, a Beethoven bust.
And Mozart playing the violin, and a whole nativity set....
Each so finely detail-crafted that it takes your breath away.
Why can't I?

I know a man who writes three books at once.
Words keep gushing from the deep wells of imagination.
No parching droughts or lengthy rewrites.
Award-winning, compelling reading--all of them.
Why can't I?

Well, yes, at last I have a book.
But it's a "different" book.
Talking with God it's called.
It seems that Enoch did that easily.
And so did Tevya.
Why can't I?

Someone said, "Be perfect."
Why can't I?
Because my wife would have none of it?
Maybe.
Because we know of only one who could?
I think so, yes.