Christmas

Readings: Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

After living more days that we can count 
amidst death and desolation,
the cure has been announced,
the promises of an end 
to the deadly contagion
that has afflicted our world.
This happy news is greeted 
with skepticism by some
and with joy by others,
but even those who believe this good news 
know that there are still dark days ahead.
Victory is assured,
but it will take time—
and we do not know
how much time—
before we can let down our guard
and live and move freely, 
as we are meant to live.
But the corner has been turned,
the deadly foe has been defeated,
and a better day is coming.

This enemy of which I speak, 
of course, is sin—
the deadly contagion that has spread
throughout the human race 
down the centuries—
our primal alienation from God 
that is the yoke that has burdened us.
It is sin that has separated us from others,
sin that has robbed us
of the sustaining breath of the Spirit,
sin that has condemned us to eternal death.
But today we celebrate
the glad tidings of victory,
the announcing of sin’s defeat
by the one who is called
“Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero,
Father-Forever, Prince of Peace,”
the “good news of great joy
that will be for all the people,”
the news that 
“a savior has been born for us 
who is Christ and Lord.”

Yet, even as we celebrate good news,
we know that sin still stalks the world;
we see its effects around us 
and feel its power in our souls.
The new age has dawned 
and defeat of our ancient foe is assured,
but we still, as St. Paul writes,
“await the blessed hope,
the appearance of the glory 
of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”

In our waiting, we can fall prey 
to one of two temptations.
On the one hand, we can be tempted
to disbelieve the good news of so great a victory
because the signs of triumph
are so small, 
so easily overlooked—
as obscure and hidden 
as a newborn child 
laid in a feeding trough in a stable.
It is easy to doubt news so astounding:
the eternal God 
has come to dwell with us in time.
It is easy to doubt a victory
that our eyes cannot yet see.
On the other hand, we can also be tempted
to think that God’s victory means
that the struggle for justice and mercy is over,
that it doesn’t matter what we do, 
that we no longer need to guard ourselves from sin
or work for a world that is less cruel,
less marked by the yoke of sin.
We can forget that we still have a role to play,
still have the path of cross and resurrection ahead of us,
still have an unknown length of days before us
until the reign of Christ arrives in its fullness.

Christmas calls us to resist both these temptations
by being people of hope and patience.
Hope and patience should not be confused
with optimism and resignation.
Hope is not the belief 
that things will work out fine on their own,
but rather that God is even now,
in ways that may escape our eyes, 
at work in our world to defeat evil.
Patience is not throwing up our hands
and sinking into resigned desolation;
patience is rather the chief remedy for desolation,
the active choice to wait for the God
who can heal our lacerated souls.
This is always a hard discipline:
to genuinely believe that God has won the victory,
and yet to recognize that we must still live and labor
amidst the ruin that sin has made of our existence.

This Christmas more than most
we need this hard discipline.
We need to be people of hope and patience
as we hear news of vaccines 
that can protect us from the novel coronavirus,
even as we continue to live amidst a global pandemic
that has killed 1.7 million people worldwide
and over 330,000 people in our country alone,
that has turned our lives upside down,
that has isolated and separated us 
precisely when we most need each other.

This Christmas more than most
we need the gift of hope 
to believe better days are coming,
and the gift of patience 
to combat the desolation 
of hard days still ahead.

This Christmas more than most
we need to hear the good news of great joy
that God is with us in our waiting;
we need to hear 
the message of the angel to the shepherds:
“Do not be afraid.”
Do not be afraid to hope and believe.
Do not be afraid to patiently wait.
Do not be afraid
because God in Christ 
has plunged into the depths 
of human desolation and pain
and planted there the seed of the kingdom,
the seed of hope and patience
that can sustain us through our darkest days.
Christ is born for us today.
Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice,
for he comes to save us from our ancient foe.

May the joy of this day 
make us people of hope and patience,
and may God have mercy on us all.

3rd Week of Advent--Friday

Readings: Jeremiah 23:5-8; Matthew 1:18-25

What exactly did Joseph think was going on?

Having discovered that the woman he was to marry
is now pregnant, and he is not the father,
an angel then appears to him in a dream,
and tells him “it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived…
you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”

Did the term “holy spirit” mean anything to him?
He was surely aware that the prophets
were said to have been inspired 
by the “spirit of the LORD,”
but what could that possibly have to do
with the girl to whom he had been betrothed?

Did he grasp the meaning of the angel saying,
“he will save his people from their sins”?
Joseph, like many in his day, no doubt hoped 
that God would send a savior to deliver Israel
from the degrading subjugation to Rome
under which they groaned—
a king sprung from David, 
as Jeremiah had foretold,
who, “shall reign and govern wisely,”
so that “Judah shall be saved,”
but what could any of that possibly have to do
with an unplanned and unexplained pregnancy?

Did he recall the prophecy of Isaiah: 
Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means, “God is with us”?
While Joseph certainly believed 
that God was with his people,
what could that possibly have to do
with a child born out of wedlock to a young girl?
How could this be a sign that God is with us?

The dream of the angel did not really explain things.
If anything, it rendered the whole situation
that much more perplexing.
I suspect Joseph had very little idea 
of what was going on.
He probably didn’t have notions 
like “virginal conception”
or “pascal mystery” 
or “incarnation.”
But even in his perplexity, he had faith.
He had faith enough to heed 
the angel’s words: “Do not be afraid.”
He had faith enough to ignore 
what other people might think and say.
He had faith enough to take Mary into his home
and to be a father to a child he knew was not his own.

Of course, we don’t really grasp these things
any better than Joseph did.
The Holy Spirit is for us too 
a mystery that blows where it will,
bringing with it new life.
Salvation through Christ is for us too,
as Thomas Aquinas said,
“so tremendous a fact that our intellect 
can scarcely grasp it” (Comm. Symb.).
God’s presence among us in the flesh is for us too
something before which our understanding
must simply bow in reverence.

As we approach the celebration at Christmas
of the mystery of the Incarnation,
let us imitate Joseph in his faith and obedience
even in the midst of not knowing,
let us not be afraid,
and may God have mercy on us all.

Advent 3

Readings: Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

On this Gaudete Sunday—the Sunday of rejoicing—
our scriptures seem most insistent that we should rejoice.
Isaiah tells us, “I rejoice heartily in the LORD, 
in my God is the joy of my soul.”
Paul commands us, “Rejoice always…
In all circumstances give thanks.”
Yet as the year 2020 stumbles to a close
many of us might look both outward and inward
and wonder if there is any joy to be found.
What joy is there in over a million and a half deaths
in a worldwide pandemic?
What joy is there in the prospect 
of another socially-distanced holiday?
What joy is there in the rancorous bickering 
and outright lying
that have become our public discourse?
“Rejoice”?
We might hear this as more oppressive than encouraging,
a demand that we squeeze out one more drop
from a sponge that was long ago wrung dry.

But God knows that we, on our own, 

are but dry sponges.
God knows that after many hard months
the reserves of joy within us
are depleted, and we are weary. 
It doesn’t matter if our reserves of joy are depleted,
because we are not the source of our own joy.
This is why Paul assures us that 
“The one who calls you is faithful,
and he will also accomplish it.”
The God who calls us to joy 
will accomplish that joy within us.

Now I know that it runs counter to our American ethos 
to say that our happiness can or should
depend on someone or something other than ourselves.
We Americans practically invented the notion of “self-help,”
the idea that we can, through hard work,
pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps 
into health, wealth, and, yes, even into joy.
To quote just one 
randomly chosen writer from the internet:
“Regardless of your personal circumstances, 
it is possible to find internal happiness, 
that form of happiness that feeds on nothing, 
except your own desire to find it.”
In my experience, such statements 
are typically followed by a list of imperatives:
eat healthy,
get exercise,
take a walk,
get off social media,
keep a journal,
declutter,
get a dog,
and so forth.

It’s really all just repackaging of the advice given years ago 
by that most American of self-help gurus, Henry Ford: 
“There is joy in work. 
There is no happiness except in the realization 
that we have accomplished something.”
Joy is only found in what you yourself can do.
It all seems to come down to this:
if your life feels sorrowful and joyless,
you’re just not trying hard enough.
There is nothing wrong with you
that a little more effort won’t fix.
So get to work: grab those bootstraps 
and pull.

But this is not the Gospel.
The Gospel is that none of us
finds joy from within ourselves
or through our own efforts;
we find it in the kingdom of God
that has drawn near in Christ.
The Gospel is not a call 
to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.
The Gospel is that while we lay dead
in the sorrow of sin
God has come to our rescue.
The Gospel is not that things are not really that bad,
that they are not really beyond our capacity to repair.
The Gospel is that, yes, things are that bad,
but God is greater.

Despite what the self-help gurus will tell you,
we are not our own saviors,
we are not our own source of joy.
We are like John the Baptist 
who confesses that he is not the Christ,
but only points us to the Christ;
who proclaims that he is not the light,
but only bears witness to the light.
In confessing our inability to save ourselves
we can hear the words “rejoice always”
not as some shallow assurance that we can be okay
if we just try a little harder,
nor as some command that we cannot possibly fulfill,
but as the announcement of glad tidings of salvation,
the announcement that one is present in our midst,
whom we may not yet recognize,
who has come to fill us with joy and light
and peace that passes human understanding,
one in whom we can rejoice always, 
in every circumstance,
because in Christ there is 
no human circumstance
from which God is absent.
In Christ God has placed himself
in the midst of disease and death,
of sorrow and separation,
of conflict and division.
We rejoice always
because Christ is always with us,
even in our joylessness,
to share with us his joy.

Paul tells the Christians at Thessalonica,
“Do not quench the Spirit.”
Perhaps in our anxious efforts 
to bootstrap our way into joy
we smother the Spirit of genuine rejoicing.
Perhaps we need to let the darkness be dark
so that we can see the light 
that is coming into the world,
coming to save us.
In these remaining days of Advent,
let us pray that God’s Spirit would burn within us,
consuming our sorrow and bringing us light,
so that at Christmas we may see the one
who is already dwelling in our midst,
enabling us to share his joy.
And may God have mercy on us all.