Advent III: Fear Not!

Fear not! 

The words must have seemed like a joke. How could they be anything but fearful? One moment, they’re watching their flock by night. The next, they’re on their way to Bethlehem. I’m sure they were petrified as they walked toward that star, but fear is always the gateway, or doorway, to something new - particularly when it’s a relationship with God.

The shepherds weren’t the first frightened sojourners, of course. Abraham and Sarah had to conquer their fear. Moses, too. The list is long, maybe endless, and it would be easy to focus on all the fear and not what lies on the other side of that fear. Each courageous seeker found a deeper, more personal relationship with God, but first they had to wrestle with fear.

The words of the angels echo today, but maybe not in such dramatic ways. The person who leaves her high-paying job to follow a life-long dream of serving others can hear the angels: fear not! The student who decides not to follow his peers because of his emerging faith can also hear the angels: fear not! The couple who suddenly has to face an unexpected illness: fear not! The person who decides to live life without ever drinking again: fear not!

God is waiting for each of them, just as God is waiting for each of us. He may not be lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, but He’s waiting just the same. All we have to do (and it’s a lot) is fear not. We need to take comfort that others have blazed the trail; we’re standing at a well-worn threshold. On the other side of our fear, there’s good news which shall be to all people, for unto us, this day (and tomorrow, and the next day) God’s waiting, wrapped in our ordinary lives. Like a baby, God’s waiting to be held. Like a parent, God’s waiting to hold.

Fear not!

Advent II: Darkness and Light

There’s no getting around darkness. Pushing the hands of a clock back an hour doesn’t help. The days still seem shorter and the sun more reluctant to rise at this time of year. It’s not what anyone wants, but it’s what we’re given. This Advent, I’m beginning to see the value of the darkness. I don’t like it, but I can now see the important spiritual lesson it’s teaching, if I have “eyes to see.” 

Because we are waiting for Christmas, that day (season) when we celebrate God’s presence in the world and our lives, it is fitting that we wrestle with darkness. Yes, it’s all around us. There’s no getting around it. Whether in the news, our homes, or our hearts, the sun can sometimes seem particularly low in the shy at this time of year. Rather than wish the darkness away, Advent is an opportunity to accept the darkness - to stop and examine it and see what it’s trying to get us to see: God’s light, like a candle in a dark room, shines brighter in darkness.

Life makes more sense, or feels more manageable, when we arrange things in neat and tidy boxes - good here and bad there, happy here, sad there – but the wonder of our faith is that it’s bigger than any boxes we create. Everything belongs, as Richard Rohr famously reminded us . . . that means the good as well as the bad, the darkness as well as the light. As hard as we may try to embrace one and push the other aside, Advent is time to hold them both together.

In John’s Gospel, we are reminded that the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. Those are particularly comforting words at this time of year when darkness abounds. It doesn’t say the darkness goes away, just that the light is stronger.

I’m not sure there’s better news than that.

Advent I: Waiting

Like eating my vegetables, being told there’s value in waiting was advice that never had time to go in one ear and out another. If I could see something, imagine something, I didn’t see why I should have to wait. I’m grateful for the ability to see and imagine, but I’m not proud of my inability, or my unwillingness, to wait. It has often done me more harm than good and prevented me from the wonder that’s found in waiting.

Nowhere was that impatience more evident than during my childhood days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The music could begin soon enough, tree put up fast enough. Each day after school I would go into the living room and organized (and count) the presents as they slowly found their way beneath the tree. By the 24th, my brother and sisters tell me, I actually began shaking in anticipation of what was to come.

Fortunately, with age, I’ve found a deep joy in the days leading up to Christmas - Advent, as the church calls it. It is the season of waiting, and now it is that waiting I treasure most about Christmas. With each carol played, each ornament placed, and each candle lit, my soul takes a deep breath and dreams dreams like at no other time of year. What if . . it sighs with childish wonder. 

Fortunately, I have all month to contemplate my answer. What a gift it is, a gift found only in waiting.

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus (feat. Flo Paris & Sera Oakes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GMYo2pqAv0

(If you listen all the way through, you’ll see why I picked this version.)