Advent Perspective: The Darkness Before the Dawn

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

The Darkness Before the Dawn

The people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness -

on them light has shined.

Isaiah 9:2 (NRSV)

Glory to God in the highest

Peace on Earth, good will to all men

Let all of the world sing the chorus of joy

Because hope was born this night

From "Hope Was Born This Night" by Sidewalk Prophets

It has been said that Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year.  This year, as I was walked around the local shopping mall on the day before Halloween, I noticed that Santa's workshop had already been set up.  In mid-November, soft rock radio stations started playing Christmas songs all day every day.  Perhaps I am letting my cynicism speak for me, but I cannot help but think that all the early Christmas ambiance is intended to get people in the mood to spend money by subconsciously appealing to their previous experiences of shopping for Christmas presents.

Along with "Christmas Creep," as some have named it, there is another phenomenon that has been observed in recent years: many people, particularly those who work for retailers, have been greeting people with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."  Outraged by a supposed "War on Christmas," many Christians have been fighting to "keep Christ in Christmas."  Though I fully understand that Jesus is "the reason for the season," hearing people say "Happy Holidays" doesn't really bother me, because I feel that what the prevailing culture has been calling Christmas and what the Church observes as Christmas are actually two very different things.  I believe that what many call Christmas is actually a hijacking of a sacred celebration for economic purposes, so I don't really mind if people don't call it "Christmas."

On the Church calendar, there are two high holidays, Christmas and Easter, both of which are preceded by more somber seasons of preparation.  The Church and the prevailing culture celebrates this time of year in very different ways.  For many, the holiday season is the end of the year, but, for the Church, it is the beginning of the year.  For many, December 25 marks the end of the Christmas season, but, for the Church, December 25 is only the first of the twelve days of Christmas.  In the midst of the the Christmas shopping season, the Church is observing the season of Advent.

Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas.  While many of us prepare for Christmas by shopping for presents for our loved ones and by attending potlucks with our friends and coworkers, many also prepare for Christmas by looking inward.  Many think of Advent as a season of repentance, not unlike the season of Lent which precedes Easter.  The Scripture passages typically read in Churches during this season tell of the ministry of John the Baptist who called people to repentance in preparation for the coming of their long-awaited Savior.

Ever since I was a child, what has stood out to me the most about the season of Advent is the lighting of the candles on the Advent wreath.  On each of the four Sundays preceding Christmas, churches that observe Advent light a candle, the first for hope, the second for peace, the third for joy, and the fourth for love.  On Christmas Eve, a fifth candle is lighted for Christ Himself.

Two years ago, at my home church's Christmas Eve service, my pastor did something I had never seen before: she extinguished the candles for hope, peace, joy, and love before lighting the candle for Christ.  At that time, Advent took on a whole new meaning for me.

We light a candle for hope, yet the lives of many are marked by despair.  Many people in the world are stuck in situations from which they cannot find any means of escape.  To borrow a phrase from Henry David Thoreau, many "lead lives of quiet desperation."

We light a candle for peace, yet many live in the midst of conflict.  Many people in the world live in war zones.  Such an area of conflict might be an embattled region on the other side of the globe, a violent household down the street, or a person's own troubled mind.

We light a candle for joy, yet the experience of many is one of sorrow.  Ten percent of the population of my country need antidepressants just to get through the day,¹ and for many people, the holiday season is a time that evokes deep sadness.

We light a candle for love, yet many are afflicted by hatred.  Many people in the world suffer because they are hated by other people, and many people in the world are poisoned by the hatred they harbor for others.

Nowadays, I like to think of Advent as a season of longing.  We light candles for hope, peace, joy, and love, not because we possess such things, but because, in the depths of our souls, we yearn for them.  After all, a person has no need to light candles unless it's dark.  In our longing for hope, peace, joy, and love, we are forced to confront the despair, conflict, sorrow, and hatred in the world and in our own hearts.  We seek hope, peace, joy, and love in the world, but what the world has to offer is often empty and shallow.  Time and time again, the world lets us down.

On one occasion, Jesus warns His audience about a time of great suffering, a time so dire that the sun, moon, and stars will cease to shine.  He says that, in this dark time, people "will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory" to gather up His people.²  One writer records Jesus as saying, "Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."³  Many think that Jesus is speaking about His return to the earth, a "Second Coming" as some people call it, but I think these words have something to say about the way Christ meets the world.  The world can be a very dark place, but it is in the midst of such circumstances that Christ breaks into the world, a single light in the darkness.

Jesus once said, "I am the light of the world."⁴  On another occasion, Jesus announced to His audience, "You are the light of the world."⁵  So is Christ the "light of the world," or are we?  The answer is, of course, "Yes."  Christ is like the sun, the source of light, and we are like the moon which catches the light of the sun and reflects it into places of darkness.  When we draw near to the light of Christ, our own hearts ignite, and we carry that light with us.  Hope, peace, joy, and love are results of the presence of God in a person's life.⁶

Advent is like the darkness before the dawn.  Amid the frenzy of the season, we remember that the world is desperate for hope, peace, joy, and love.  On Christmas, we remember the Good News that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to bring light into a dark world.  We are all called to carry that light with us throughout the world, sharing with others the hope, peace, joy, and love we've found.

May we not forget those who yearn to see the light.

Come, Lord Jesus.


Notes:

1. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/a-glut-of-antidepressants/
2. Mark 13:1-27 (NSRV)
3. Luke 21:28 (NRSV)
4. John 9:5
5. Matt 5:14
6. Love, joy, and peace are among what St. Paul calls the "Fruit of the Spirit."  See Galatians 5:22-23.  I believe that hope could be considered a fruit of the Spirit as well.

The photograph featured in this perspective was taken by me at Bethel United Methodist Church in West Greenville, South Carolina.

Perspective: Do You Want to Believe?

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

Do You Want to Believe?

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to Him, "Are You the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?"  Jesus answered them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them."

Matthew 11:2-5 (NRSV)

Give me Your eyes for just one second

Give me Your eyes so I can see

Everything that I keep missing

Give me Your love for humanity

From "Give Me Your Eyes" by Brandon Heath

I am starting to believe, more and more, that an encounter with God requires an open mind.  Sadly, open-mindedness is not always regarded as a virtue within religious circles.  In fact, Christians are generally encouraged to defend the faith and to fortify themselves against anything and everything that might challenge or stretch their beliefs.  Some even criticize open-minded people, saying things like, "Some people are so open minded, their brains are going to fall out!"

As I noted in my previous blog post, Jesus didn't always get along with the religious leaders of His day.  One day, a group of religious leaders approached Him and demanded a sign from Him, some proof that He was who He said He was.  Jesus rather harshly replied, "An evil and unfaithful generation searches for a sign."¹  Later on, another group of religious leaders asked Jesus for a sign from Heaven, and He remarked that, even though they could look at he sky and predict what the weather would be like in the next few hours, they couldn't see the signs that were all around them.  Again He said, "An evil and unfaithful generation searches for a sign."²

Did the religious leaders' requests for a sign really come from a search for the truth, or were they actually challenging Jesus?

Not long before Jesus began His public ministry, there was another traveling teacher and prophet, a rather eccentric man named John.  John traveled throughout the region, calling people to repentance, and he invited people to engage in a ritual cleansing - a baptism - as an outward sign of their repentance.³  As I have written elsewhere, the Greek word translated into English as repentance is metanoia, which describes a change of mind, particularly one that results in a change of behavior.⁴  John was asking people to change the way they think about things.

John always spoke of One greater than he who would succeed him.  When John was born, his father prophesied that he would be the one to prepare the way for the Messiah, the long-awaited leader sent by God to bring freedom to Israel.⁵  John was described, in the words of the ancient prophet Isaiah, as "A voice crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way for the Lord; make His paths straight.'"  Perhaps John fulfilled this prophecy and prepared the way for the Messiah by calling people to open their minds and to change the way they think.

John believed that Jesus was the Messiah.  When Jesus entered the scene, He had no interest in maintaining the status quo or in telling people what they already believed.  Shortly after Jesus was born, an elderly man named Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be the cause of the rising and falling of many people.⁶  More than once, Jesus stated that in the Kingdom of God - the Kingdom He came to usher in - the last would be first and the first would be last.⁷  Needless to say, following a leader so committed to such radical change would require an open mind.

Like John, many people came to believe that Jesus was their long-awaited messiah.  The religious leaders, on the other hand, would have nothing to do with such a notion.  Their demand for proof came not from a desire to believe but from a resistance to believe.  The religious leaders were so hard-hearted and stubborn that one day, when Jesus performed a miracle, they attributed His miracle to the devil.⁸

I think that, for the most part, people believe what they want to believe.  Peter Rollins makes the observation that people don't usually form their beliefs based on the evidence and arguments presented to them.  Instead, people typically seek out evidence and arguments to justify and reinforce the beliefs they already have.  This process is called rationalization.⁹  People who want to believe in something don't need a reason to believe, they just believe.  As Jesus points out, anyone who actually wanted a sign that He was the Messiah could have easily found one.  The religious leaders, on the other hand, continued to demand a sign because they simply didn't want to believe in Him.  People who want to think they have it all figured it out generally aren't inclined to be open-minded.

The religious leaders didn't believe that God's work of Salvation had come through Jesus because He didn't meet their expectations for the Messiah, nor did He even meet their expectations for a good Jew.  They were expecting a mighty warrior King who would drive the Roman Empire out of Israel.  Jesus, by contrast, was a wandering teacher who had some crazy ideas, associated with the riff-raff of society, and didn't follow the religious rules quite as carefully as some people would have preferred.

I don't believe that Jesus' harsh criticisms for people who wanted a sign were directed toward people who were struggling to believe but rather toward people who flat-out refused to believe.  As prophets are wont to do, John drew the ire of the powers that be, and, as a consequence, he was incarcerated.  As he sat in jail, his own faith in Jesus began to falter, and he sent some of his associates to ask Jesus whether or not He actually was the Messiah.  Jesus said to them, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them."  Jesus basically said to John what He would later say to the religious leaders: the signs were there if he wanted to believe.

In the same way that people who lived in Israel two thousand years ago needed to have an open mind to see God at work in Jesus Christ, we need to have an open mind if we want to see God at work in our day and time, for so often God does not conform to our expectations.  Rachel Held Evans, in her memoir Evolving in Monkey Town, writes,
The longer our lists of rules and regulations, the more likely it is that God Himself will break one.  The more committed we are to certain theological absolutes, the more likely we are to discount the work of the Spirit when it doesn't conform to our presuppositions.  When we cling to our beliefs as children cling to their favorite toys, it is hard for Jesus to take us by the hand and lead us somewhere new.¹⁰

I have come to believe that, wherever we look, God is hidden in plain sight.  Seeing is believing, and if you want to see God, simply open your eyes and look around.  St. Paul writes, "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."¹¹  Perhaps Paul offers this exhortation because it is in such things that we can see God in the world.  If we're closed-minded, we run the risk of missing God, but, if we open our hearts and minds, perhaps we'll experience God in ways we wouldn't expect.


Notes:

1. Matthew 12:38-39 (CEB)
2. Matthew 16:1-4 I(CEB)
3. See Matthew 1:12 and Luke 3:1-17.
4. Wikipedia: Metanoia (Theology)
5. Luke 1:61-80
6. Luke 2:34
7. See Matthew 19:16-30 and Matthew 20:1-16.
8. See Matthew 12:22-32.
9. Peter Rollins.  Insurrection: To Believe is Human, To Doubt, Divine.  2011, Howard Books.  p. 10-11
10. Rachel Held Evans.  Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions.  2010, Zondervan.  p. 154
11. Philippians 4:8 (NRSV)

The photograph featured in this perspective was taken by Wikimedia user Saperaud and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Introspection: A Heavy Load to Bear

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

A Heavy Load to Bear

The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach.  They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.  They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long.  They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi.  But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students.  And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father - the one in heaven.  Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah.  The greatest among you will be your servant.  All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

Matthew 23:2-12 (NRSV)

I focused on the score

But I could never win

Trying to ignore

A life of hiding my sin

 

To label me

A hypocrite would be

Only scratching the surface

Of who I've been known to be

From "Undo" by Rush of Fools

Don't you hate it when you read a passage or a story from the Bible and realize that you have more in common with the supposed "bad guys" than you do with the "good guys"?

Time and time again, Jesus butted heads with the religious elite of His day, especially the Pharisees, a group of Jewish people who dedicated their lives to following their religious Law and to teaching the Law to other people.  Not long after Jesus rode into Jerusalem as if in a royal procession and made a scene at the temple,¹ the Pharisees and other religious groups began hammering Him with loaded questions, trying to collect enough ammunition to bring Him down.²  Fed up, Jesus issued forth a series of scathing critiques directed toward the Pharisees and the religious scholars.³

Though Jesus had a lot of criticisms for the Pharisees and the scholars, it is worth noting that His criticisms generally didn't involve their teachings.  He probably agreed with them on most issues.  In fact, Jesus even said that the people should follow their instructions because they "sit on Moses' seat."  Moses is the one who originally received the Law from God and taught it to the people, so, by saying that the Pharisees "sit on Moses' seat," Jesus is basically affirming them as teachers of the Law.

Jesus' conflict with the Pharisees and the religious scholars stemmed not from their teachings but rather from the fact that they did not follow their own teachings.  Jesus remarked, "They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them."  The Pharisees knew that the Jewish Law was extremely difficult to follow, but, instead of being honest about their own struggles, they faked it.  Over and over again, Jesus called them "hypocrites."  The word hypocrite is derived from the ancient Greek word hupokrites which means "actor."⁴

I believe that Jesus might have some similar critiques for modern-day Christians.  Like the Pharisees, Christians have a nasty tendency to place more importance on orthodoxy - right belief - than on orthopraxy - right behavior.  For example, one preacher can be judged and condemned as a "heretic" regardless of the kind of life he or she lives, while another supposedly more "orthodox" preacher can be lifted up as a man or woman of God despite being a generally contemptible person.⁵  Churchgoers who find themselves in disagreement with what their pastor teaches will leave their church and seek another one, and entire denominations have even split over matters of doctrine.

Can we Christians honestly say that we place such an importance on what the church actually does?

So often, Christians, myself included, are a lot more concerned about being right than doing right.  Simply being right doesn't make a person any better than anyone else.  It doesn't matter what we know if we don't put what we know into practice.

As someone who tries to pass along insights into the Christian life though Sunday school lessons, blog posts, and occasional sermons, I feel as though I, like the ancient Pharisees, place heavy loads on people's shoulders.  To use a pole-vaulting analogy I sometimes set the bar so high in my writings that I cannot clear it myself.  For example, not long ago, I delivered a sermon about how we would do well not to say, "Why bother?" yet, a few days ago, I found myself thinking these very words.  I like to remind people that all religious instructions boil down to two "simple" rules - love God, and love each other.  These two rules are easy to remember, but at times they can be damn near impossible to follow.  It's easy to preach, and it's easy to teach, but putting into practice what one preaches and teaches is an altogether different story.

When the Pharisees did practice what they preached, they did so for the sole purpose of impressing people.  For example, Jesus made the observation that they "make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long."  Phylacteries were little boxes attached to straps that Jewish people would wear on their arms or on their foreheads while praying.  Inside the box was a tiny scroll on which a Scripture passage was written.⁶  The fringes of which Jesus speaks were the tassels on the corners of a prayer shawl.  Both of these things were meant to remind the wearers of their duty to follow the Law.⁷  If Jesus wanted to make a similar observation about showy Christians in our day, He might say, "They wear T-shirts with Bible verses, and WWJD bracelets, and large shiny crosses on their necklaces."

Jesus remarked that the Pharisees, "love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them 'rabbi.'"  As someone who also finds himself preoccupied with his own self image, I must confess that I can relate to the Pharisees in this respect.  Last year, a friend of mine introduced me to several members of his church, saying that I was "a preacher."  Being called a "preacher" made me feel pretty good about myself, proud even.  I felt as if I had accomplished something I had set out to do.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, then you know that, a few years ago, while I was working at my previous job, I began to flirt with the possibility of going into the ministry.  Though I desired to do something more with my life than to write software for gambling machinery, looking back, I am beginning to think that some of my motives might not have been so pure.  I think that maybe I considered going into the ministry because, in the circles in which I was traveling at the time, that was what all the "cool kids" were doing.  I think that maybe I wanted to be someone special - to be part of the club, so to speak.  I'm only a little bit ashamed of this fact.  I have no regrets because I know that God was at work, for it was through the journey I started back then that I discovered my spiritual gifts.

To be perfectly honest, I have discovered that doing the things I started doing since that time - teaching Sunday school, delivering sermons, and publishing blog posts - can be an ego trip.  Hearing that I gave somebody "something to think about" always gives my pride a shot in the arm.  It does my ego good to stand at the pastor's podium, delivering a message to an entire congregation, and to stand in the church foyer afterward, shaking people's hands and hearing people tell me that I did a great job.

Though the Pharisees and the religious scholars liked to be called "rabbi," Jesus said that we should not call anyone "rabbi" or "instructor" because ultimately we have only one teacher, Christ Himself.  He then reminded the people that, in the Kingdom of God, the first will be last and the last will be first, as He had already said more than once.  This is not to say that nobody serves as a teacher in the Kingdom, but that to be a teacher is not to have a title of honor to flaunt but to have a responsibility to other people.

In the Kingdom of God, all of us are equal before God.  The fact that some of us have the audacity to try to teach spiritual truths to others doesn't make us experts in such matters.  Pastors, preachers, and Sunday school teachers put their pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else: they have the same struggles as everyone else.  The fact that the Pharisees put a heavy load on other people's shoulders was not the problem, for spiritual truths can be very difficult to bear.  The problem was that they made themselves appear to be more spiritual than they were, when they should have admitted their own struggles and tried to help others to bear the load.

I think that we all have a basic understanding of what is right and wrong, but, deep down, we all know that it can be difficult to do what is right.  I think that, like the Pharisees, we all have trouble practicing what we preach.  As Christians, we are all called to follow in the footsteps of Christ, and we call other people to do the same.  Following Christ is indeed a heavy load to bear.  We are not called to simply dump this load on each other's shoulders but to help each other carry the load.  We must be honest about our own struggles, willing to help others carry their loads, and humble enough to let others help carry ours.


Notes:

1. See Matthew 21:1-17.
2. See Matthew 21:23-27 and Matthew 22:15-40.
3. See Matthew 23:1-36.
4. Wiktionary: Hypocrite
5. Benjamin L. Corey makes such an observation about a number of high-profile preachers on the fourth episode of the podcast That God Show.
6. Wikipedia: Tefillin
7. See Deuteronomy 11:18 and Numbers 15:38-39.

Christian Reading in His Book was painted by William Blake.