Homily Christmas Day Proper 3
When the Bishops of the church meeting together in the fourth century had to choose the Canon of scripture, that is the books that they judged were worthy of being sacred texts, inspired by God, they settled on four Gospels—all different accounts of the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
Today’s Gospel is John’s alternative to the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke, and the absence of a birth narrative in Mark, which begins the life of Jesus with his baptism by John.
Instead of story, John uses poetry in what is often called the prologue to his Gospel.
Since John is writing to a persecuted Jewish Christian community which has been expelled from the synagogue, this prologue is an attempt to clearly establish Jesus as the Son of God, who has existed since the beginning of time as part of the Godhead.
The word, or logos, was with God from the beginning of time-the creation. The word is the light in the darkness.
John comes as a witness to the light, to testify to the light. And then Jesus, the word, becomes flesh, and dwells among us.
Yet as John’s community found, Jesus the word, was not accepted by his own people.
So John’s Gospel provides a theological view of the incarnation, the birth of Christ, the word made flesh.
While there is no birth story as such, it seems to me we need to think in larger terms about the birth of Christ, and its place in history.
Paul’s Letter to the Hebrew does this too. He reminds his readers that God has spoken through his prophets in many ways, but with Jesus, God has spoken in a new way—with an heir “of all things.”
Paul says Jesus is "the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.”
This reminder to a Jewish Christian readership emphasizes the continuity between the Hebrew scriptures, and the stories which would later become the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament.
We always have to remember when Paul was writing, there was no New Testament, and Jews and Jewish Christians alike would only have had the Hebrew Scriptures and the oral tradition of stories about Jesus.
So as we celebrate the birth of Christ today, it’s helpful to add to the wonderful story of a babe in manger, the more cosmic story of John.
"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God."
And the conclusion of this stirring passage—“And the word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
In a broken world, that glory, that grace and truth, reminds us of God’s gift to us—a gift that keeps giving, and kept be taken away. Thanks be to God.
Sunday 25 December 2011
The Messiness of the Birth of Christ
Christmas Eve Homily 2011, Proper 1
There is a tendency to romanticize the story of the birth of Jesus found in Luke’s Gospel. We think of Christmas card images…shepherds in handsome robes, gathered around a fire…a sky full of stars, one of which is immense and hangs over Bethlehem…a baby in a manger with fresh hay in the stable and a pastoral scene of animals quietly grazing.
But we have to remember those images present a somewhat unrealistic idea of what actually happened that first Christmas eve.
One key to the story is that it happens at night, a time of fear, a time of danger.
The shepherds lived under Roman occupation, as did Joseph and Mary.
And historians tell us shepherds, who were the first witnesses of Jesus birth were outcasts from society, looked down on, poor…just the kind of people Jesus talks about reaching out to in his ministry three decades later.
The angels, messengers of God, don’t appear to rabbis, or landowners, or even shop owners, they appear to lowly shepherds, and it’s no surprise the shepherds are fearful.
So the angels first words are “Be not afraid.”
And those words are still at the heart of the Christian Gospel, the Gospel of Christ, more than two thousand years later.
Around our world we see danger and fear—of many things—from natural disasters, to climate change, to war, to persecution, to homelessness and starvation.
Yet the message of Christmas, the message of Jesus is that God is with us, bringing light into the darkness.
Our brothers and sisters in Christchurch, New Zealand are celebrating Christmas with outdoor services, reports Bishop Victoria Matthews.
An earthquake, the latest of many, hit Christchurch on Dec. 23. It was not as damaging as the earthquake that destroyed much of the city’s downtown earlier this year, but it has renewed fears of ongoing quakes which threaten efforts at reconstruction.
The Bishop writes the outdoor services aren’t about: “buildings falling down but about having large numbers of people from the very young to the elderly in close quarters in the event of another tremor. Outdoors, away from buildings will allow for community, but not crowding. I know it isn’t what most expected, but that first Christmas was very messy also, and there was a life saving outcome from that extraordinary gathering.”
The first Christmas was very messy, and dark, and dangerous. It wasn’t like a Hallmark Christmas card.
Herod feared the birth of Jesus, and Matthew tells us the story of the Holy family fleeing to Egypt to avoid persecution. So they were refugees.
And as New Zealand Christians gather for the torchlight (they call flashlights torches) services, they will undoubtedly be very conscious of the darkness and danger of the first Christmas eve.
It is worth considering that the birth of Jesus was announced only to his immediately family, to John the Baptist and his family and to the Shepherds and the wise men.
Otherwise, the birth is unheralded. The religious leaders, and wealthy people who held authority in Israel were not told.
The birth of Jesus, came not in a palace, but in a rough stable. Jesus was born to ordinary parents, not of noble birth.
What are we to draw from this simple yet powerful story of Christ’s birth in such an unexpected way, in such an out of the way place.
Perhaps it is that power and wealth aren’t what really count. It is what is in our hearts that matters. The good news the angels announce is the beginning of what would become a call to repentance, a call to hope and a call to a new way of life in harmony with God and other human beings.
We, as Christians, are called to live in community, to model the life of Christ, to live in peace and justice and to love each other.
As the prayer book service says, quoting scripture: “This is the first and great commandment, that thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul and all thy strength. This is the first and great commendment. The second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Living that out is far from easy. One term, that has been used to describe our western society in recent years, is “affluenza.”
We get so caught up in materialism, in shopping in consuming ever more that we lose our compass. We don’t care for others as we should. We allow too many riches to be concentrated in too few hands while others struggle without jobs, food, proper shelter, or hope.
Christ was born in poverty, and throughout his ministry he lived as an itinerant preacher, teacher and healer, with few possessions but the clothes on his back.
He reminds us that it isn’t ultimately what you have in riches which matters, but the spirit in our hearts and minds.
When I think of Christmas stories outside the Bible, I often come back to the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Ebenezer Scrooge learns through his encounter with spirits of Christmas past, present and future, that accumulating wealth does not bring happiness. Instead, it can bring loneliness and despair.
We, like Scrooge, can find new enjoyment of life if we seek opportunities to help others, build relationships and seek to live out our Christian faith.
Hope, grounded in faith is what sustains us as Christian people in this broken world. Jesus is the light of the world, a light no darkness can extinguish.
There is a tendency to romanticize the story of the birth of Jesus found in Luke’s Gospel. We think of Christmas card images…shepherds in handsome robes, gathered around a fire…a sky full of stars, one of which is immense and hangs over Bethlehem…a baby in a manger with fresh hay in the stable and a pastoral scene of animals quietly grazing.
But we have to remember those images present a somewhat unrealistic idea of what actually happened that first Christmas eve.
One key to the story is that it happens at night, a time of fear, a time of danger.
The shepherds lived under Roman occupation, as did Joseph and Mary.
And historians tell us shepherds, who were the first witnesses of Jesus birth were outcasts from society, looked down on, poor…just the kind of people Jesus talks about reaching out to in his ministry three decades later.
The angels, messengers of God, don’t appear to rabbis, or landowners, or even shop owners, they appear to lowly shepherds, and it’s no surprise the shepherds are fearful.
So the angels first words are “Be not afraid.”
And those words are still at the heart of the Christian Gospel, the Gospel of Christ, more than two thousand years later.
Around our world we see danger and fear—of many things—from natural disasters, to climate change, to war, to persecution, to homelessness and starvation.
Yet the message of Christmas, the message of Jesus is that God is with us, bringing light into the darkness.
Our brothers and sisters in Christchurch, New Zealand are celebrating Christmas with outdoor services, reports Bishop Victoria Matthews.
An earthquake, the latest of many, hit Christchurch on Dec. 23. It was not as damaging as the earthquake that destroyed much of the city’s downtown earlier this year, but it has renewed fears of ongoing quakes which threaten efforts at reconstruction.
The Bishop writes the outdoor services aren’t about: “buildings falling down but about having large numbers of people from the very young to the elderly in close quarters in the event of another tremor. Outdoors, away from buildings will allow for community, but not crowding. I know it isn’t what most expected, but that first Christmas was very messy also, and there was a life saving outcome from that extraordinary gathering.”
The first Christmas was very messy, and dark, and dangerous. It wasn’t like a Hallmark Christmas card.
Herod feared the birth of Jesus, and Matthew tells us the story of the Holy family fleeing to Egypt to avoid persecution. So they were refugees.
And as New Zealand Christians gather for the torchlight (they call flashlights torches) services, they will undoubtedly be very conscious of the darkness and danger of the first Christmas eve.
It is worth considering that the birth of Jesus was announced only to his immediately family, to John the Baptist and his family and to the Shepherds and the wise men.
Otherwise, the birth is unheralded. The religious leaders, and wealthy people who held authority in Israel were not told.
The birth of Jesus, came not in a palace, but in a rough stable. Jesus was born to ordinary parents, not of noble birth.
What are we to draw from this simple yet powerful story of Christ’s birth in such an unexpected way, in such an out of the way place.
Perhaps it is that power and wealth aren’t what really count. It is what is in our hearts that matters. The good news the angels announce is the beginning of what would become a call to repentance, a call to hope and a call to a new way of life in harmony with God and other human beings.
We, as Christians, are called to live in community, to model the life of Christ, to live in peace and justice and to love each other.
As the prayer book service says, quoting scripture: “This is the first and great commandment, that thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul and all thy strength. This is the first and great commendment. The second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Living that out is far from easy. One term, that has been used to describe our western society in recent years, is “affluenza.”
We get so caught up in materialism, in shopping in consuming ever more that we lose our compass. We don’t care for others as we should. We allow too many riches to be concentrated in too few hands while others struggle without jobs, food, proper shelter, or hope.
Christ was born in poverty, and throughout his ministry he lived as an itinerant preacher, teacher and healer, with few possessions but the clothes on his back.
He reminds us that it isn’t ultimately what you have in riches which matters, but the spirit in our hearts and minds.
When I think of Christmas stories outside the Bible, I often come back to the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Ebenezer Scrooge learns through his encounter with spirits of Christmas past, present and future, that accumulating wealth does not bring happiness. Instead, it can bring loneliness and despair.
We, like Scrooge, can find new enjoyment of life if we seek opportunities to help others, build relationships and seek to live out our Christian faith.
Hope, grounded in faith is what sustains us as Christian people in this broken world. Jesus is the light of the world, a light no darkness can extinguish.
Monday 12 December 2011
Listen to the Prophets
Homily, Advent 3, Yr. B 2011
“And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls. And the tenement halls. And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
Simon and Garfunkel wrote those words more than 50 years ago. And they could apply to the words of the Prophet Isaiah we heard today.
“The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners.
This passage in Isaiah was so important that it was read by Jesus in the fourth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, when he was beginning his ministry.
When Jesus read it, and said it applied to him, people got so mad they kicked him out of town. He was a threat to the way things worked in that community and every other community.
The message of Jesus was to change lives—heal the sick, comfort the afflicted, and most threatening—afflict the comfortable.
What Jesus preached was not salvation in some future existence—pie in the sky by and by.
The words of the prophet Isaiah were for Isaiah’s time, they were for Jesus time and they are for today.
The words of the prophet are aimed at those groups who are marginalized in society: the poor, the heartbroken, captives and prisoners. These are real people.
Salvation, according to Isaiah, is not about getting to heaven
but about life in the here and now.
So what would salvation look like in Isaiah’s view?
God sent me to announce the year of his grace -to comfort
all who mourn, To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them "Oaks of Righteousness" planted by God to display his glory.
That’s Isaiah’s vision. That is a vision of a mission for God’s people.
Our Diocese is trying to seek a new direction—a direction which turns our focus outward into mission. Mission happens when we turn our attention to those who are named as recipients of the Good News: the poor, the oppressed, , the brokenhearted, the captives, the poor in spirit.
When we are called to turn our attention, we are not called just to write a cheque. Financial support of mission is important, but it is our personal engagement as members of the body of Christ, and members of a faith community that matters even more.
The great Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said the church is the only institution that exists for those who are not its members.
We exist, not to give money, but for the sake of those who are poor, oppressed and brokenhearted. How we are living out the words of Isaiah?
One of the ironies of our current economic system is that the richest part of society—the top one percent the Occupy movement has been directed against-- is rewarded so out of proportion to its
contribution to our economy.
While the church has often been aligned with power and privilege, the Bible, especially in pssages like this one in Isaiah is firmly rooted in caring for the poor and the oppressed.
Mary’s Magnificat has vision of that redistribution of wealth when it says God has “filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich empty away.”
Jesus has many things to say about the rich people of his time, mostly landowners because Israel was a feudal agrarian society. And most of them are not good.
So as we live in a world where millions upon millions of people are homeless and hungry, while others live in unimaginable—even to us—opulence, there is a need for the church to remember its prophetic roots in Hebrew scripture.
There is a deep yearning for peace and justice, not in some distant future, but as a goal worth struggling for now.
Our Christian faith should not be a privatized faith that sees Christ’s teaching as something which will have to wait until Heaven.
We believe as Christians that God’s kingdom can be realized on earth through the struggle for peace and justice, and following Christ’s great command—to love God and love our neighbours as ourselves.
In Advent we are proclaiming the good news, the good news of John, that God cares for us, and he sends his son as a light to the world.
That Good News means paying attention to the prophets—who tell us that God hates robbery and wrongdoing, loves justice, and offers comfort to the poor, the afflicted and the downtrodden.
I was watching 60 Minutes recently. The documentary reported that not a single executive involved in the banking industry has been brought to justice for the fraudulent mortgage schemes which caused the great economic downturn in 2008 and have forced many thousands of homes to be foreclosed, and caused many people to lose their homes.
In a society which imprisons more of its citizens—mostly poor people—than any other in the world per capita—this indicates what a complete absence of fairness and justice there is…and this in a predominantly Christian country.
So we have a long way to go. And we need to listen to the prophets and to Jesus as we seek to bring the good news to our own communities.
“And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls. And the tenement halls. And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
Simon and Garfunkel wrote those words more than 50 years ago. And they could apply to the words of the Prophet Isaiah we heard today.
“The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me because God anointed me. He sent me to preach good news to the poor, heal the heartbroken, announce freedom to all captives, pardon all prisoners.
This passage in Isaiah was so important that it was read by Jesus in the fourth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, when he was beginning his ministry.
When Jesus read it, and said it applied to him, people got so mad they kicked him out of town. He was a threat to the way things worked in that community and every other community.
The message of Jesus was to change lives—heal the sick, comfort the afflicted, and most threatening—afflict the comfortable.
What Jesus preached was not salvation in some future existence—pie in the sky by and by.
The words of the prophet Isaiah were for Isaiah’s time, they were for Jesus time and they are for today.
The words of the prophet are aimed at those groups who are marginalized in society: the poor, the heartbroken, captives and prisoners. These are real people.
Salvation, according to Isaiah, is not about getting to heaven
but about life in the here and now.
So what would salvation look like in Isaiah’s view?
God sent me to announce the year of his grace -to comfort
all who mourn, To care for the needs of all who mourn in Zion, give them bouquets of roses instead of ashes, Messages of joy instead of news of doom, a praising heart instead of a languid spirit. Rename them "Oaks of Righteousness" planted by God to display his glory.
That’s Isaiah’s vision. That is a vision of a mission for God’s people.
Our Diocese is trying to seek a new direction—a direction which turns our focus outward into mission. Mission happens when we turn our attention to those who are named as recipients of the Good News: the poor, the oppressed, , the brokenhearted, the captives, the poor in spirit.
When we are called to turn our attention, we are not called just to write a cheque. Financial support of mission is important, but it is our personal engagement as members of the body of Christ, and members of a faith community that matters even more.
The great Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple said the church is the only institution that exists for those who are not its members.
We exist, not to give money, but for the sake of those who are poor, oppressed and brokenhearted. How we are living out the words of Isaiah?
One of the ironies of our current economic system is that the richest part of society—the top one percent the Occupy movement has been directed against-- is rewarded so out of proportion to its
contribution to our economy.
While the church has often been aligned with power and privilege, the Bible, especially in pssages like this one in Isaiah is firmly rooted in caring for the poor and the oppressed.
Mary’s Magnificat has vision of that redistribution of wealth when it says God has “filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich empty away.”
Jesus has many things to say about the rich people of his time, mostly landowners because Israel was a feudal agrarian society. And most of them are not good.
So as we live in a world where millions upon millions of people are homeless and hungry, while others live in unimaginable—even to us—opulence, there is a need for the church to remember its prophetic roots in Hebrew scripture.
There is a deep yearning for peace and justice, not in some distant future, but as a goal worth struggling for now.
Our Christian faith should not be a privatized faith that sees Christ’s teaching as something which will have to wait until Heaven.
We believe as Christians that God’s kingdom can be realized on earth through the struggle for peace and justice, and following Christ’s great command—to love God and love our neighbours as ourselves.
In Advent we are proclaiming the good news, the good news of John, that God cares for us, and he sends his son as a light to the world.
That Good News means paying attention to the prophets—who tell us that God hates robbery and wrongdoing, loves justice, and offers comfort to the poor, the afflicted and the downtrodden.
I was watching 60 Minutes recently. The documentary reported that not a single executive involved in the banking industry has been brought to justice for the fraudulent mortgage schemes which caused the great economic downturn in 2008 and have forced many thousands of homes to be foreclosed, and caused many people to lose their homes.
In a society which imprisons more of its citizens—mostly poor people—than any other in the world per capita—this indicates what a complete absence of fairness and justice there is…and this in a predominantly Christian country.
So we have a long way to go. And we need to listen to the prophets and to Jesus as we seek to bring the good news to our own communities.
Sunday 4 December 2011
Advent: A Time for Rousing
Homily Advent 2, Yr. B, 2011
Now we are in the heart of Advent, a season of darkness where we are turning towards the light. We long for the coming of Jesus we are introduced to one of the real characters of the Bible, John the Baptist.
There are many parallels between the life of John the Baptist and of Jesus of Nazareth.
In Mark’s Gospel of the good news of Jesus Christ the beginning scene is not of a baby in a manger, born of Mary and Joseph, but a wild prophet in the wilderness, a desert, who lives off the land and preaches a gospel of repentance.
In some ways John personifies Advent. His message is clear—prepare for the Lord, the Messiah, the one who Israel has hoped for throughout its history.
John is a prophet. He invites the people of Israel to repent and change their lives, and signify this change through baptism in the waters of the Jordan River.
John is feared not only by the Jewish religious leaders, but by Herod the King.
Josephus, a historian from that period, says this of John:
“Now when many others came in crowds about him, for they were greatly moved by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence of John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulty by sparing a man who might repent of it before it should be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Machrus, …and was there put to death.”
In our Gospels we are told John’s execution was caused when he criticized Herod for marrying his brother’s wife, and we have the ghoulish story of the Baptist’s head being brought out to honour a promise Herod makes to Salome.
Either way it seems clear that John, like Jesus was unafraid of offending the authorities, and taught without fear.
We could see John’s arrest as the turning point in the Gospels because after John, who prepared the way, is gone, then Jesus begins his ministry.
Jesus has been baptized by John, and commissioned for his own ministry of teaching and healing, and the journey to the cross.
Jesus must face the same hostility from the Jewish religious authorities, King Herod and ultimately the power of Rome, that John faced.
To begin that intense period of ministry, Jesus, like John heads for the wilderness, the desert, where he must face temptation before undertaking his remarkable world changing journey.
Jesus, like John, says repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
But we can’t and won’t ever know when the Kingdom of God, or the second coming of Christ will happen. So we live in hope and expectation.
There is no minimizing how difficult it is to understand the gaps between our hopes and dreams and the current reality of our lives.
Dietrick Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor imprisoned for resisting the Nazis wrote before his death:
“Life in a prison cell reminds me a great deal of Advent—one waits and hopes and potters about, but in the end what we do is of little consequence, for the door is shut and can only be opened from the outside.”
So hope is challenging even for our greatest and most courageous theologians.
Another prisoner of the Nazis, Alfred Delp, wrote this meditation:
“Advent is a time for rousing. Human beings are shaken to the very depths, so that they may wake up to the truth of themselves. The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent is renunciation and surrender…a shattering awakening; that is the necessary preliminary. Life only begins when the whole framework is shaken.”
One of the reasons we observe Advent as part of the church year is to engage in a season of repentance, of watchfulness, of preparation before the celebration of the birth Jesus, and then Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the world.
We lose part of our Christian heritage if we treat Advent simply as a countdown to Christmas, and move too quickly from the wilderness with John the Baptist, to the shepherds in the fields listening to the Angels and rushing to the stable in Bethlehem.
Of course the wider culture is already in the midst of celebrating the Christmas of Santa Claus, shopping and presents. And Christmas carols have been heard in the stores since Halloween.
We are called to stay in the wilderness, at least in our thoughts, a bit longer as we mark this Advent season. It is a time of waiting, of expectation, and of joy.
Delp while still a prisoner also described joy “when one is curiously uplifted by a sense of inner exaltation and comfort. Outwardly nothing is changed…Yet one can face it undismayed. One is content to leave everything in God’s hands.”
Another prison admonition comes from Paul in his letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice.”
A message of faith, and a message of joy in spite of suffering.
Now we are in the heart of Advent, a season of darkness where we are turning towards the light. We long for the coming of Jesus we are introduced to one of the real characters of the Bible, John the Baptist.
There are many parallels between the life of John the Baptist and of Jesus of Nazareth.
In Mark’s Gospel of the good news of Jesus Christ the beginning scene is not of a baby in a manger, born of Mary and Joseph, but a wild prophet in the wilderness, a desert, who lives off the land and preaches a gospel of repentance.
In some ways John personifies Advent. His message is clear—prepare for the Lord, the Messiah, the one who Israel has hoped for throughout its history.
John is a prophet. He invites the people of Israel to repent and change their lives, and signify this change through baptism in the waters of the Jordan River.
John is feared not only by the Jewish religious leaders, but by Herod the King.
Josephus, a historian from that period, says this of John:
“Now when many others came in crowds about him, for they were greatly moved by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence of John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulty by sparing a man who might repent of it before it should be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Machrus, …and was there put to death.”
In our Gospels we are told John’s execution was caused when he criticized Herod for marrying his brother’s wife, and we have the ghoulish story of the Baptist’s head being brought out to honour a promise Herod makes to Salome.
Either way it seems clear that John, like Jesus was unafraid of offending the authorities, and taught without fear.
We could see John’s arrest as the turning point in the Gospels because after John, who prepared the way, is gone, then Jesus begins his ministry.
Jesus has been baptized by John, and commissioned for his own ministry of teaching and healing, and the journey to the cross.
Jesus must face the same hostility from the Jewish religious authorities, King Herod and ultimately the power of Rome, that John faced.
To begin that intense period of ministry, Jesus, like John heads for the wilderness, the desert, where he must face temptation before undertaking his remarkable world changing journey.
Jesus, like John, says repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
But we can’t and won’t ever know when the Kingdom of God, or the second coming of Christ will happen. So we live in hope and expectation.
There is no minimizing how difficult it is to understand the gaps between our hopes and dreams and the current reality of our lives.
Dietrick Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor imprisoned for resisting the Nazis wrote before his death:
“Life in a prison cell reminds me a great deal of Advent—one waits and hopes and potters about, but in the end what we do is of little consequence, for the door is shut and can only be opened from the outside.”
So hope is challenging even for our greatest and most courageous theologians.
Another prisoner of the Nazis, Alfred Delp, wrote this meditation:
“Advent is a time for rousing. Human beings are shaken to the very depths, so that they may wake up to the truth of themselves. The primary condition for a fruitful and rewarding Advent is renunciation and surrender…a shattering awakening; that is the necessary preliminary. Life only begins when the whole framework is shaken.”
One of the reasons we observe Advent as part of the church year is to engage in a season of repentance, of watchfulness, of preparation before the celebration of the birth Jesus, and then Epiphany, the manifestation of Christ to the world.
We lose part of our Christian heritage if we treat Advent simply as a countdown to Christmas, and move too quickly from the wilderness with John the Baptist, to the shepherds in the fields listening to the Angels and rushing to the stable in Bethlehem.
Of course the wider culture is already in the midst of celebrating the Christmas of Santa Claus, shopping and presents. And Christmas carols have been heard in the stores since Halloween.
We are called to stay in the wilderness, at least in our thoughts, a bit longer as we mark this Advent season. It is a time of waiting, of expectation, and of joy.
Delp while still a prisoner also described joy “when one is curiously uplifted by a sense of inner exaltation and comfort. Outwardly nothing is changed…Yet one can face it undismayed. One is content to leave everything in God’s hands.”
Another prison admonition comes from Paul in his letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice.”
A message of faith, and a message of joy in spite of suffering.
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