Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. – James 5:7
To Those Who Await Immanuel,
As we begin December the pace of our community life and our personal lives gets turned up a notch. There’s always more going on that we can reasonably expect to be a part of! The modern world has done everything in its power to make the countdown to Christmas into a frenetic free-for-all, coaxing us on hectic shopping outings, sowing the seeds of unreasonable expectation, encouraging us to believe that material goods can satisfy spiritual hungers. Infused in all this in times of economic stress is the sense that we’ll never reach these expectations or match our experiences of the past.
News out of Portland last week of the foiled plot of a radicalized young Somali immigrant to detonate a bomb at Portland’s annual Christmas Tree lighting event adds an additional layer of fear to the season this year. And as conflicts continue unabated around the world, and the enormous costs of war—by every measure—continue to rise, there is a mounting sense of the intractability of the challenges facing our nation and world. Oh! That God would hasten the day when swords are beaten into plowshares and nations study war no more! (Isaiah 2:4)
Where is the antidote to this death-dealing mixture of consumerism, fear, and longing to be found? The response to this question, for people of faith, begins with our worship life during Advent. Gathering under the promises of God in Christ, we are summoned to hear God’s word of hope and then to act as people possessed by that hope. Good hymnody helps us get there. One of the newer Advent hymns to which I’m drawn speaks honestly and powerfully about our human experience and the promise which keeps hope alive. Written by William Gay, it reads:[1]
Each winter as the year grows older, we each grow older too. The chill sets in a little colder; the verities we knew seem shaken and untrue. When race and class cry out for treason, when sirens call for war, they over-shout the voice of reason and scream ‘till we ignore all we held dear before. Yet I believe beyond believing, that life can spring from death; that growth can flower from our grieving; that we can catch our breath and turn transfixed by faith. So even as the sun is turning to journey to the north, the living flame, in secret burning, can kindle on the earth and bring Gods love to birth.That “YET” at the beginning of the third verse is the fulcrum upon which our life as people of faith turns; that “YET” is Christ. The world tells us that the present, as uncertain as it is, is more certain than the future; that the future is up for grabs; therefore, get all you can while the getting’s good. But the revelation of God in the Scriptures is that the future is held firmly in the grasp of the Lord of Love! Because this is so, we can live each day of the volatile present time fully and confidently in the light of Christ’s coming reign. Placing our trust in the God who owns the future, we find our present, too, transformed; tentativeness and fear are transmuted into confidence, peace, and joy. Being grounded in such hope as this is the only real antidote to today’s anxieties and compulsions.
As we make and carry out holiday plans and gather with family and special friends, let us choose to keep Christ at the center of our Christmas celebrations, our eyes ever drawn to the mystery and wonder of the holy Child within the manger—God with us—now, and to the end of the ages.
Your servant in hope,
Pastor Erik
[1] Text: William Gray, alt. Music: Annabeth Gay © 1971 United Church Press. Published in With One Voice, (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1995) hymn #628.
What does this mean?