Advents

Christmas and Advent constitute the busiest season for just about everyone in the church business.  That said, I still agree with Andy Williams – it’s the most wonderful time of the year.  The ways we work to beautify our homes and neighborhoods; the generosity we demonstrate to friends, family members, and strangers in need; the potential for meaningful connection and even reconciliation with our closest loved ones.  Even at its worst, this season embodies our hearts’ longing and hope that the world can be made right – the possibility of life the way it’s meant to be.  Yet even at its best, this season cannot hold a candle to the ultimate peace and restoration God has in store.

During Advent we remember and celebrate God’s greatest gift thus far: the birth of a baby called Immanuel – “God with us”.  This baby embodied God’s promises: to reconcile the human race to himself; to once and for all atone for our careless and selfish actions; to heal our broken hearts and bodies and world.  In a word, to bring heaven to earth.  The baby grew up to be the man, Jesus – “The Lord saves”.  In his presence sick people were made well; insignificant people were given significance; and people on the margins were told unequivocally that God loved them.  Jesus equipped and inspired a group of followers to continue this work.  The disciples grew into a worldwide movement which, empowered by the Holy Spirit, continued to heal the broken, welcome the marginalized, and extend God’s love to everyone.  The church grew because it embodied hope and wholeness – a little taste of the way life is meant to be.  At its best, this is what the church continues to embody.

But we’re imperfect.  And the world is imperfect.  Which can only mean one thing: The work that God began at the first Advent isn’t done.  The God who comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ promises that one day he will make all things new.  One day heaven will come to earth.  This moment is predicted in the Book of Revelation.  Revelation – arguably the least accessible book of the New Testament – is a message to the church.  Both the church at the end of the 1^st century, which struggled under intense persecution and lamented the brokenness of a world torn by plagues, wars, and natural disasters.  And the church today, struggling to maintain a posture of hope and expectation when the best human efforts to provide peace and basic human flourishing have failed.  The message of Revelation is this: The God who governs the universe hasn’t given up on our world.  Even now God is moving human history toward the second Advent and the renewal of all things.  The Jesus who first appeared as a baby will come back to us as a King, claiming his victory over the forces of injustice, abuse, sickness and hunger and despair.  Let your celebration of first Advent anticipate the second by bringing a taste of this victory – hope, love, joy and peace – to the world around you.  

The Beginning of Wisdom

Passage: Psalm 111

If the Old Testament proverbs present the practical wisdom of God’s wisest people, the Psalms provide the theological foundation for that wisdom.  Walter Brueggemann identifies in the Psalms an overview of the order woven through our world and the character of the one who ordered it.  The Psalms argue, again and again, that the heart of wisdom lies in knowing the heart of God the Creator.  Brueggemann writes,

“[The psalms] are expressions of creation faith. They affirm that the world is a well-ordered, reliable, and life-giving system, because God has ordained it that way and continues to preside effectively over the process.  At the same time, there is a profound trust in the daily working of that system and profound gratitude to God for making it so.  Creation here is not a theory about how the world came to be. That is not how the Bible thinks about creation. It is rather an affirmation that God’s faithfulness and goodness are experienced as generosity, continuity, and regularity.  Life is experienced as protected space.  Chaos is not present to us and is not permitted a hearing in this well-ordered world.” (The Message of the Psalms, p.26)

As such, wisdom (from a biblical perspective) is not leveraging one’s strength or savvy to secure the best future for oneself. Instead it is living with a moment-by-moment awareness of one’s dependence on God; and submitting one’s every moment to God’s guidance and God’s provision.  This willingness to depend on God yields two results: first, an abiding sense of peace and gratitude based on the assurance of God’s presence and protection; second, a life focused not on individual priorities (personal prosperity and self-gratification) but on God’s priorities for all of creation.  Brueggemann adds:

“The Psalms assert that the creation finally is committed to and will serve the Creator.  The Psalms thus are anticipatory of what surely will be.  Strangely enough, they may serve as a point of criticism against the status quo, to assert that when the Creator’s way comes to fruition, the inadequate present arrangements will be overcome.” (Psalms, p.28)

The history and trajectory of American culture attests to the fact that a society governed primarily by self-interest eventually frays and unravels.  God persistently corrects his people’s worst instinct – namely, to live primarily for self.  And God compassionately redirects our attention to the needs of our families, communities, cities, and world.  True wisdom aligns our hearts with God's – a God whose priority is reconciliation; redemption; and restoration.  The author of Psalm 111 rightly places wisdom within a life that honors God and embraces God’s objectives.  As the author concludes, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…”

Getting from the First Part to the Second Part

Passage: Hebrews 9:1-15

The author of Hebrews goes to great lengths to describe the ways the Jewish religious system is completed in Jesus Christ.  In Hebrews 9 he talks about the two parts of the tabernacle.  The first part is called the “Holy Place”.  In it, God’s people purify themselves using sacred objects, rites and sacrifices.  By repeating the purification process, the people are made “holy”, that is set apart as belonging to God.  If they observe the rituals faithfully they maintain their status as the chosen people.  But the tabernacle has a second part: the “Most Holy Place”.  It’s the space in which, once a year, one specific priest represents all of God’s people before the very presence of God.  The first part of the tabernacle serves as preparation for the second part.  It’s the second part that humanity has always wished to enter – to commune with God face-to-face, the way we did in the beginning.  Yet this second part has always been, for the most part, off limits.

Until now, says the author of Hebrews.  Jesus Christ has changed all the rules.  Jesus has replaced the first part of the tabernacle.  His blood has replaced all the other sacrifices and rituals, purifying us once and for all.  Jesus makes every one of us holy enough to enter the very presence of God.  In Jesus God meets us face to face.

There’s one catch.  The author of Hebrews says,

…the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing  (which is symbolic for the present age). According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper…

His argument is this: as long as you continue to cling to some rite, sacrifice, or incantation to get you close to God, you’ll never enter the Most Holy Place.  The rituals that used to set us apart now serve as a barrier to intimacy with God.  The only way into God’s presence is to accept that you can’t do it on your own.  The only way into the second part of the tabernacle is to tear down the first.  Let go of the belief that you can earn God’s love or curry God’s favor.  Embrace instead the great High Priest and the new covenant – the one sealed in his own blood.  The Most Holy Place – the very presence of God – has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ.  

A Cloud of Anger

Passage: Lamentations 3:40-45

In my work as a counseling intern, and later as a pastor, I’ve worked with a number of people whose marriages were in trouble.  In many of these cases, one or both partners had become so embittered – by a past affair; by a pattern of neglect or abuse; by a single irritating quality that, repeated over decades, had become intolerable – that almost no amount of remediation could soften their hearts to the possibility of love.  It’s as though an impermeable cloud of anger had settled into the middle of the marriage.  And try as they might, the partners seeking reconciliation couldn’t break back into the affections of the other. 

In Lamentations 3, Jeremiah describes the heart of God as “wrapped with anger”.  He says God has “wrapped himself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through.”

The people of Israel had spent many years deluded, thinking that God had to accept them because they were his chosen people.  When they finally realized the grievous way they’d neglected their relationship, it was too late.  God’s heart was closed to them, and they were on their own.

This is our fear, when we’ve neglected our relationship with God and abused his love.  That he has cut us off and wrapped himself with anger.  That our prayers fall on an impermeable cloud.

But God’s heart is no longer sealed off from us.  God refused to guard his heart.  In the person of Jesus Christ he burst through through the cloud.  The anger with which God had wrapped himself fell upon Jesus at the cross.  Jesus became “scum and garbage among the peoples”, suffering God’s anger and rejection on our behalf.  And now, because of what Jesus Christ did on our behalf, there will never again be a cloud between us and God.  Jesus is our direct line to the throne room of heaven.  He is our guarantee that God’s only response, when we return to him, is love.