in the waiting room

Last Tuesday I made a mistake: I went to Urgent Care without my copy of War and Peace. I had a long wait. I am not sure I used it as well as I could.

Waiting for the Christ to come may feel a bit like waiting to be treated in Urgent Care. You get a few promises up front, and are told to wait.

Hours go by. What is going on? When will I be seen? Have I been forgotten? When will I be treated? When will I be whole again?

But that’s not it. There is more to the story.

Waiting for the Christ to come may feel even more like reading War and Peace. While you are in it, it is totally absorbing. Then eventually you finish the book.

All those characters, all those people you have met, even friends you have made among them, now disappear into a past memory, only a haze. You are no longer in the world of the novel: now you are in the “real world.”

Of course characters in a novel are merely shadows in a play. But we might feel like that ourselves, sometimes. This world may seem a brief and transitory place. Real life lies ahead, as well as all around us (though hidden), in the mystery of Christ and of the Resurrection.

And this is like Paul’s comment, “now we see as through a glass darkly: then we shall see face to face.” Imagine what it will be like to see Christ in person.

Every week when we take communion, and at holiday times like Christmas when we remember loved ones, we put ourselves in touch with not only those who like us see through a glass darkly, those who are living, but also with those who have gone on before us to see God face to face. We ourselves are not ready, we protest, for such a blessing. Just a little bit more time, please.

In his mercy God is preparing us so that when we do meet him face to face, in the life to come, we will be able to stand it. That “glass darkly” is a little like the smoked glass you used to watch an eclipse through; it kept you from being dazzled by too much light.

These eyes, that dazzled now and weak,
At glancing motes in sunshine wink,
Shall see the King’s full glory break,
Nor from the blissful vision shrink:

In fearless love and hope uncloyed
For ever on that ocean bright
Empowered to gaze; and undestroyed
Deeper and deeper plunge in light.

(John Keble, “Fourth Sunday in Advent”, The Christian Year)

We need to be prepared, so that—not on our own merits but by the grace of Christ—when we see God face to face we will be able to stand it.

A foretaste of that glory is ours today, in the mystery of the coming of Christ. And a foretaste of that mercy is ours as well, for God came to us not in the form of a ruler or a man of power (much as we might have hoped for that) but in the form of a helpless baby. He comes as prince of peace.

As Luther said, “Divinity may terrify us. Inexpressible mystery will crush us. That is why Christ took on our humanity, save for sin, that he should not terrify us but rather that with love and favor he should console and confirm. …he is come, not to judge you, but to save.”

(Roland H. Bainton, ed., The Martin Luther Christmas Book, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1948, p. 40)

Salvation, however, does not wait. The message of Jesus, and the joy of life with him, is not postponed until some later time, after death or the second coming. It is present with us here and now, brought forth for us first in the tiny manger-dweller we meet on Christmas morning.

In this humble and innocent form comes to us the majesty of God. In other words, we find God not in inaccessible realms of glory but in day-to-day, even humble, form.

And we continue to find him, in practical terms, in loving God in our neighbor.

“You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve him, for what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself.” (Luther, p. 38)

Even as we place our neighbor in the place of Christ, serving God in our neighbor, we begin to take on the characteristics Christ showed for us on Christmas morning.

He, the Son of God, being above all angels, did not take equality with God as a thing to be grasped onto, but allowed himself to be emptied into the form of a child, a helpless human infant. And then he began to serve.

“For unto you is born this day—that is, unto us. For our sakes he has taken flesh and blood from a woman, [so] that his birth might become our birth. I too may boast that I am a son of Mary. This is the way to observe this feast—that Christ be formed in us.” (Luther, p. 44)

And this is the secret: Christ in you, the hope of Glory. This is the season of a new birth—not only the birth of the Messiah 2000 years ago but also his emergence within our lives, as we become formed into the people God has called us to be.


JRL+

December 23, 2007
Saint Alban’s Episcopal Church
Edmonds, Washington

first cousins, once removed

John came like Elijah through the wilderness, calling the people to turn away from falsehood, to turn back to their true allegiance, to Almighty God. He called them to repent: to start clean, to be washed in the waters of the Jordan as their spiritual forefathers had when first they walked into the land of the promise.

He called them. He was a “voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’” He was the herald, the fore-runner: coming before, bearing glad tidings. The message he brought, to prepare the way of the Lord, is a message of impending – JOY.

And his joy is to be made complete in the coming of the Christ. “Are you the one we have been waiting for?” he asks Jesus; and the answer is YES! Look around you: see what is going on, what is happening. It is just beginning, but it is beginning to break through: the kingdom of heaven is at hand!

We look ahead this Sunday from the midst of Advent’s expectation to its fulfillment in the joy of Christmas. We light the pink candle. Today is “Gaudete Sunday”; “guadete” means REJOICE! Rejoice in the coming of the Savior. In the words of the 14th Century hymn:

Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary: rejoice!

The time of grace has come for which we have prayed; let us devoutly sing songs of joy.

God is made man while nature wonders; the world is renewed by Christ the King.

Therefore let our assembly sing praises now; at this time of preparation, let it bless the Lord. Greetings to our King!

Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary: rejoice!

And so we have a messenger who calls on us to prepare the way, to make room in our hearts and in our lives for the coming of the true King.

Let me read you a story. It is a story of some people, a boy and two girls, and some animals – beavers – who are traveling through a winter-bitten frozen landscape, running from the evil witch who has cast a spell on the land, where now it is “always winter and never Christmas!”

They run, and they hide, and they spend the night in a lonely cave, and even in their dreams they are pursued by the White Witch in her sledge drawn by tiny reindeer the color of snow.

They wake, and they do hear the bells of a sleigh. Mr. Beaver goes out to investigate. The children, and Mrs. Beaver, hear voices. They are alarmed. Is it the White Witch? Then comes Mr. Beaver’s reassuring voice:

[The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis, chapter 10]

And so you see Santa Claus came to Narnia. And he brought presents: TOOLS NOT TOYS – to equip the humans for the tasks ahead.

John the Baptist, as he called on people to prepare the way, provided a gift of a different sort: a clearing out, a ‘re-set’, and a readiness to start over and start fresh. Then the gifts become real. They become necessary – as the Savior comes.

Jesus, when he approached, began with the working of healing: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and this last: the poor are gladdened. They are glad because the Kingdom is coming, the reign of God on earth when all will be put to rights.

If you know your Narnia you know this is Aslan’s job: to overthrow the false reign of the White Witch, to set everything to rights, to release captives, to warm the frozen, to restore the lost, and to protect the innocent.

This is indeed the Day of the Lord that John proclaimed.

Son of Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, John grew up as one set apart, with a duty to perform. He was the one to prepare the way: and to herald the coming of the Messiah.

And this is what Mary was expecting Jesus to do: in her magnificent song of expectation and of triumph, she proclaims the greatness of God, who looks with favor on his lowly servant, and who brings to her and through her – in the bearing of the Christ Child – the time of grace for which we have prayed.

Therefore let our assembly sing praises now at this time of preparation; let us bless the Lord: Greetings to our King!

Rejoice! Rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary; rejoice!


______________

C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Macmillan, 1950) Chapter Ten: The Spell Begins to Break.

The Shorter New Oxford Book of Carols, edited by Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott (Oxford University Press, 1993), Carol 24, Gaudete!

David Adam, Clouds and Glory (SPCK, 2001) 3rd Sunday of Advent.

Isaiah 35:1-10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11, Canticle 15