Christmastide #2 of 2: The Twelve Days.

The Light shines in the darkness,

and darkness cannot overtake it.

(John 1:5)

A woman friend, during a beautiful Christmas dinner, shared how she missed the fast of Advent contrasted with the feast of Christmastide. She was an observant Catholic. In her tradition, you hold off Christmas feasting until after Advent, and then you get twelve days of Christmas, called “Christmastide,” to celebrate the birth of Christ. It seemed to her we were jumping the gun.

We were mostly Protestants, evangelical types, around the table. We tend to jump over fast days and get quickly to feasting. Maybe that’s why we don’t make much of Christmastide with its twelve days of Christmas. We’ve already done our feasting.

Those who follow more closely the Christian calendar, like our observant Catholic friend at the table, have a point. The weeks of Advent move towards the darkest days of winter. During Christmastide, the tide of darkness meets the tide of light and days get brighter. Nature itself joins in the celebration. Christmas turns the tide.

Christmastide #1 of 2: Christmas Day:

The Word became Flesh

(John 1:14)

On this Christmas morning we celebrate that day when God the Son became baby Jesus. The church fussed some about when we should celebrate God becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Some thought it should best be celebrated at Jesus’ baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and “a voice was heard from heaven” saying, “This is my beloved Son.”  At adulthood, when Jesus did miracles, that’s when the Word became flesh, they would argue. But, eventually the church settled into the Gospel Story, that baby Jesus was Immanuel—God in a manger.

When you gather today to read again the Christmas story; notice how human it is, almost as if there was nothing supernatural about it. Just an ordinary couple; Mary, with child, on a donkey and Joseph leading them south towards Bethlehem because of some arbitrary decree by Roman power. Yet, at the same time there’s the angels’ song, and that star in the east. That’s the way the Bible is. The human story of the Holy Family is never lost in the Divine story of God’s dealings with us. Christmas, the most Divine story ever told; is, at the same time, the most human story ever told.

Advent #10 of 10:

Abraham begat Isaac… David begat Solomon

(Matthew 1:1-17)

It takes a lot of begetting to get from Abraham to David to “Mary, of whom Jesus was born” (Mt 1:16). “Begat” means we have something more than a genealogical list. We have a story. A story made up of all sorts of surprising begets stories, like how it is that David begat Solomon.

That’s how the Bible is. It prefers stories over lists. Or, if you have a list—say the Ten Commandments, you can’t just go one, two, three… you have to tell the story about what happened that day “when you stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds. Then the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice” (Dt 4:8-14). If you didn’t tell the story, you didn’t tell it right.

So it is with our Lord’s genealogy. It’s full of surprising stories—the stories of the women most surprising of all. Tamar gets a whole long complicated begat story ending with Judah saying: "She is more righteous than I” (Gn 38:26). Then there’s Rahab, and then Ruth who gets a whole Book for her begat story—a story that won’t stop calling her, “Ruth the Moabites;” just so we don’t forget. All three women are Gentiles; and, maybe Bathsheba as well, since she was married to Uriah the Hittite.

What a jumbled lineage. Even its prominent heroes, Abraham and David, have their spiritual struggles and notorious shortcomings. Isn’t it something that the Bible wants us to know such begat stories? Maybe it’s to get us to the Virgin Mary. On Christmas morning, Jesus is born into this tangled lineage of Promise; only Jesus’ begetting will be different.

Advent #9 of 10:

The son of David, the son of Abraham

(Matthew 1:1)

It’s from the lineage of David that Jesus receives his title “The Messiah.” “Messiah” means “anointed” as in “The Lord’s Anointed” (Ps 2 & 72). The Greek title “Christ” means the same. So, the Messiah is the Anointed One who fulfills God’s promise to the lineage of David. Christ’s kingdom will be eternal. It will not be won by sword and violence; nor, will it be ruled by domination and exploitation (Jn 18:36). The reign of Christ will be a different kind of kingdom.

As a descendent of Abraham, Jesus fulfills God’s promise that through Abraham “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gn 12:3). Like Abraham, the Christ Child will be for all people. As we sing during Advent (Charles Wes­ley, 1745):

1. Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

2. Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a king,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

“Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth Thou art.” That’s the Promise that comes from the lineage of Abraham. That’s how we get in on it.

Advent #8 of 10::

The record of the lineage…

(Matthew 1:1)

That’s how Matthew begins his Gospel. The Eternal Son did not just drop from the sky: “He was born of a woman, born under the Law” (Ga 4:4). His family tree stretches back a thousand years to David; and, even further, another thousand years to Abraham: “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt 1:1).

From David comes the promise that his “kingdom will be established forever” (2Sam 7:14). It didn’t appear so. The immense empires of Babylon, Persia, Greece and now Rome seemed to put an end to the Promise. Yet, all along, God’s people continued to sing songs of “the sprout of David,” who would be “God’s Anointed One” (Ps 132). And the prophets spoke of a day when “the root of Jesse will arise” (Isa 11:10); and “a fresh shoot from the tree of David… will set things right” (Jer 33:15).

When we cut down our big tree in the front yard, the landscaper saturated its roots with Roundup thinking that should do it. But, by and by, little sprouts started popping up out of the ground. Eventually, we had to bring in heavy equipment to dig out the roots. I haven’t seen a sprout since, but I wouldn’t count it out. Who knows? Maybe the next owners will notice a sprout coming up from somewhere deep in the ground. Perhaps our young neighbors, who will then be as old as we were when we cut the tree down, will remember and say, “That looks like a sprout from a big tree the Heath’s cut down.” That is how it went with the Tree of David. In the midst of the world’s mighty kingdoms, the kingdom of David lies hidden awaiting the “fulness of time” (Ga 4:4).

Advent 7 of 10: Hanukah & Christmas:

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

(Romans 9:2)

What’s causing the Apostle such sorrow: “I anguish …for my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Ro 9:1-5).

During Advent we spend time with the Apostle’s “kindred according to the flesh”. We too, are Abraham’s children, adopted by faith. Israel’s story is our story. And yet, and here is the sorrow, just when Advent meets Christmas, we depart and go our separate ways—they to the lights of Hanukah and we to the lights of Christmas.

This rift has a tragic history. For example, the Holocaust, carried out by a Christian nation. Yet, there were Christian leaders, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, who formed the Confessing Church to protest the Nazification of the State Church. Albert Einstein noticed:

Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth, I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and more freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly (The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, p. 40).

The Apostle’s anguish continues for three complex chapters ending with a doxology and an “Amen”:

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

"For who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?"

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen (Ro 11:33-36).

The doxology and the “Amen” means the tragic rift will not be the last word. It is part of the Gospel Story. There is hope Hanukah and Christmas might someday be one. That’s why we must treat those who light the Menorah with faith, hope and love.

Advent 6 of 10:

They stored the defiled stones…

until a prophet should come

                                       and tell what to do with them.                    

(First Maccabees 4: 41-46)

One hundred sixty seven years before the birth of Christ; the Syrian king, Antiochus Epiphany, transgressed the Jerusalem Temple and claimed it as his own. He sacrificed pigs on the altar of burnt offerings. For the next three and a half years, sacrifices were offered to Zeus, the king of the Greek gods. Four books of the Maccabees tell the story of the upheaval and the Jewish revolt that sought to cleanse and restore the temple after “the Gentiles had defiled it.” Hanukah celebrates the retaking of the temple and dedicating it to God—that place where God would have dealings with his people.

Yet, they couldn’t help but wonder about those years Antiochus desecrated the temple: “They deliberated what to do about the altar of burnt offering, which had been profaned. …So they tore down the altar, and stored the stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until a prophet should come to tell what to do with them” (1Macc 4:41-46). The cleansing of the temple awaits “a prophet” —”The Prophet,” who alone can cleanse and renew sacred space. This is an Advent longing, that God will create new, undefiled, sacred space to be with his people—to be Emmanuel, “God with us.” It will be a surprise how Jesus cleanses the temple and how he renews the temple.

I can't help but wonder about that pile of stones set off to the side of the temple mount. Folks must have wondered, “What’s that pile of stones doing over there on the edge of the mount?” And those who knew the story would retell how the stones got there and how they were waiting for the One who alone could cleanse such defilement.

Advent #5.1 of 10:

With Healing in his Wings.

(Malachi 4:2)

Sunday afternoon, along with our friends whose home had been plundered the week before, we attended a presentation of “A British Christmas” by the Valley Concert Chorale. The performance began with the choir singing from the back of the sanctuary Once in Royal David’s City. The pipe organ accompanied without overwhelming. One could hear the words to the haunting melody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ9JVAzDpxs. The audience was invited to sing along on the third stanza as the chorale formed a processional to the dais. I couldn’t sing without tears. Hard to explain. I suppose it has to do with age. I’m moved by tradition, beauty and pageantry. All this high culture with the simplest of lyrics: “Once in royal David’s city, stood a lowly cattle shed…” I love every word: “once” for example. It doesn’t happen every day; but, “once in royal David’s city” it happened.

Afterwards, during dinner, we discussed things. We talked of the break-in of their home and the beauty of the concert. They said, more than once and in several different ways, “This has been healing.”

They were so grateful for all the friends and family who helped put their plundered home back in order; making it beautiful once again. But during dinner, they went on to talk of a personal healing that has to do with that “lowly cattle shed,” as the choir sang, “where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed.” As the prophets foretold, this is The One who comes to us “with healing in his wings.” It is the kind of healing that restores our shattered souls and makes us whole.

Advent #5 of 10:

Even though the inclination of the human heart is evil.

(Genesis 8:21)

Thieves broke into our friends home while they were vacationing in Hawaii. They returned immediately to view the pillage, catalog their losses and put things back in order—“Just things,” they tell me.

Yet, there is this lingering hurt that our “just things” rationale cannot satisfy or heal. Something deeper and personal had been violated. The Bible word “trespasses” comes to mind. It’s one of those sin words that speaks of violating the boundaries and defying sacred space.

It’s the kind of insult that riles God: “The wickedness of humankind was great, and every inclination of their hearts was evil”; resulting in the flood. “But God remembers Noah” and the waters subside. Nothing changes much after the flood. “The human heart is still evil”. If anything changes it comes from God’s side. He decides to stick with his fallen creation “even though the inclination of the human heart is evil.”

That “even though,” makes it an Advent story. The rainbow is an “even though” sign that somehow God is going to keep the world open and see his creation through until The One arrives who enables us to “forgive those who trespass against us.”

Why Follow the Christian Calendar? #3 of 3:

Together with all who in every place

call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

(First Corinthians 1:2)

That’s another reason I migrated towards the Christian Calendar—it was a way of identifying with the big church that in all times and all places “calls on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours” (1Cor 1:2). This big, deep and ancient faith we call “orthodoxy”.

“Orthodoxy” comes from two Greek words: orthos meaning “straight’ as in orthodontist—the one who works at getting our teeth straight; and, doxa meaning “glory” or “glorious”. To be orthodox means we attend to getting the glory right. It’s a worship word—how do we best glorify our glorious God? The Creed and the Calendar serve, and has served for nearly 1,700 years, to help the church glorify God correctly—it straightens us out.

“Glory” has the sense of weight as in the “eternal weight of glory” (1Cor 4:17). True glory is weighty. It has a gravitational pull to it. We can take off on all sorts of lightweight ideas; but, the “weight of glory” has a way of reining us in. The Creed and the Calendrer keep us real and weighty.

Bonus: Watch how the Calendar celebrates the Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,    = Advent                                                              

        creator of heaven and earth;                           

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord:                                  

        who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,                          

        born of the Virgin Mary,                   = Christmas

        suffered under Pontius Pilate,            = Lent

        was crucified, died, and was buried   = Good Friday

        he descended to the dead.                   = Dark Saturday

        On the third day he rose again;           = Easter Morning

        he ascended into heaven,                     = Ascension Thursday

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

        and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,                          =Pentecost Sunday                                            

        the holy catholic church,                                   

        the communion of saints,                                                 

        the forgiveness of sins,

        the resurrection of the body,

        and the life everlasting.

AMEN.

Why Follow the Christian Calendar? #2 of 3:

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

(Second Corinthians 3:17)

Non-liturgical churches, like our own, tend to reject the liturgical calendar fearing it replaces the freedom of the Holy Spirit. We tend toward more contemporary and spontaneous worship. The Christian Calendar is too scripted. Why not just let the Spirit move and see what happens?

Does the Calendar edge out the workings of the Holy Spirit? I suppose it could if it were set in stone. However, I’m constantly surprised by the openness and flexibility of the Calendar. It’s spacious. It provides ample room for the Spirit’s leading and prompting.

We are free to make it our own. For example, last Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent, a young couple came forward to light the first and now second candle of the Advent Wreath, and then read an Advent text from Isaiah—the one about how Jesus will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  All beautiful with two more candles to go, plus the Christ candle in the center saved for Christmas Eve when the whole wreath is set ablaze on that dark night. This is our own touch on the Ancient Calendar. It brings us, as our Lord teaches, “something old and something new” (Mt 13:52).

My deepest experiences of the love of Christ tend to come on those cold dark Christmas Eve nights when we gather to worship. As we enter, each one receives a little candle. Towards the conclusion of the celebration, while singing “Silent Night, Holy Night,” we light our own little candles from the flame of the Christ candle. With all candles set aflame, we linger and share many hugs filled with laughter and joy.

Why Follow the Christian Calendar? #1 of 3:

Do not let anyone condemn you in matters of observing festivals...

(Colossians 2:15)

Moses and the Law prescribed three festivals: Passover in spring, Pentecost in summer, and Tabernacles in the fall. Since Jesus fulfilled the Law, we are no longer obliged to observe: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law” (Ga 4:4-5).

Christ frees us from prescribed feasts and fasts, festivals and rituals. “Therefore,” as the Apostle instructs us, “do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or Sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ” (Col 2:16-17).

So, we are free. We need not follow the Christian Calendar or any other contrived rituals and regulations (Col 2:18-20). If we follow the Christian Calendar, we do so out of our freedom. It’s not the Gospel. It’s not the “substance”. But maybe it’s one of those shadows that can help some of us stick close to the “substance”— the Gospel and the fulness of Christ.

The Christian Calendar was not “handed down” to me. Neither my denomination, nor my church, nor my family paid notice—too Catholic and liturgical, I suspect. The Calendar came to me during my early years of pastoring. I noticed how much of church life depended on me—what God was doing in my life. The personality of the pastor seemed everything. It was a burden I could not bear. The congregation deserved something bigger than what God was doing in my life. For me, the Christian Calendar became that bigger thing to guide and feed the congregation, and me as well.

Advent #4.1 of 10:

The woman was deceived.

(First Timothy 2:14)

I wish the Apostle had not said it. At least, not the way he did. There is some truth to it. The woman was deceived. However, in no time, the man joined in—deceived as well. The curse falls on both and all.

This Advent hope, the first promise of Christmas, does not come through the man, but through the woman. The Serpent will meet his end through the “seed of the woman” (Gn 1:15). What the Serpent put in motion through the woman will recoil back on him through The Woman. Maybe, that’s what the Apostle had in mind when he quickly adds: “Nevertheless, the woman will bring salvation through childbearing” (1Tm 2:15).

It means, from the start, the woman is not looked upon so much as “the deceived” as she is the one who will one day turn the tables on the deceiver. Through her and her seed, the deceiver meets his end.

Something could be said as well about how man is out of the picture. Just as Adam went to sleep when God did his woman work; so man in his power, will be out of the picture when the Mother of our Lord “conceives by the Holy Spirit” (Lk 1:35). Man becomes the helper, as woman takes center stage. Christmas will be something  between God and the Woman.

Advent #4 of 10:

The seed of the woman will crush the serpent.

(Genesis 3:15)

The serpent’s temptation brings about “the curse”. But tucked away somewhere deep down in the curse there is hope: “Creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the One who subjected it, in hope” (Ro 8:20). This hope has to do with the woman. It is a hope at first vague and riddled, but a hope that will make its way all the way to Bethlehem.

The curse brings futility and death to God’s good creation: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gn 3:19). But, if one looks closely, you will notice that God’s “No” has a “Yes” in it. That’s just the way God is. The curse will not be the last word.

God’s “Yes” has to do with the woman:  First, in the midst of death she will bring forth life. It is such a wonder that her name will be changed from Woman to Eve, “the life giver”. Because of her, “with the help of the Lord,” life goes on—humanity lives on.  It is life unto death, but life nonetheless—enough life to see something of us living on in our children and our children’s children.  Second, and an even greater wonder, the wonder of all wonders, from woman and her seed will come The Woman whose offspring will turn the tables on the serpent. That’s the riddled part—a riddle placed right at the beginning of the curse—a hint that there is from the beginning something tucked away down deep in the curse that will someday turn the tables bringing an end to death and liberating us to life eternal.

That’s how we sing it when Christmas comes: “He comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found…” (Joy to the World).

Advent #3.1 of 10:

The Word was God

(John 1:1)

Probably something should be said about that word “Word" that appears in the first chapter of John’s Gospel. I’ll try. It’s a translation of the Greek word logos which, for the most part, is simply and properly translated as “word”. With words we tell our stories, or give an account, or put things in order, or try to make sense of things.

Which leads philosophers and poets to use logos in a deeper sense meaning “reason,” or “rational order.” The logos is that which makes sense of things. We get our word “logic” from it as well as a host of “ology” words like biology and sociology; by which we mean “the study of”. So “biology” is the study of life and sociology is the study of social structures. Today, we think of such studies in more scientific ways as methods for discovering the mechanisms of life or society. For philosophers and poets of old, logos had to do with discovering the meaning of things. What is the meaning of life? Or, what is the “Meaning” that underlies all things? That’s the logos of poets and philosophers.

Thus, we might translate John’s poetic use of logos something like this: “In the beginning was the Meaning, and the Meaning was with God, and the Meaning was God.” The Chinese version of the Bible, I’ve been told, translates logos in John chapter one with the word “tao”: “In the beginning was the Tao…” Lewis would like that (his “Illustrations of the Tao” in The Abolition of Man).The idea is that the Word that calls all things into being continues to echo. Poets and philosophers contemplate this sustaining echo of the eternal Logos.

My hunch is that poets and philosophers would have little trouble with John’s first stanza. They would nod their heads in approval: “Yes, in the beginning was the Logos…” It’s not until the last stanza of John’s poem that the philosophers and poets realize John is talking about something they could never imagine. We’ll save that shocking surprise for Christmas.

For now, Advent has to do, not only with how Israel’s prophets foretell the mystery and wonder of Christmas, but also how some of the poets and philosophers long for it as well. There’s something universal about Advent. As the Apostle Paul said to the Athenian philosophers: “Even some of your poets have said…” (Ac 17). All humans wonder about such things. As we sing during Advent: “Dear desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart” (Come Thou Long Expected Jesus). An echo of that sustaining Logos, spoken before the beginning, still lingers in God’s creation.

Advent #3 of 10:

In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

(John 1:1)

The Word speaks before the beginning: “Let there be light.” And from that Word “light shines and darkness could not overtake it” (Jn 1:5)—from that Word, there’s light instead of darkness, there is something instead of nothing.

God speaks creation into being out of his absolute freedom—no need on his part. God is quite at peace within himself—Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the love and delight that flows within the infinitely spacious Godhead. Out of his eternal love and pleasure, God calls forth the heavens and the earth. The people of God can’t help but sing about it (Ps 33):

Praise the Lord with the lyre;

  make melody to him with the harp.

Sing to him a new song;

  …the earth is full of his love.

For by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made,

   and all their host by the breath of his mouth.

The whole of our triune God is in on it:  God the Father who creates all things; and, God the Son who redeems all things; and, God the Holy Spirit who hovers over all things (Gn 1:1-4). Advent reminds us that Christmas was always and eternally in the heart of God. It’s just the way God is.

Advent #2 of 10:

In the beginning was the Word

(John 1:1)

That’s how the Gospel according to John begins. It’s the back story; or, the Advent part of the Christmas story that speaks of “the Word” that existed before the beginning began. Sometimes we wonder if our “handed down faith” can be “honest faith” (2Tm 1)? Maybe we were just born into it. How does our “handed down faith” become our own personal, real and authentic faith? For starters, it’s helpful to recall that our faith is in something bigger than our family, or clan, or church, or denomination. It’s not the invention of my parents or my parent’s parents or of Western Culture. The object of our faith is the Eternal Word before the beginning—before the origin of the universe, before the big bang put stuff in motion. Before the beginning began, there was the Eternal Word.

The creeds and the calendar help us recall the vastness of our faith—the trusted path of our faith in the Christ of Christmas.

Thanksgiving to Advent:

An Honest Faith handed down from your Grandmother Lois

(Second Timothy 1:5)

It was easy to be grateful on Thanksgiving Day. The meal itself was something of a miracle. When our oven malfunctioned it seemed all was lost. But family kicked in and managed to set table for all twenty-one of us—our whole family.

It so happens, we all share “an honest faith handed down.”  For each one, questions can’t help but come: “Is it really true?”  Maybe I believe because my parents and my parents’ parents believed? Or, maybe if I were born in Iran, for example, I would simply believe what Iranians believe? All fair and honest questions. What turns “faith handed down” into my very own “honest faith”?

Maybe the first thing to say about “honest faith” is that it welcomes such questions—otherwise it would not be honest faith. That’s the way with Jesus. He’s always open to our questions. Take Thomas’ question for example (Jn 14): Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you …and you know where I am going.” Thomas says to Jesus, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus is not offended by Thomas’ question. He welcomes it. Without it, we would not have Jesus' answer: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life...”

Our faith isn’t about vague religious or philosophical thoughts; but rather, a belief that Christmas and Easter are really so. Which gets me to Advent when we celebrate the beginning of the Big Story that envelopes all our little stories—like the little story of our miracle Thanksgiving Dinner, for example. Our Christian Calendar celebrates this Big Gospel Story that begins before the beginning and ends without end.

During the reception of one of those Winter’s weddings, a couple of Stanford smart young men—cousins, I believe; engaged me in interesting conversation concerning the various paths one takes up the mountain. “It’s not the path that matters,” they argued, “but the mountain.” I asked, “What path have you chosen?” They explained how they were pondering their path. I have a hunch they are still pondering. Honest Faith chooses its path. I can’t imagine a better path than that one path that celebrates Christmas and Easter.

Advent #1 of 10:

In the Fullness of Time

(Galatians 4:4)

This Sunday—the Sunday after Thanksgiving, begins the celebration of our Christian Calendar from Advent to Pentecost. Of course, there is something quite Christian about the whole of our calendar—like 2019 for example, marking 2,019 years since what? Something big must have happened (Ga 4:4-7):

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem us from the law, so that we might be adopted as God’s children. It is the Spirit of his Son coming into our hearts that causes us to pray “Abba! Father!”—“Dear Father!”

The First Sunday of Advent—this Sunday, reminds us that time has a fulness to it. We can’t just drop in on Christmas out of nowhere. We need some time—that’s Advent, four Sundays to prepare us for Christmas. It’s a big story taking in the whole “fullness of time”.

Buildings:

Even the highest heaven cannot contain You!

(First Kings 8:27)

Last Saturday evening we were blessed to spend time with pre-sanctuary VCC people—the people without whom, with God’s call upon their lives, there would be no VCC sanctuary. One in particular, shared with me that he was once again working on a VCC building project to replace those smelly portables that we promised the city, some twenty years ago, we would replace.

This morning, by the fire pit, thinking of our conversations last Saturday night and all those church building projects we had been through; I reread the story of King Solomon’s Temple. Being the wisest of all mortals, Solomon knew his beautiful new temple could not contain God. So he wisely prayed that our uncontainable God would nonetheless allow his Name to dwell there—as he had promised Moses during those wandering days of the Tabernacle. Not unlike VCC’s story. We too wandered about from one school multipurpose room to another until we were able to build that Road, and by and by, build something of a place—eventually, even sanctuary, where His Name could dwell.

Our English word “church” means “the Lord's house”. Some think it a poor translation of the N.T. Greek word ekklēsia which means simply “the assembly” or “the gathered”. It’s not about the building, but about how the scattered gather in His name wherever they gather—down by the river as in the early days of Philippi; or, at Priscilla and Aquila’s big house in Corinth or Rome. If VCC’s buildings were to burndown tomorrow, we would gather in the ashes on Sunday Morning and sing praises to His name. We would still be church without all those buildings. It is always by grace that the scattered gather to greet with a “holy kiss” and to sing praises, and to hear again the gospel message.

Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be ungrateful of us if we did not give thanks for these beautiful buildings, thoughtfully designed and carefully built through the sacrifice of the gathered community—of those faithful folks I spent time with last Saturday night?

Festivals:

Keep the Festival

(Second Corinthians 5:8)

In The Silver Chair, when the children finally climb out of the underworld, they find themselves in the midst of one of those Narnia festivals. They hear “wild music, intensely sweet and yet just the least bit eerie too.” It is the music of The Great Snow Dance performed every year on the first moonlit night when there is snow on the ground. Lewis describes it all:

On fine nights when the cold and the drum-taps, and the hooting of the owls, and the moonlight have got into their wild, woodland blood and made it even wilder, they will dance till daybreak. I wish you could see it for yourselves. (p. 232)

There’s something to be said for keeping festival (1Cor 5:8):

Therefore, let us celebrate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of authenticity and truth.

Thanksgiving throws us into the Festal Calendar: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Easter. Like the Great Snow Dance, Easter also has something to do with the moon—the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox. When we do it right, “with authenticity and truth,” not only is God honored; but, humanity as well. At such times, when we enter fully into the festival with our songs and celebration, the gospel story works its way deep inside us and we become authentically human.

Drifted Off:

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father

(Jesus, John 14)

 Okay, I drifted off for a while. I’ve been knee-deep in D.B. Hart. It all started some time ago when a student working towards his PhD thesis, abandoned his master’s thesis argument for a “passibilists” understanding of God, for the opposite vision called “impassibility”. His change of view took me by surprise. I learned that D.B. Hart had something to do with it. So I read (eventually) Hart’s The Beauty of the Infinite—a metaphysical (for the most part) journey into the beauty and wonder of our Triune God. Last semester, a student had me reading Atheist Delusions by Hart. That lead into Hart’s The Story of Christianity; and now, my actual theologian buddy has me reading and discussing with him Hart’s latest: That All Shall Be Saved. Which parlayed me into his remarkable New Testament Translation. Thus, I find myself Harted out. “Uncle”—I’ve had enough. It’s not easy pretending to be an academic.

So it’s back to the familiar: Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. A Lewis fan asked if I would read through it with him chapter by chapter. So we meet most every Tuesday morning at Inklings to discuss. It’s great. Here’s a TWHF quote for the day:

I, King, have dealt with the gods for three generations of men, and I know that they dazzle our eyes and flow in and out of one another like eddies on a river, and nothing that is said clearly can be said truly about them. (p. 50)

Why do I like that sentence?

Church:

Let us not give up meeting together.

(Hebrews 10:25)

I respect anyone who makes it to church on Sunday morning. For fifty years or so, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. If I didn’t show up for church on Sunday morning, I’d get fired. But now, in retirement, I don’t have to go to church. We are free to stay home and watch the football game.

It is work to go to church. You have to rally the whole family; or, in my case, there’s always some part of my physical body that’s malfunctioning enough to provide an excuse to forgo the task.

That is how we felt last Sunday. But we rallied. We put ourselves together. We made it to church. We did “not give up meeting together.”

Church was good. Church most always is. It’s just the getting there. There’s goodness in singing our songs of praise and in praying our prayers and in listening to the message and then participating in the Table; but last Sunday, I was reminded of the goodness of just being “together”. We lingered about so long after the service that we bumped into folks making their way to the second service. One couple we met, Kevin and Ellen Gray, we had not seen for a spell. Ellen, a poet, thanked me for a poem I had Kevin give her awhile back.

This encounter prompts Ellen to send me one of her poems: “Pilate’s Wife Listens for Crickets”. It was worth going to church on Sunday morning just for that—that poem. I’ll pass it on. It’s a reflection on a single sentence, one verse: “While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him a message…” (Mt 27:19). The man with all the power gets it wrong. The woman, like Mary and Elizabeth and Mary of Bethany along with all those Galilean women; get it—or, sort of get it. These women somehow get that Jesus is more. Give the poem a few reads, and imagine Pilate’s wife:

            Pilate’s Wife Listens for Crickets, by Ellen Gray

The crucifixions come after Passover

the chant of Pharisees

the cry of thieves

and what about me?

when your days are a lie

and your mirages are true

you go a little bit mad

from the window I see hanging

dead bodies, I shiver in loneliness

pacing over palace floors

rolling my sins over and over and

over, into an obsessive stone

standing like a cruel idol

on the path to green pastures

how unfixable living is

the weakness of laws

the losing rebellions

the blind violence of driving

a rusty nail through a human hand

three nights on earth

can feel like an eternity

waiting at the window

waiting at the door

waiting at the gate

for something like good news

the little chirp of life

almost starts too late

the silent grip of the night broken

by a beating chorus

neither seraphim or cherubim

but the lyrics of crickets

singing in the dark garden

repeating and repeating,

notes like a heartbeat

the comfort of call

and answer, assurance

revealed in the song

of a humble creature's wings.

One other surprise, it just so happens that the pastor spoke from the Epistle to the Ephesians about how we are God’s “poem” (2:10), from the Greek word poiēma from which we get our English word “poem”. It speaks of God’s special, thoughtful, creative work. We are God’s poem, isn’t that something?

Friday Night Lights:

Run to win.

(First Corinthians 9:24)

Last Friday, Linda and I drove north a ways to watch Gary and Janice’s grandson play quarterback for Analy High School. I watched for Gary. He wouldn’t be there. That’s the saddest thing about leaving this old world.

That night, Analy competed against longtime rival El Molino High, which is a little further north in Forestville, up towards the Russian River. They call this big game the “Golden Apple Bowl” from the days when Sebastopol up through Forestville was known as the Apple Capital of the world. The apple orchards are mostly gone now, replaced by vineyards. I suppose they should change it to “The Grape Bowl,” But the big, tall trophy remains apple topped.

I sat with Ken, Gary’s younger brother, who played fullback next to Mel Grey during Montgomery High’s glory days. Mel Grey went on to play in the NFL with the St Louis Cardinals. Ken and I talked some of the old days and marveled how Friday night football still holds up: cheerleaders, band, teenagers roaming about, and the game played under the lights.

Same Friday night experience, though some things had changed like apple orchards into vineyards.  Now, the play on artificial turf, that’s not good. When the turf was real, one, like myself who didn’t get much playing time, could always find enough mud to dirty up. There’s nothing worse than ending the game with a clean uniform. And, now they spread the formation from sideline to sideline—that’s different. When I played “end” it meant that I lined up at the right or left end of the line, but now there’s positions stretching out beyond the “end” so the “end” is no longer the “end”. Or again, now they go no-huddle—how do they do that? I had a hard enough time trying to hold the play in my head between the call in the huddle and the snap. Nevertheless, it’s still football—blocking, tackling, running; and, the most beautiful play in sports, the forward pass.

And could Gavin ever pass. He threw the football for 355 yards and four touchdowns. He played his heart out. He competed. They lost. It hurts to lose. But he’ll rally. He’ll show up for practice Monday. Next Friday, he’ll take to the field against Piner High, and “play to win.” I’ll miss that game. I hope he gets a “W”.

“Compete” and “run to win” doesn’t sound properly pious or biblical, does it? But at its best, competition means we care and we have the courage to take our place on the field. When we do it right, we “feel His pleasure” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd5LCN53q9Y).

Honky Tonkin & Gospel:

I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me.

(Psalm 51:3)

Last night Linda and I watched Ken Burns’ History of Country Music. It was the third episode mainly about Hank Williams. At the tail end of one of his Honky Tonkin tours singing songs like…

When you are sad and lonely and have no place to go

Call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough

And we’ll go honky tonkin’…

Williams lies drunk in the back seat of his touring car when his mother says, “We’re coming home, I can see the light.” He woke from his drunken stupor and wrote:

I wandered so aimless life filled with sin

I wouldn’t let my dear savior in

Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night

Praise the Lord I saw the light.

Honky Tonkin on Saturday night and making it to church on Sunday morning seems the way of Country Music. I’ve always suspected something superficial and unduly sentimental about Country Music’s way of following Jesus. Like many, the light he saw, didn’t seem to change much. Nevertheless, there was always Sunday morning. Maybe we make Sunday morning church so distant from Saturday night that folks like Hank Williams would never dream of coming to church. I’m not so sure we would know what to do with somebody staggering in the church’s front door recovering from a Saturday night bender.

There’s something else… After the singing of I Saw the Light, we hear a contemporary singer/songwriter, who marvels over the song, comment: “When an artist gets it right for himself, it’s right for everyone.”

It caused me to think of the many Psalm telling, like country mucic, a Saturday night story. Psalms, like:

-I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me. (Ps 51-David’s adultery)

            -I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched.

               -I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

               -Deliver me from deep waters. (Ps 69)

 And these Psalms were sung by the congregation—the song book of God’s gathered people. Somehow, the whole congregation gets it. And, so we sing about my sin and my crying and my deep waters. “When an artist gets it right for himself, it’s right for everyone”. Such Psalms, and there are many, may be closer to Hank Williams than Charles Wesley.

Sports:

Rejoice in the days of your youth.

(Ecclesiastes 11:9)

By one of those miracles of providence, I recently reconnected with one of my pro-athlete heroes. When his daughter discovered we were both at Lake Tahoe at the same time she arranged for us to rendezvous for breakfast. It had been near 50 years since he last played in the Big Leagues; and, some forty years since we last spent time together. Life, with all its vicissitudes, had separated us; but now, here we were, thanks to his daughter’s care, face to face.

One could recognize the face—the look, the smile, the laugh, the voice. It was him alright. Yet “time and chance” (Ecc 3—it’s all in Ecclesiastes) had taken its toll. Two old guys reminiscing the early days of church life when we gathered for worship in the multipurpose room of Amador High School. When we were young. That’s why the bible encourages us to “rejoice in our youth… before the days of trouble draw nigh when strong men are bent down” (Ecc 11&12).

At his major league debut, during the days of his youth with all his life before him, playing for the Oakland A’s, he hit a home run in Yankee Stadium. I remember him telling me about it—about how he couldn’t believe it, and how he looked in awe at Mickey Mantle as he passed first base. That’s something to rejoice about. Something like the one pass I caught playing High School football—or, maybe not.

I make too big a deal of sports—the Warriors or the 49ers or the A’s vying for a play-off slot. My only excuse is that the Apostle himself enjoyed sports. Seems he attended the Isthmian Games held just down the road from Corinth where he pastored for a year and a half. He tells us about the foot races: “Have you noticed how in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? … So do not run aimlessly” (1Cor 9). Paul noticed as well how these beautiful young athletes compete for a “perishable crown.” (9:25). It’s all so fleeting.

The Gospel tells us that in Christ we receive an “imperishable crown” fit for Glory. It’s a good thing. For the days of our youth are quickly gone. How was I to know, that within the month of our providential meeting, my pro-athlete hero would himself perish: “No one knows what is to happen” (Ecc 10). Who could have guessed? Maybe that’s why we spoke some about Jesus, and how it is that our Lord is preparing a place for us. He believed it was so.

Yes, but will we still play ball in heaven? I hope so. We will all be young and beautiful like that day Joe hit a home run over the right field fence in Yankee Stadium.

After Labor Day:

If you don’t work, you don’t eat.

(Second Thessalonians 3:10)

After Labor Day, we go back to work. This is never easy--“thorns and thistles” abound, always messing with our work. Nonetheless, God’s good creation needs our “cultivation and care”—our work. It’s our God given vocation to take our place of labor within God’s good creation.

It’s Luther who best teaches such things; never tires of honoring the work of the “maid who sweeps her kitchen” or the “cobbler working on shoes” or “haulers of manure, brewers of beer, and changers of diapers.” Work has to do with loving our neighbor in the place that God puts us. And, loving ones neighbor means doing right by them—to carry our load, and to treat others as we would like to be treated.

The Apostle reminds us, as well, that work has to do with putting food on the table. That’s a godly calling as well (1Tm 5:8). As the wisest of all mortals teaches us: “There is nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in your work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?” (Ecc 2:24-25)  That’s why we say Grace before meals.

Labor Day:

May the Lord delight in his works!

(Psalm 104:31)

We do well to honor labor. We get it from our Creator. We serve a working God—A God who not only Is but Does. We are part of God’s work—that unique creature that bears his Image: “Let us make them in our image …so in the Image of God he created them.” (Gn 1:26-27).

Like God, we have things to do:  1) To be fruitful in all our doings (2:28-31);  2) to cultivate and to care for God’s good creation—even Eden needed human attention (2:15).  3) to name all the animals. This naming is no small matter. Like God, out of our freedom, we speak. Even God seems interested in how we do: “The Lord God…looked on to see what he would call them.” There’s no second guessing. Whatever man comes up with “that was its name” (2:18-19). God doesn’t fuss with our freedom to name. This is our work of affirming every aspect of God’s good creation and making sure things are in order—they have a place and a name.

When we do our work well it turns into a vocation—even a calling. Our work plays its part in God’s good creation. Nobody taught this better than Martin Luther (16th cent.):

The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God

                        just as much as the monk who prays

                        not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps

                        but because God loves clean floors.

The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty

                        not by putting little crosses on the shoes,

                        but by making good shoes,

                        because God is interested in good craftsmanship.

When we do our work well we make things better and bring honor and glory to our Creator.