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?