Tuesday, November 27, 2007
In-between
Thanksgiving is past as is the Festival of Faith and the time of stewardship emphasis. So Advent must be next. It is great to know that I have this week before Advent officially begins. However, the challenge to be ready to get ready is almost overwhelming. Sermons, teaching plans, programs are all in various stages of incompleteness. Of course, I want everything to be in order and perfect for what should be a most meaningful season of reflection and preparation. Yet, I feel that I will never get out of the wilderness and will miss the main event. How can I tell the Advent story and be heard over all the competing and distracting stories around me? Perhaps the problem is that I am peeking ahead to the last chapter and know what happens. Advent deserves our very best efforts. Wouldn’t it be better to live into these days with open eyes, ears and heart and then truly celebrate in the days following Christmas after the story truly unfolds in our lives? These in-between days are my last chance to decide how I will experience this most holy time of Advent. Come, Lord Jesus.
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2 comments:
I don't know if what I feel is the result of peeking ahead to the last chapter or the result of having depended on the Cliff Notes too many times. I wish that every five years we automatically contracted exegetical amnesia and had to hang on every word of the Nativity story because we didn't remember the denouement. It is not so much the ache of Paradise Lost or lost innocence as it is the menace of unimaginative orthodoxy and the danger of a too familiar and predictable theology that can make us too complacent to continuously become as wide-eyed-awe-inspired little children. It is still possible for an empirical old curmudgeon to be the little child who leads them.Sometimes, to keep the stories fresh, I play art director and mentally change the colors of all the characters costumes as I follow the storyline, and often I turn off the Hollywood soundtrack and replace the swelling music with brays and grunts and footsteps and the sound of mothers resisting the sound of blades being drawn from scabbards.I shuffle the geography until I am surprised when the flight into Tel Aviv unravels as the Flight Into Egypt. Keep it fresh. Keep the Faith.
I have wrestled with your reflections and Tom's insights (thank you, Tom, for acknowledging my participation on the blog and your kind words). Being older than either of you, I found myself remembering the Advents of years past, most of which were years of far less understanding of what faith in Christ was really all about. I used to say my faith was a yard wide and an inch high, and that may have been an exageration. I find myself now with a much different take on this season of preparation, anticipation, and hope. Perhaps those three words say it all. Now, when someone asks if I am ready for Christmas, I immediately reprhase the question to ask " Am I ready for the coming of Christ?". When all is said and done, the bottom line for me is whether I spend my time (my life?) trying to be ready. For me, that means that I am spending my time in pursuit of the goals Christ set for me: attending to the sick, the poor, the oppressed, the rejected, the marginalized; in other works, all of those that I avoided for too many years. Sadly, wisdom comes to those with more birthdays.
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