The Third Day of Christmas, 2020

 Christmas Day is behind us. Most families who gathered together for Christmas (many didn't) have said their goodbye's and are back home or are on their way home. Christmas decorations will soon be down and stored for another year. Christmas 2020 is in the books. 

And yet, it is only the third day of Christmas!? 

In the liturgical year, Christmas is more than just one day. It is a season - a twelve day season. That's what the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is all about. In the church, our tradition calls us to celebrate and reflect on the birth of Jesus for twelve days. 

But in our culture, Christmas is a day - December 25. And in our culture, Christmas is about family and being together with family.  And in our culture, Christmas is about Christmas cookies and candies, gift-exchanges, and parties. And, of course, in our culture, Christmas is about Santa. It's not that we don't acknowledge the birth of Jesus in our culture. We do. His birth is the backdrop to all we do. We even say "Jesus is the reason for the season." And we work a Christmas Eve worship service into our traditions. But the way we treat Christmas in our culture is like a respectful tipping of the hat in the direction of his birth. 

The way we do Christmas in our culture reflects the way so many of us treat God. We acknowledge God. We believe in God. We talk about having faith in God. We study about God in our Sunday School classes and Bible studies. And, of course, we participate in worship services. But, like with Christmas, our focus in all of this God-activity is really on us and what we think and what we enjoy. Ours is a man-centered Christianity. Man-centered Christianity is governed by the what's-in-it-for-me spirit that is inherent to our human condition. It plays to the ego. It's really about us, not God. 

A God-centered Christianity is like ... well, like Christmas as a twelve day season rather than a single day. In a God-centered Christianity, the focus is God ... just as the birth of Jesus is the focus of Christmas as a twelve day season. In God-centered Christianity,  our interest is in more than what God can do for us. Our interest is in who God is and in learning the ways of God. Jesus taught a God-centered Christianity, not a heaven-focused Christianity (i.e., man-centered). In the Model Prayer, Jesus  taught us to pray "hallowed be thy name." This phrase is a prayer for the world to be captivated by the beauty of God's character. Applied to our personal lives, it is a prayer that who we are would be shaped by a deep love for God. When he taught us to pray "thy kingdom come," he was teaching us to pray for the world shaped by the character of God in which the ways of God were lived. "Thy will be done" makes the prayer personal. It is a prayer that we would live the ways of God in our daily lives. In God-centered Christianity, we fall in love with God and God's ways. That translates into living the ways of God, in loving as Jesus loved, in loving who Jesus loved. 

A twelve-day Christmas season guides us into a God-centered Christianity. It invites us to reflect on the wonder of Jesus's birth - to ponder the mystery of the incarnation - to sit with what we cannot explain - to wait for the Spirit to give us insight that takes us beyond a surface understanding - to see beyond self-interest into what Jesus's birth tells us about God - to explore the depths of God's self-giving love. 

We can't move beyond the what's-in-it-for-me spirit when Christmas is a single day. We can't escape man-centered Christianity when Christmas is over when family goes home. We can't fall in love with who God is and with the ways of God by tipping our hat at the birth of Jesus. 

Today is day three in the Twelve Days of Christmas. It is the third day of Christmas. "On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ..."

Christmas Day, 2020 - Following Mary's Lead

This Christmas Day, perhaps we should take our cue from Mary. 

After the shepherds' visit, "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (Luke 2:19). Mary pondered - reflected on, turned over in her mind - what the shepherds had told her about the angels' announcement. If fact, three different times in Luke's account, Mary is said to have treasured and pondered what she experienced: when she was greeted by the angel Gabriel (1:29), here after the shepherds' visit, and after the pilgrimage to Jerusalem when Jesus was 12 (Luke 2:51). 

To treasure something is to recognize it as special - something more than the ordinary - not the run-of-the-mill kind of experience - something to be held onto - a gift. To ponder it is to hold it in our mind - turning it over and over - looking at it from first one angle, then the next - sitting with it, waiting and listening. To ponder is to embrace a posture of receptivity, open to the gifts that will be given. 

When we ponder something - sit with it, reflecting, waiting, and listening - we put ourselves in a position for the Spirit to speak to us. The Spirit gives us eyes to see beyond the surface of an event, ears to hear the meaning in the words. We are given the gift of in-sight - seeing beyond the surface into the heart of the experience. 

Through Spirit-guided eyes, ...

• we recognize the work of God in the midst of the mundane and ordinary - in an seemingly ordinary baby lying in an odd feeding-trough-for-a-bed. 
• we see beyond what is to what can be - will be - because of what God is doing.
• we see the beauty that filled heaven with joy at the birth of Jesus, causing it to burst forth into joyous song in celebration and praise.

And in seeing, we are drawn into the experience. We become more than observers. We become participants - in what God is doing, in bringing about the new that will be, in the joy that permeates all of creation because of who God is and what God is doing. 

Treasuring - pondering - sitting with - reflecting and listening and waiting - it is how we are drawn into the life-giving, life-enriching things God is doing. It is how we are changed, transformed into the likeness of the one whose birth we still celebrate these many years hence. 

Treasuring - pondering - sitting with - reflecting and listening and waiting - such is work of the Twelve Days of Christmas journey on which we embark.

This Christmas season, let's take our cue from Mary. Let's follow her lead. Who knows what kinds of gifts we will receive?! 

Love: the 4th Sunday of Advent, 2020

 The Advent season has once again ushered us to the doorstep of Christmas. 

In our culture, Christmas presents us with a huge juggling act. On the one hand, we contemplate the birth of the Christ child and speak of God's love - the spiritual Christmas. On the other hand, Christmas is about family (and friends) and being together as family - the sentimental Christmas. (This is the Christmas many of us are grieving this year because of the pandemic.) Then, there's the gift giving, Christmas parties, Christmas traditions, and Santa - the commercial Christmas. For many, there is the blue Christmas - the pain and heartache with which we live when one we loved has died, leaving only memories to fill the emptiness of their absence. Those living in the hopelessness of depression, addiction, and mental illness know a dark Christmas.  (Christmas cheer only adds to the darkness.) And, mostly beyond our awareness, the working poor and the homeless, struggling to survive, are bypassed by Christmas cheer. Their struggles are compounded by yet another bleak Christmas. 

I confess that I have struggled with Christmas throughout much of my life. I do not know how to juggle. At best, I can pitch one ball in the air and catch it. But more than one is beyond my ability. And that limited ability applies to juggling the different kinds of Christmases, too. I have depended on Etta for the family Christmas traditions and gift giving. I have depended on schedules and my role as a pastor for Christmas parties and celebrations. I have tipped my hat to the reality of the poor and homeless by making a financial contribution. I have endured my own dark Christmases as I have wrestled with depression for more years than I can count. 

Thankfully, I have made progress in dealing with Christmas. (I like to think of myself as a recovering Scrooge.) A major factor in my progress was my discovery and use of the Advent wreath. (I did not grow up in a liturgical church that followed the Advent season.) Following the Advent calendar has helped me focus on the spiritual dimension of Christmas. It has helped me focus on the mystery portrayed in a baby, wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a feed trough. It has helped me stay in touch with God's love, expressed in the gift of the Son. 

Love is the theme of this fourth week of Advent. The birth of the Christ - Mary's baby, wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a feed trough - the mystery of the incarnation - teaches us about love.

The Christmas story teaches us that love is the essence of God's character. Love is not just something God does on occasion. It is who God is at the core of God's being. God cannot not love anymore than the sun cannot not shine. God always lives out of this love-shaped character. Everything God does is an expression of love. That's what the biblical writer meant when he penned "God is love" (1 John 4:8). 

The Christmas story teaches us that love is focused on the good of the other. It is other-centered, not self-centered and self-serving. "God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. God ... sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:9, 10). Love addresses the need of the other. In the Son, God addressed the inner brokenness of our lives and the alienation that it creates. In the Spirit, God brings healing to that inner brokenness. Through the Son and the Spirit, God walks with us, nurturing our growth towards a Christlike maturity. 

The Christmas story teaches us that love is costly. Love gives freely and lavishly of self, without concern for the cost. In the incarnation, God set aside the "rights and privileges" of the Godhead to become human. (See Philippians 2:5-11.) And this robed-in-flesh is not just for the span of a brief, 30 year lifetime. It is for eternity. My professor spoke of this self-giving as "the impoverishment of the Godhead." God is inseparably linked to humanity for eternity. (Jesus's humanity is a central theme in the book of Hebrews where this mind-blowing understanding is portrayed.) 

And love was costly for Mary. We like to be sentimental about Mary. We echo her cousin Elizabeth in calling her "blessed" (Luke 1:42). But that was not what she was called in her hometown or among her friends! What did it cost Mary to be pregnant and not married in her culture? She never escaped the shadow of that stigma. What did it cost Mary when she thought Jesus had gone off the deep end? What did it cost Mary to sit at the feet of the cross and watch Jesus die? The Christmas story teaches us that love is costly. 

The Christmas story teaches us that love transforms. It changes us. God's love changes us when we experience it. Love changes us whenever we live out of it. Love does not leave us as it found us. It transforms us, bringing us ever closer to possessing God's character as our own. Love (God) will not give up on us until love is more than something we do on occasion. It is who we are at the core of our being.

The Christmas story teaches us that love is the blueprint of life. Love is not just God's nature. It is the nature of life itself. Fullness of life is only found in loving as Jesus loved. Life's brokenness and pain in its many manifestations are the product of our inability to love. Rather than focusing outward, on the need of the other, we have turned our focus upon ourselves and what we believe we need. Rather than giving to address the need of another, we grasp and accumulate and hoard out of fear of not having enough, out of the insatiable need for "more." We live out of fear. And so we live out of a self-focused, self-serving, what's-in-it-for-me spirit. We live out of step with how God designed life to be lived.

Finally, the Christmas story calls us to live its truth year round. Love, portrayed in a child, wrapped in strips of cloth, lying in a manger, is not a one time event. It is intended to be a way of life - our way of life just as it is God's way of life. We are to be Mary bringing God-in-the-flesh into the world. We are to be the Christ child embodying God's love in the world. We are to be the means by which love (God) brings healing and wholeness to the brokenness of our world. 

The way we live out the truth of the Christmas story is by focusing on those whom God prioritizes: the powerless, the marginalized, the poor, the exploited, the people viewed and treated as insignificant and "less than," the forgotten and overlooked (ignored?). Psalm 146:5-9 (one of our Advent readings) names them: the oppressed, the hungry, the prisoner, the blind, those who are bowed down, the strangers (immigrants), the orphan and the widow. These are the ones love (God) calls us to love. And not just at this time of year. And not by giving handouts. Love (God) calls us to love them the way God loved us: getting involved, sharing life, addressing their needs (at so many different levels) so that their lives are transformed.

So which Christmas do we experience this year? And how do we celebrate it? We can celebrate Christmas as the story of the birth of Jesus that took place 2,000 years ago. That kind of celebration makes us outsiders, looking in on the scene. It tends to be sentimental and religious (rather than spiritual). It seldom touches the Christmas that is blue or dark or bleak. Or we can celebrate Christmas as a story that we are a part of it. We can see ourselves as "the other" whom God loves and to whom God gives at great cost for our good. We can allow love (God) to transform us, leading us into Christlike maturity in which love is not just something we do on occasion, but is who we are at the core of our being.

In other words, we can make the Christmas story our story - a story we live today and every day by loving as Jesus loved, by loving those whom Jesus loved.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

 The release of a COVID  vaccine this week has stirred a multitude of emotions across our nation ... not the least of which is hope. We now have tangible hope that this pandemic experience will come to an end. It will no longer dictate our lives or rob us of our ability to make life what we want it to be. There is a light at the end of the tunnel ... and it doesn't appear to be a train coming at us! We can almost taste the sweet sense of relief. 

I am just as ready as the next person for this experience to be over. As I said in my post this past Sunday (December 13), I am weary. Coping with the pandemic is a part of my weariness (not all of it, but definitely a contributor). But I can't help but wonder: have we been so consumed with coping with this pandemic and the restrictions that have been imposed that we may have missed the gift(s) it offers? 

I know my question sounds ludicrous. We are not accustomed to speaking of gifts in reference to painful experiences in which we experience great loss. Yet every experience - including painful ones - bears gifts if we are open to receive them. The gifts come in the form of opportunity. 

Every end brings a new beginning. We struggle with the new beginning because it always brings life that is different from what was. Clinging to life as it was, we don't always recognize the opportunity to begin again, much less embrace it. Sometimes, we simply don't want it. We don't want to start over. We don't want life to be different (even though it already is!). 

(Obviously, just because something is reality doesn't mean we have to accept it! But let's be clear: this refusal to deal with reality is how we get stuck. It is how we resist change. It is how we avoid growing emotionally-relationally-spiritually. It is how we make ourselves miserable. It is our insisting on the right to play God, dictating how we want life to be. But I digress.) 

I fear a missed opportunity will be the reality for most churches. We have lamented the inability to gather for worship and spiritual community as we once did. We have chaffed under the restrictions. Some have even gone so far as to defy the restrictions, meeting together in spite of them. (The government can't tell me what to do! They can't take away my rights!)  

Now that there appears to be an end in sight - the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel - we can hardly wait to get back to church. We look forward to going back to the way things were before the pandemic interrupted them. 

If that is what we do - go back to the way things were before - we will have missed the opportunity the pandemic offered. I fear most churches (and Christians!) will indeed miss the opportunity. BTW: things can never go back to the way they were. We may try to do so, but it is never completely possible.  

So what is this so-called opportunity of which I speak? 

The pandemic experience brought with it the opportunity to reevaluate - reevaluate what is important (values), reevaluate what we do and how we do it, reevaluate who we are (identity), reevaluate what we are really about (purpose). The pandemic was like a reset button that restores us to the original settings in which our identity and our purpose were clear. Clarity about our identity and our purpose shapes what we do and how we do it. Why determines what and how.

In any social organization, the longer the organization exists, the more it functions out of the past (tradition) and the less it functions out of a sense of identity and purpose. This reality is a recognized principle in organizational science. And it is true of churches ... and maybe especially of churches!

What this principle means for churches and for us Christians is that our church experience becomes more about what is familiar and what we like and expect (i.e., our comfort) than about our growth in Christ. Church involvement becomes a substitute for an active, personal relationship with God rather than a resource that nourishes that relationship.  Church becomes a place of social relationships in a religious context rather than a spiritual community living out of a clear sense of identity and purpose (we are the people of God, the followers of Jesus, the body of Christ, living the ways of the Kingdom, offering the world an alternative way of doing life, i.e., making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world). 

Whenever we lose our sense of identity and purpose, what we do and how we do it is determined by what we like and what we want. Church becomes about us. You only need to listen to the complaints pastors hear every week to recognize that church has become "about us" rather than about who we are (identity) and what we are about (purpose). 

The COVID pandemic took away what we always did and how we did it. In doing so, it offered us an opportunity to remember why we do what we do. It gave us an opportunity to remember who we are and what we are about. 

But, alas! It seems to me all we want to do is to get back to doing what we have always done, the way we have always done it, with those we did it with before. In our mind, that's what it means to be church. 

The question we haven't asked, much less answered, is: what did God intend church to be? Who has God called us to be? What has God called us to do? Identity and purpose. Why we do what we do and how we do it. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel! Thanks be to God! 

But does it mean a missed opportunity?

Joy: the 3rd Sunday of Advent, 2020

Weary. It's an old word, one not used much anymore. But, it seems to me, an appropriate word in the face of our current situation. 

Weary is about being tired, but it is more than being tired. It is not body-tired, being physically drained and depleted. Weariness is being spirit-tired. It is being tired in our spirit. It speaks of being worn down emotionally and spiritually. When we are weary, our spirit is weighed down. 

Weariness is what we experience as we cope with on-going situations that are life-depleting, life-defeating. 

I can see the people of Judah, in exile in Babylon, being weary. (The Exile is the backdrop of many of our Advent readings.) They lived with inescapable grief. Their losses were staggering: their nation - defeated by Babylon; their Temple - the center of their worship - destroyed; their country - removed from the land they believed God had given them; their homes, property, and businesses left behind; their way of life gone, taken from them by foreign invaders. Everything that gave their lives meaning, everything that provided a sense of security, everything around which they had built their lives had been stripped from them. Their situation created a spirit-numbing spiritual crisis. Where was God? Why did God let this happen? Had God forgotten them, turned his back on them, abandoned them? And they lived without hope. With God seemingly out of the picture, they saw no hope of things ever being different. How would they ever escape this God-forsaken place? They themselves were powerless; they had no leaders, no military who would help them escape. Day in, day out - grieving, spiritually disconnected, hopeless, defeated. And weary - weary in the core of their being. Tired to the bone in their spirit.

I see much in our current situation that is life-depleting, life-defeating. The pandemic has stirred a haunting fear in many of us - a fear of catching the COVID virus, a fear of dying from it. The pandemic protocols have robbed us of life as we knew it. We are physically isolated from family and friends who enrich our lives. We long for their hugs and physical touch. I find much in our current political situation to be life-depleting and life-defeating: the rigid polarization in which each side views the other as an enemy that threats their way of life - a president who functions as an authoritarian, playing on the polarization in order to stay in office - the politicizing of the pandemic - the wide-spread refusal to accept the results of a national election - the non-stop accusations of voter fraud without any verifiable proof - the baseless law suits that disregard and threaten our democratic way of life - the blatant efforts to grab and hold onto power - the threats of violence against those who dare to disagree or oppose - the agendas of political parties and their leaders that take priority over the larger good of the nation - the desire to force those agendas and "my way" on everyone else - the role Evangelical and conservative Christians play in these agendas - the resurfacing of white supremacy that looks down on all others as inferior - the hate-fueled attitudes toward immigrants, saying they don't belong here - the inability(or unwillingness) to recognize that the promise of liberty and justice for all is not enjoyed by all - the disregard of science and the truth it offers - the gas-lighting of fake news and conspiracy theories - the fear-based thinking and reacting that keeps us divided - the lack of emotional maturity that is on display. I could go but I grow weary in doing so. I am weary of writing about it. 

Weary - tired in my spirit - from coping with an on-going life-depleting, life-defeating situation.  

Joy is the theme of this third Sunday of Advent. How do we find joy in the midst of an on-going life-depleting, life-defeating situation? How do we experience joy when we are weary? Is it even possible? 

Joy is something we experience in our spirit. It is a freedom and lightness of spirit - the opposite of the heavy, weighed-down spirit of weariness. 

Joy is tied to God - to God's goodness, God's faithfulness, God's grace, God's steadfast, unwavering love. The Apostle Paul identified joy as one of the nine traits of the fruit of the Spirit. In other words, joy is something the Spirit produces in us. It is not something we can manufacture. Because joy is a gift of the Spirit, it is not tied to or dependent upon our situation. We can experience joy in the midst of an on-going life-depleting, life-defeating situation. We can experience joy when we are weary. Joy will ease our weariness. It will lighten the heaviness we feel in our spirit.

In the fruit of the Spirit, joy is linked with peace. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace" (Galatians 5:22). Peace deep within frees joy to flow in us. 

Anxiety is the opposite of peace. We grow weary when we live out of anxiety and fear. Our anxiety grates on us, wearing us down. 

Thus, the path the leads to joy follows the path that leads to peace. The path that leads to peace follows the path of prayer. Through prayer, we place ourselves in a position for the Spirit to work, moving us beyond our anxiety into peace. 

We enter this path when we recognize the anxiety that weighs on us, shaping how we look at what is happening. (Our weariness points to the underlying anxiety.) This recognition is a call to prayer. We pray with thanksgiving (as Paul instructed - Philippians 4:6-7), remembering God's goodness, God's faithfulness, God's grace, God's steadfast, unwavering love. Praying shifts our focus from our situation and the anxiety it stirs back to God. Praying puts us back in touch with God's goodness, God's faithfulness, God's grace, God's steadfast, unwavering love. Through that reconnection, the Spirit stirs hope as we again choose to trust God's faithfulness. As we rest in God's faithfulness, the Spirit brings us peace. That peace frees joy to flow from deep within. We experience the joy of the Lord ... and our weariness goes away.

Joy creates an openness to life - a receptivity to all that God and life have to offer ... even those things that seem to us to be life-depleting and life-defeating. 

Joy is the theme of this third Sunday of Advent. This theme is a reminder of the Spirit's gift of joy ... a joy that relieves our weariness. 

Peace - Part 2: the 2nd Sunday of Advent

The Advent message of peace centers on the Messianic King, the Prince of Peace. One of the primary Advent texts about peace and this Prince of Peace is Isaiah 9:2-7. 

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire. For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom. He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this (Isaiah 9:2-7, NRSV).

It seems to me that - in our focus on "a child has been born for us" - we a prone to overlook the context and the thrust of this great text.

"The people who walked in darkness" were the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. These two tribes, located in the far north regions of the land of Israel, were the first to experience the invading armies from the north. In the historical context of this passage, the invading armies were the armies of Assyria. The darkness in which these tribes lived was the darkness of foreign domination. They had been overrun by the armies of Assyria, falling under Assyria's control, in 733 B.C.E. before the rest of the nation fell to Assyria in 722 B.C.E. 

The joy the nation experienced (verse 3) was the end of their domination at the hands of their enemies. "The yoke of their burden, and the rod of their oppressor" had been broken (verse 4). They had been set free. War had ended. "All the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire" (verse 5). 

The backdrop of this text is war, specifically the war between Assyria and Israel.

When we overlook this context, we miss the thrust of the text. 

The "child born for us" is a new king - the messianic king, the descendant of David (verses 6-7). This king's reign would usher in "endless peace," that is, an end to war. The key to this peace was what shaped the king's rule: "He will establish and uphold (the throne of David) with justice and righteousness" (verse 7). 

Justice and righteousness were covenant terms frequently used by the Hebrew prophets. They were terms used in reference to the ways of God. Justice was not a legal term as we commonly think of justice. Rather, justice referred to power and how power was used. It spoke of power used on behalf of the powerless and most vulnerable - the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, the oppressed. See Isaiah 1:17. Rather than using power against the powerless, exploiting them for personal advantage (the way we humans commonly use power), power was used to advocate for and empower the powerless. Righteousness was always linked with justice. Righteousness grows out of and is the expression of justice - using power on behalf of the powerless. Righteousness was the term used to describe living in right relationship within the covenant community, helping and supporting one another. 

The thrust of the text is that peace, specifically the end of war, comes as we embrace the ways of God as our own. Rather than waiting for someone from the outside to deliver us, we use our power to serve, particularly the most powerless and vulnerable. 

Jesus was clear that he and those who were his followers used power to serve. In Mark 10:41-45, Jesus drew a contrast between how power is used in the world and how he and his followers used power. 

You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:41-45). 

Jesus used two phrases to describe the world’s way of using power: lord it over, tyrants. The way we humans commonly use power follows the pattern of power over, down against, for personal gain, at the other’s expense. We commonly use power for our own benefit. And we commonly use power against others. This is how Assyria used its power against the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali and, ultimately, against the nation of Israel. It used its power to conquer and destroy them. It used power violently. In contrast to the way the world uses power, Jesus and his followers follow a different pattern of using power. They (we) use power the way a servant uses power: alongside of, on behalf of, for the good of, at personal expense. 

During the Advent and Christmas seasons, we remember and long for the time of endless peace when "the wolf shall live with the lamb, the calf and the lion and the fatling together" (Isaiah 11:6). But these holy seasons are designed to do more than stir such longings. They are a call to embrace the ways of the Messiah - the ways of God. They are a call to live the ways of justice and righteousness. They are a call to abandon the violent use of power down against others for our own personal advantage. They are a call to use power to serve. Or, to use different language, they are a call to love as Jesus loved.  

Until we heed this call, we reduce the Advent and Christmas seasons into mere sentimentality. We remain unchanged, living like everyone else, using our many forms of power for our own advantage, unknowingly using our power violently against others. 

The theme of this second Sunday of Advent is peace. It calls us to embrace the ways of God which lead to peace. It calls us to wage peace instead of war. 

Peace: the 2nd Sunday of Advent 2020

The Advent season reminds us of God's gift of peace. It calls us to remember the writings of the Hebrew prophets who anticipated the coming of a King who would bring peace to all of creation. Peace - a peace unlike what the world has ever known - would flourish as this Messianic king reigned with justice and righteousness - the ways of God. Consequently, this coming king is called the Prince of Peace. 

God's gift of peace permeates all of creation and every dimension of life: peace with God, inner peace, peace in personal relationships through reconciliation, peace among all peoples, peace within creation itself. Each of these dimensions of peace are inter-related. One leads to the other. The lack of one undermines all others. The remainder of this blog focuses on inner peace. Apart from this inner peace, we cannot live in peace with others. This inner peace is grounded in peace with God. (I'll develop that concept in another blog.) 

Both Jesus and Paul spoke of this inner peace. In John 14:27, Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.” In his letter to the Philippians, Paul spoke of “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding,” (Philippians 4:7). Both spoke of the unusual nature of the peace that comes from God. Paul described it as a peace that cannot be understood or explained from a human perspective. Jesus described it as a different kind of peace than what the world gives.

The peace of Christ is an inner reality. It is something we experience deep within, at the core of our being. It is an inner quietness, a deep-seated sense of well-being and safeness. 

The flip side of peace is anxiety. Anxiety is a nebulous feeling of unease or dis-ease that lies just beneath the surface of our lives. It is the unconscious anticipation of something that will hurt us the way we were hurt in the past. Anxiety is the twitching of the old fears. Anxiety is our normal state as human beings. 

Peace, what Jesus called “my peace,” is what quietens anxiety with its nebulous feeling of dis-ease. It displaces the fear, stilling the inner turmoil and settling the inner restlessness. The peace of Christ sets us free from the power of anxiety, breaking its control over us. It sets us free from fear-based thinking and fear-based reactivity. It displaces our anxiety and fear … in the midst of the very situation that spawned the fear in the first place!

 This inner quietness we call peace comes from God. It is referred to as the fruit of the Spirit, the peace that Christ gives, and the peace of God. But it is also rooted in God. It is inseparably tied to God’s faithfulness, what the Hebrew Bible calls the faithful love of God. It is tied to God’s promise to be with us and not abandon us, to God’s promise to bless us and sustain us. It is rooted in God’s power to transform our experiences, bringing life out of death, good out of evil. It is tied to how God uses life’s painful, destructive experiences to enrich and deepen our lives, maturing us in the likeness of Jesus.

Peace is what the Spirit produces in our lives. Peace is not something we can manufacture or produce through self-effort. It is not something we can create or conjure up. It is the product of the Spirit’s work in our lives. While we cannot manufacture peace, we can place ourselves in a position for the Spirit to lead us into peace within.

The journey into peace begins with the awareness of the lack of peace. One would think that the recognition of this inner dis-ease we call anxiety would be easy, but it is not. Anxiety and fear are automatic reactions within us. They happen without our thinking and, thus, outside our awareness. We have to learn to be aware of our anxiety and recognize our fear.  

The recognition of our anxiety and fear presents us with a choice. Do we continue to hold onto our fear (allowing it to hold onto us) or do we choose to move beyond it? Do we live out of our fear or do we choose to let go of it?

When we hold onto our fear, we give our fear control over us.  It holds us in its grip. It shapes our thinking and governs what we do.  Consequently, we react out of old patterns.  

So, the second step on the journey into peace is to manage the anxiety and fear. In John 14:27, where Jesus promised his peace, he said “do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.” In his letter to the Philippians, Paul exhorted them “do not worry about anything,” (Philippians 4:6). The original language in both texts carries the idea of stop, do not continue. Fear and anxiety are a normal part of our human condition. Jesus’ and Paul’s words do not instruct us to not feel the anxiety and fear. Such is not possible. Rather, they call us to not dwell in our anxiety and fear. “Do not continue to live in your fear, with your fear, and out of your fear.” They call us to move beyond our fear so that our fear does not dictate and control our lives.

Jesus and Paul called us to use our power to manage ourselves. Rather than attempting to control others or our situation, we manage what we are feeling along with the thinking that drives those feelings. We continue to live in fear and with fear only when we scare ourselves with our thinking. 

 The way we manage our anxiety and fear is not by fighting them, not by resisting them, not by seeking to control them. We manage our anxiety and fears by naming them.  We acknowledge them to God. We pray. In doing so, we put ourselves in a position for the Spirit to displace our anxiety with peace, to create an inner quietness in the place of our inner turmoil. Praying our fear is the third step on the journey that leads us into peace. 

The journey into peace follows the path of prayer. Through prayer, we remember, refocus, and reconnect with God so that we can rest in God’s faithful love. Prayer is the way we manage our fears.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul wrote “Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Paul didn’t just say “don’t worry.” He exhorted his readers to manage their anxiety and fear. “Don’t continue to worry. You’re doing it. Stop!” And, then, he told them how to move beyond the worry into peace. He instructed them to pray. Pray the fear. Acknowledge it. Express it. Bring your requests to God. But Paul also instructed the Philippians in how to pray. They were to pray with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the key to moving beyond fear-based praying. 

Thanksgiving is rooted in remembering. It is looking over our shoulder at the past, remembering God’s faithfulness in past situations. Thanksgiving helps us to remember God and God’s faithfulness. It helps us remember how God was with us even when we couldn’t recognize God’s presence. It helps us remember how God strengthened and sustained us in the midst of our crisis. Thanksgiving helps us remember how God provided what we needed to deal with the crisis. It helps us remember how God transformed the experience, bring good out of evil, life out of death. Thanksgiving helps us recognize how God blessed us and matured us as we walked a road we would rather have not walked. Praying with thanksgiving helps us to remember. And, when we remember, we are in a position to reconnect with God.

Our fear and anxiety blind us to God.  When we are living out of our anxiety and fear, our attention is on the situation. We are focused on the circumstances and on others and on what we are afraid might happen.  In other words, our focus is not on God.  In the midst of our anxiety and fear, the Spirit calls us to refocus on God and, thereby, to reconnect with God.

The Spirit guides us to remember so we can refocus. As we refocus on God, we can reconnect with God. When we reconnect with God, we can then rest in God.

 Remember → Refocus → Reconnect → Rest

 The Spirit leads us to rest in God’s faithful love. Resting involves choosing to let go of our fear and our need to be in control. It involves choosing to trust. This Spirit-directed remembering, this Spirit-directed refocusing, this Spirit-directed reconnecting, this Spirit-empowered resting allows us to experience deep within the kind of peace that passes all human ability to understand or explain it. 

 This journey into peace is not some magic formula that automatically makes everything better. It is a process … a journey.  It is a process of consciously shifting our focus from our situation to God, from frantically worrying about everything “out there” to managing what’s “in here,” from attempting to be in control to turning loose, from doing what we always do to resting. The journey into peace is choosing to trust God’s faithful love. It is choosing to live in glad dependency upon the Spirit.

Peace is that inner quietness in the depth of our being that allows the joy of the Lord to flow in us and through us. As we learn to live with peace and out of peace, we can live as peacemakers in the world (Matthew 5:9). 

(Part of this blog is adapted from my book The Fruit of the Spirit: the Path That Leads to Loving as Jesus Loved.)