The 8th Day of Christmas - Giving Up on New Year's Resolutions

 It is a recurring theme each year at this time of year. It is the time of New Year’s resolutions. We view the New Year as an opportunity for a new beginning. Taking advantage of this opportunity, we make some kind of resolution. Our resolution is to do something we believe we need to do or ought to do but don’t do. We resolve to change something we do or don’t do.

Our resolutions grow out of something deep inside us – something of which we are generally unaware. That “something” is our struggle with being human.

Being human comes with some default settings that are nonnegotiable. We can’t change them. They just are.

What are these default settings?

To be human is to be in process, not yet full grown. Consequently, we have to learn and grow, moving from where we are to a more mature place on the journey. The learning is foundational to the growing. For example, a young child who crawls has to learn to balance and stand on her feet. She does this by using a chair to pull herself up onto her feet and holding onto it as she “gets the feel” of standing. Once the child has learned the skill of balancing, she can take a step. She can move from crawling to toddling – walking but not too steadily or with much assurance. Toddling gives way to walking which gives way to running. What is true on the physical level (learning to walk) is also true on the emotional-relational-spiritual level. Once we stop learning, we stop growing emotionally-relationally-spiritually. We become stagnant. We get stuck in how we think and how we live. Our growth - emotionally-relationally-spiritually - is stunted.

To be human is to fail. Not being full grown means there are dimensions of our lives that are not yet developed. It translates into things we do not understand, areas where we are weak, aspects of life in which we are inexperienced and inadequate. As a result, we make mistakes. We fail. We don’t always get a perfect score or make a 100.

To be human is to be limited. We do not have unlimited energy or stamina or strength or knowledge or patience or forgiveness or ability to love another. We do not have unlimited anything. Our energies get drained. We get tired. When we do, we have to renew our depleted energies. We have to refuel. We are not all-powerful or all-knowing.

Our limitations translate into needs – the need to rest, to eat, to sleep. Thus, to be human is to live with needs. Our needs extend beyond the physical realm. We have the need for relationship, for connection, for touch – which means a need for others. We have the need for stimulation, for pleasure, for challenge. We have the need to be creative and productive, to develop and use our unique abilities, to contribute to the world around us in some significant way. Our needs mean we are not self-sufficient. They require us to receive from others.

As humans, we cannot escape these default settings. Thus, the issue is how do we deal with the reality of our default settings.

Many of us try to ignore these default settings. We live as though these settings do not apply to us. This inclination is reflected in our tendency to idolize athletes who push beyond physical limitations to “greatness.” It is evident in how we push ourselves and our bodies, ignoring all the indications that our energies are depleted. This inclination produces perfectionists, workaholics, control freaks who fight to make everything “right,” people who don’t know how to say “no” or set boundaries, people who give but can’t receive, burnout, self-neglect and self-abuse, broken bodies – all because we expect more of ourselves “than is humanly possible.” This inclination is reflected in the garden story. The serpent said to Eve, “You will be like God” (Genesis 3:4). To be like God is to escape being human. It is to be all-powerful and all-knowing – always adequate, always capable – not in process, with experiences of failure, with limitations, with needs.  

(BTW: perfection is only a word in the dictionary. The New Testament word translated as “perfect” carries the idea of maturity, not being flawless.)

Another way we deal with these realities of being human is with resolve to do better, i.e., New Year’s resolutions. Through self-effort, we determine to move beyond what we view as unacceptable. For example, seeing our body as unacceptable (that is, not conforming to social expectations), we resolve to diet or to give up sweets or to change what we eat or to go to the gym or to be more active in order to get our body back in shape. Success in these resolutions is dependent upon the strength of our resolve, the degree of our self-discipline, and the consistency of our self-effort. The reality is, most of these resolutions fail. A key factor in these failures is our refusal to deal realistically with what it means to be human.

Beneath our resolutions is generally some form of self-loathing and self-condemnation. We judge ourselves harshly for failing to do what we know we need to do or should do. That self-condemnation is compounded when our resolve fails. The failure accompanied by the self-condemnation fuels a deep-seated sense of shame. Shame is about being – our sense of who we are. It is the sense that we are no good, that we are flawed, that we are inadequate, that we are incapable of measuring up, that we are not loveable. It spawns old messages that say we will never be enough, that we will never get it right, that we will never amount to anything, that no one will ever love us. Shame tells us that we are unlovable, that we are a hopeless failure. Interestingly, shame pushes us to ignore our limitations (as described above). We view any hint of a limitation or inadequacy or failure as evidence that we are no good. Thus, we strive to eliminate any hint of imperfection.

Another way to deal with the default settings of our human condition is to recognize them and accept them. In other words, it is to make peace with being human – including its default settings. We make peace with being in process, with failure, with our limitations, with our needs.

Making peace with being human calls for self-awareness as we listen to our bodies, our emotions, our inner spirit, and the Spirit who lives in us. It calls for balance – giving and receiving, doing and being, producing and renewing. It calls for learning and growing.

Making peace with being human involves living out of grace rather than expectations and demand. It involves forgiving our failures when we don’t measure up, allowing those experiences to become opportunities to learn. As we learn, we grow. As we grow, we are able to do what we could not do before.

Making peace with being human calls us to live by faith, with the quiet assurance of hope. Hope is the forward look of faith. It sees beyond what is to what will be as we learn and grow under the guidance of the Spirit. It embraces the present reality as just another stage of the journey on the way to the ultimate destination of emotional-relational-spiritual maturity.

Making peace with being human involves living in glad dependency upon God as beloved children of God. It is to trust God’s steadfast, faithful love, God’s abundant grace, God’s forgiveness so freely and extravagantly given, God’s limitless generosity.

In this New Year, let’s resolve to give up resolutions. Instead, let’s make peace with being human as we trust God’s grace and the Spirit’s guidance. As the apostle Paul said, let’s keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25 NIV), knowing the Spirit is leading us into Christ-like maturity.

 

The 7th Day of Christmas, 2022-23 - The Not-So-Good-News of the Christmas Story

It’s a seemingly minor detail in the story of the magi, but it a significant part in the story. It also foreshadows the ending of the gospel and communicates a spiritual truth we tend to ignore.

“When Herod heard this (news about a newborn king), he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him,” Matthew 2:3.

The magi – probably astrologers who studied the movements of the stars – had come to Jerusalem looking for a newborn king of the Jews. Their study of the stars indicated that a royal child had been born in the land of the Jews. Naturally, they went to the capital city and to the palace to find the child. They assumed the child belonged to the royal family of Herod.

What the magi viewed as good news was received as bad news to Herod the king. A newborn king would be a rival who could displace him. He was a threat to Herod and his world – his throne, his power, his prestige, his wealth. The news the magi brought was disturbing and disruptive . . . and not just for Herod. All of Jerusalem was anxious. Fear flowed like electricity throughout the city, leaping from one to another as they repeated the news.

Herod’s fear-driven response was predictable. He began to scheme about how to locate this child so he could be eliminated. His scheme caused Joseph – warned in a dream – to flee to Egypt to protect the child and his mother from Herod’s attempt to kill him. When Herod’s scheme didn’t work – the magi didn’t play along – his fear turned to paranoia. He killed every boy in the area who was below the age of two. (BTW: this detail about the age of the victims indicates the magi were not at the manger scene in Bethlehem as our Christmas pageants normally portray. Luke’s story and Matthew’s story are two separate stories with two separate messages. But I digress.)

The story foreshadows the end of the gospel. In the end, this one whom the magi sought would be pursued by the religious authorities of Jerusalem with the intent to kill him. Before the gospel ends, he would be arrested by members of the religious establishment (the Sanhedrin) and handed over to the Romans to be crucified as an insurrectionist – as one who rebelled against and disrupted the Roman world.

The story also presents a spiritual truth we tend to gloss over – if we don’t outright miss it – in our recounting of the Christmas story. The coming of this one sent by God – Emmanuel, God with us – disturbs and disrupts our carefully constructed world. He undermines the very premises upon which we build our lives and which we use to establish our sense of identity. The world he sought (seeks) to build was built on grace, not merit and deserving. He rejected the hierarchy of merit-based relating, viewing and valuing, accepting and embracing everyone as a beloved child of God. How he treated others was not based upon the position they held in social hierarchies. He rejected the us-them, better than-less than attitudes that merit-based thinking produces. He dealt with human imperfection, including what was labeled as sin, with forgiveness, not condemnation, judgment, and rejection. He used power to address the needs of others, not to protect his own position and the advantages it provided. He used power to serve others, not down against others for his own benefit. He valued people over material wealth. In short, what he taught and the way he lived disturbed and disrupted the social-relational world as we know it.

Perhaps Herod and all Jerusalem with him were more perceptive than we are. They recognized that this one whom the magi sought would disrupt and disturb their world. In fact, he would turn their world upside down. No wonder they were afraid.  

On the other hand, perhaps we are more like Herod than I thought. Maybe we, like Herod, do perceive what this newborn king came to do to our status-oriented world. Maybe that’s why we ignore this part of the story. This one who was born as the king of the Jews disrupts and disturbs the world we have created with our merit-based thinking. He turns it on its head.

In this new year, may we be like the magi, seeking the one who has come into our world as Emmanuel, God with us. May we joyfully embrace, not fear, the ways of God he taught and lived.

Have a blessed New Year!

 

Christmas Day, 2022

 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

Is that the way you would have done it? If you had been in God’s shoes, would you have surrendered your status as God in order to become human and enter the world you had created?

God was attempting to fix the brokenness of the world He had created. God had not created it in its broken state. What God had created was good, very good (Genesis 1:26). That good creation, however, had become twisted, corrupt, broken. The humans God had created in the divine likeness, with the capacity for God’s life, with the ability to use power as God does – humans who were the crowning piece of creation had corrupted creation through rebellious defiance (Genesis 6:5, 11-12). Their disobedience had created alienation and division in every possible relationship. Following their own wisdom, humans had filled the world with violence – using power in the exact opposite way God uses power. The world was broken because humans, acting out of willful defiance, had filled the world with violence.  

If you were God, how would you have dealt with human defiance and rebellion? How would you have gone about fixing the broken world? Would you have destroyed it and started over? The story of the flood indicates that’s what God did, but it didn’t work. Judgment did not change the human heart. The human heart was the same after the flood as it was before (Genesis 6:5 and 8:21). (Personally, I believe the story of the flood presented that option because that’s the way we humans generally operate, not because it is what God did. The story of the flood is an epic story communicating theological truth, not actual history.)

Would you have just given up on it and thrown it away? Again, we humans are inclined to give up on and abandon seemingly hopeless projects. Again, that’s not God’s way.

God’s way is to love.

God acted in harmony with the divine nature, living out of the divine character of self-giving love. In the face of human’s rebellious defiance and disobedience, God’s love never wavered. In the face of the world’s brokenness, God never gave up on or abandoned the world he had created. Rather, God loved because that’s what God does.

How far would God’s love go? How far would it take Him?

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

To heal the brokenness, to overcome the alienation and division, to bring reconciliation to broken relationships, to address the rebellion and defiance, God set aside the rights and privileges of being God in order to take on human flesh. God robed the divine self in the vulnerability and total dependency of a new born infant. In Jesus of Nazareth, God lived among us and with us, showing us what God is like and teaching us God’s ways – the ways for which we were created. In Jesus’s death and resurrection, God restored what we, in our stubborn willfulness, destroyed. By taking on our humanness, God addressed what was in the human heart, cleansing it and transforming it. God’s giving did not stop with the incarnation. Following Jesus’s resurrection, God gave the Spirit to be the continuing incarnation. Through the work of the Spirit, God is recreating us in the divine likeness once again. God, living out of steadfast, faithful love, will not stop working until our transformation is complete and the brokenness of creation is healed.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That is how far self-giving love will go. 

Love - the 4th Sunday of Advent, 2022

The traditional theme for this third Sunday of Advent is love.

When we talk about love, we are talking about God – about who God is (God’s character, God’s nature), about how God relates to us.

The Hebrew scriptures use the term chesed to speak of how God relates to us. Chesed is the defining characteristic of God’s nature. It governs how God relates to us. Chesed carries the idea of steadfast love – a love that never wavers or falters. It carries the idea of faithful love – a love that never gives up on us or abandons us. This kind of love is unconditional. It is not dependent on who we are or what we do. It is an expression of the heart (nature/character) of God. The apostle Paul used the term grace to refer to this love. The Johannian community used the term agape. Relating to us out of this love, God accepts us unconditionally, freely forgiving us. The Hebrew scriptures say God abounds in such love and gives freely and lavishly out of it.

The incarnation – the Word made flesh in Jesus - was the logical expression of this love. Jesus, in turn, was the embodiment of this love. We see it in how Jesus accepted every person unconditionally, valuing each as a beloved child of God, freely forgiving without condition.

To talk about love is to talk about how power is used. Love always uses power on behalf of the other, at great cost to the one who is loving. That’s why the incarnation is the logical expression of this love. Jesus used the term servant to speak of this love.

To say that God loves us is to say that God accepts us unconditionally, just as we are, as a beloved child. It is to say that God freely forgives us, refusing to give up on us or abandon us. It is to say that God, through the Spirit, addresses our need in order to move us beyond it. The Spirit teaches us the ways of God, moving us beyond old ways of thinking and living. The Spirit addresses old emotional wounds, healing us and setting us free from old, life-depleting patterns. The Spirit matures us, moving us beyond spiritual immaturity and stagnation. Ultimately, God’s love transforms us so that we love as God loves.

The theme of this fourth Sunday of Advent is love – the love that is the very nature of God, the love out of which God relates to us, the love that is expressed in the incarnation – the Word made flesh, the love that accepts us unconditionally and freely forgives us, the love that addresses our every need, the love that transforms us so that we love as God loves.

Joy - 3rd Sunday of Advent, 2022

 Joy is a characteristic of the people of God, of the followers of Jesus.

Joy is an inner disposition, an attitude out of which we live. It is a gladness of heart. It is a heart filled with a sense of delight, a sense of being blessed. Joy is not a head experience. It is a heart experience. Thinking is put on hold as delight fills the heart and mind and body. Joy makes the heart open and receptive, moving it beyond fear and fear’s self-protective inclinations.

Joy comes from God and is tied to God. The apostle Paul identified joy as one of the nine traits of the fruit of the Spirit. He called the Philippians to “Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 3:1, 4:4). Because joy comes from God and is tied to God, it is not dependent upon circumstances. We can experience joy in the midst of what is.

Joy is rooted in who God is and in God’s faithful love. It is tied to how God works to transform, bringing life out of death, good out of evil, wholeness out of brokenness.

Joy is something we choose. It is an attitude, an inner disposition we choose because of who God is and how God works. Choosing to live out of a spirit of joy is an act of faith, proclaiming that the present reality is not the final reality. It is an expression of hope, anticipating what will be. It bears witness to a quiet confidence, a settled assurance in God’s faithful love, in God’s transforming work.

Choosing joy allows us to rise about the challenges we face. Joy proclaims God, God’s grace is greater than whatever it is we are experiencing at the moment. Joy is living in eager anticipation of what will be because of God’s faithful love. We choose joy as an act of faith, as an expression of our hope.

In the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), joy is linked with peace. Joy grows out of peace. Joy and peace are the inner disposition the Spirit cultivates within us as the followers of Jesus. In the midst of what is, we choose to rest in God’s faithful love. As we rest in God’s grace, we experience the Spirit’s gift of deep inner peace. That peace allows joy to flow from deep within. Peace releases joy. This inner disposition of joy and peace frees us to love. Joy and peace give birth to patience, kindness, faithfulness, generosity, and gentleness.

Joy is an attitude, an inner disposition, a gladness of heart out of which we live. It is an attitude we choose because of the faithful love of God. It is an act of faith, an expression of hope.

As we journey through this holy Advent season, may we once again choose joy.

The Lion and the Lamb - 2nd Sunday of Advent, 2022

The wolf shall live with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the kid,
The calf and the lion and the fatling together (Isaiah 11:6).

It’s one of my favorite Advent images – the lion and the lamb (the fatling) lying down together. The image comes out of Isaiah’s vision of a world, shaped by the ways of God, that no longer uses power to attack or destroy another. It is a world of peace, at peace, filled with peace – a peace that permeates even the animal kingdom.

The Isaiah text is a traditional text used to develop the theme of peace on this 2nd Sunday of Advent. The text presents a vision of what scholars call “the peaceable kingdom.” This kingdom of peace, at peace is tied to the reign of the messiah who reigns with righteousness and justice – the traditional language used in the Hebrew scriptures in reference to the ways of God. Thus, the text offers us more than an image of peace that permeates the world. It also identifies the way to such peace.

The image presented in the vision of a world of peace, at peace is often dismissed as unrealistic, as nothing more than idealistic dreaming or wishful thinking. Such reactions to the vision generally overlook what the vision says about the way to such peace.

The way to such peace is clearly stated, so why do we fail to recognize it?

A world of peace, at peace is what occurs when we embrace and live the ways of God – the ways of righteousness and justice. These two familiar terms are covenant terms. They describe how we live in relationship with one another in the covenant community.

Righteousness is more than a moral or religious concept. It refers to living in right relationship with others in the covenant community. The meaning of righteousness - to live in right relationship within the covenant community - is clarified by the term with which righteousness is consistently paired in the Hebrew scriptures: justice. Justice, again, is more than a legal term. It is a covenant term describing how we live in relationship with one another within the covenant community. Justice refers to how we use power within those relationships. To practice justice is to use power on behalf of those who have little or no power – the widow, the orphan, the oppressed, the resident alien (Isaiah 1:17). We do justice whenever we embrace, advocate for, and provide for these who live in vulnerable circumstances. We do justice whenever we use our power to empower the powerless. Using our power on behalf of the powerless is what it means to live in right relationship with our neighbor, i.e., righteously.

Justice was the idea Jesus taught when he spoke of living as a servant – using our power to seek the good and wellbeing of another (Mark 9:35; 10:42-45). Righteousness is living out of a servant spirit. In the mind of Jesus, the term servant captured the ideas of righteousness and justice.

The way to peace outlined in Isaiah’s vision also highlights why we do not experience peace. Our world is filled with brokenness, alienation, and division because of how we use power in relationship to one another. Jesus used the language of “lord it over” and “tyrants” to describe how power is used in the world (Mark 10:42-45). We use power over, down against others for our own personal benefit. This use of power is always at the expense of the other.

This way of using power is the way of domination. In order to protect our interests and maintain our advantage, we use power against the one we view as “other.” We use power to dominate and control, keeping the other “in their place.” If need be, we attack and destroy them. In other words, we use power violently. The degree of violence varies, but any use of power against another is a violent use of power.

The violent use of power stands in opposition to how God uses power. The creation story (Genesis 1) teaches us that God uses power to call life into being and then to nurture that life into maturity. The way God uses power is always life-giving and life-enriching. In the words of Jesus, it is the way of the servant. Having been created in the likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), we were created to use power the way God does – in life-giving, life-enriching ways – as a servant.

Sadly, we have denied the likeness of God within us, choosing instead to use power to look-out-for-ole-#1. Our use of power is driven by self-interest and fear. We are afraid there is not enough to go around – scarcity thinking. Thus, we want to make sure we get our share – and more! We want to make sure we don’t miss out. We are afraid of those who are different – the other. We are afraid they we take what is ours. Our fear leads us to compete, using our power to win. If necessary, we use our power to eliminate the competition. It’s the story of Cain and Abel lived out over and over and over again.

(Aside: this unrecognized, fear-based way of thinking is celebrated in the way we worship athletic competition in its various forms. But that’s a blog for another time.)

This issue of how power is used is the driving theme of the story of the flood. That ancient story identifies violence as the reason God chose to destroy the earth (Genesis 6:11-13). Yet, in destroying the earth, God used power violently. God used power violently in an effort to get rid of violence. We often miss the end of the story and its message. After the flood, the LORD said, “Well, that didn’t work. I’ll never do that again” (Genesis 8:21-21). Destroying the earth did not fix the problem. It did not change what was in the human heart (Genesis 8:21). Using power violently does not solve the problem of violence. It’s a truth we don’t want to acknowledge, much less put into practice.

How to create a world of peace, at peace is the unrecognized story in the Christmas story told in the gospel of Luke. The world into which Jesus was born lived under pax Roma – Roman peace. Roman peace was a peace created by using power to demand conformity to Roman rule. It came through Rome’s use of power down, against those under her rule. It came through domination. Roman peace was not actually peace. It was, at best, stability – stability that benefited those in power at the expense of those whom they ruled. Into this world, Jesus was born, offering a different way to peace. It was not the way of domination (power over), but the way of self-giving love – the way of the servant. In Jesus, God took on human flesh in order to address the human condition. At his birth, the angels sang “Peace on earth!” (Luke 2:14). All of heaven recognized that the servant use of power was the way to real peace. The reality played out in heaven at his birth was not duplicated on earth. At the end of his ministry, Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they did not recognize “the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42). It seems Jesus understood the way that leads to peace proclaimed in Isaiah’s vision.

If we want a world of peace, at peace, we must change the way we use our power (in its many forms). We must address the underlying, fear-based thinking that drives us to use power against others, i.e., violently. We must address the self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit that fills our hearts. We must move beyond our fear of those who are different from us so that we no longer view them as “the other,” seeing them instead as beloved children of God. We must surrender our scarcity thinking. We must embrace the ways of God as our own.

While such sounds impossible – more wishful thinking and idealistic dreaming - it is actually very possible. This kind of inner transformation of heart and mind is exactly what God is using his power to make happen. It is story we celebrate these Advent and Christmas seasons. In Jesus and then in the Spirit, God comes to us as a servant. Having created us, God has claimed us in Christ Jesus as beloved children. God now works to bring us his children to Christ-like spiritual maturity through the work of the Spirit. The Spirit, in teaching us the ways of the kingdom, is transforming our hearts and minds, empowering us to live as servants, here, now.

Isaiah’s vision of a world of peace, at peace is neither wishful thinking or idealistic dreaming. It is a glimpse of what will be because of the self-giving, servant love of God. It is a world that God will bring into reality as God works in and through us as his Spirit-empowered children.

Isaiah’s vision of a world at peace, of peace is a reminder of what will be because of God’s righteousness and justice. It is also a call for us to partner with God in bringing this world of peace, at peace into being by embracing and living the servant-ways God in every aspect of our lives.

Isaiah’s vision reminds us that the way that leads to peace is God’s way of using power in life-giving, life-enriching ways. The way of the servant is the way that leads to peace.

They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain;
For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9).

I Can't Wait - 1st Sunday of Advent, 2022

 I can’t wait!

How often have we said “I can’t wait”? As children, we would say it in anticipation of Christmas and the gifts we were eager to receive. Expectant parents (and their parents – grandparents-to-be!) say it in anticipation of the birth of their child. “I can’t wait to hold her!” We adults say it in anticipation of seeing our children and grandchildren again. “I can’t wait to see you!”

We say “I can’t wait” about something we eagerly desire but can’t have just yet. It is about the future and our expectation of what the future will bring us. It looks to the future as we anticipate what will be but is not yet.

“I can’t wait!” Yet we do. We have to wait until the future becomes the present, until what will be becomes what is. Waiting is what we do in the midst of what is.

Waiting is not one of my favorite things to do - whether I’m stuck behind a slow driver in the fast lane on the interstate or in a line waiting to be seated at a restaurant or for processes to come to fruition in the life of the church. I don’t like waiting. I assume I am not alone in this struggle.

Waiting is a reminder that we are not in control – that’s why waiting is so frustrating and painful to us. Someone or something else is calling the shots and making the decisions. While what is is not what we want or would choose, we are powerless to change it. All we can do is wait (and fret and complain and . . .) Waiting invites us to focus on the only thing we can control – ourselves and our attitude while we wait.

The season of Advent – which begins today - is about waiting. The season reminds us that waiting is an inescapable part of life. It calls us to deal with the discomfort and impatience we feel when we have to wait. It teaches us how to deal with waiting. It invites us to make peace with waiting. It reminds us that waiting is an inherent part of being the people of God and the followers of Christ.

The Advent season lifts our focus from what is to what will be – the future. It points us to the coming of Jesus, first, in the promise of his birth and, second, in the promise of his return. The saints in the Hebrew scriptures looked forward to the birth of the Messiah and to the new way of life that the Messiah would usher into being. The New Testament saints lived with a keen sense of the imminent return of Jesus in which he would bring that new way of living (the Kingdom) to fulfillment.

Looking forward to what will be is an act of faith. We look forward in eager anticipation because of the promises of God. We trust the steadfast, faithful love of God, believing God is at work to bring about a future that is different from the present. Trusting God’s redeeming, transforming work, we believe what will be will not be like what is. Thus, for the followers of Jesus, waiting is about trust . . . trust in God’s faithfulness, trust in God’s promises, trust in God’s redeeming, transforming work, trust in what will be.  

Our faith transforms our waiting. It fills our waiting with hope. Hope is the forward look of faith. It is the quiet confidence that what God said will be will be, even though it is not yet. When our waiting is infused with hope, we move beyond fretting and complaining into peace – inner peace, a peace that cannot be explained (Philippians 4:7), the peace of Christ (John 14:27).

Waiting filled with hope is not passive. It is more than enduring what is. As we wait for what will be, we work to bring what will be into reality here, now. “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). We live the ways of God in the midst of what is. In doing so, we partner with God in bringing into reality what will be – the kingdom, here on earth.

And so another Advent journey begins, teaching us the spiritual discipline of waiting as an expression of the forward look of our faith. I can’t wait to see what the journey will bring.