Being’s Source ‘Begins to Be’

A short reflection during Advent.

Emptied of his majesty,
Of his dazzling glories shorn,
Being’s source begins to be,
And God himself is born!

– Charles Wesley, Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord, Hymn IV

This phrase floored me this morning.  Thank God for poetry and hymns and the foolishness of poets and hymn writers (and theologians and preachers, too).

How can the source of being begin to be?  Aristotle argued the beginning of all things to have an ‘unmoved mover,’ a source who was not acted upon, someone who was “the alpha…the beginning.”  Maybe this someone could or couldn’t be known, according to Aristotle.

Charles Wesley – and the whole orthodoxy of Christian faith – would beg to differ on the knowing part.

How can the source of being begin to be?  Beats me.  The Incarnation is a beautiful mystery.  Embracing it seems to be the only option for a person of true faith.  Mary Syzbist puts it this way in one poem for her collection Incarnadine:

But you can’t have two worlds in your hands and choose emptiness.

It’s times like these where I feel like it’s easier to relate to Mary, who “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.”  I don’t think she could explain them either.  But she held two worlds in her hands.  She stared them both down and picked faith.  Picked truth.  Picked love.

She picked the source of being.  God, grant me the faith to do the same, every single day.

What Are We Waiting For?

This is the second in a series of blogs for the 2017 Advent season.  Find the first reflection here.

It’s hard to ignore the glaring conflict between the American dream and the Kingdom of God.  Unlike love and marriage or a horse and carriage you can, in fact, have one of these and not the other.  Some would even warn that these two things are mutually exclusive, that they cannot be held side-by-side or co-valued in harmony.

The problem with the American dream is that it is subject to its own little-g god.  This god does have a name and that name is mammon.  Jesus is clear that it is impossible to be a slave “owned” by two competing masters and I think this is the case with the American Dream and the Kingdom of God.

Before we get any further and you think me anti-American, let me clarify something.  I’m infinitely grateful to have been born to the people I was born to in the country I was born in.  I had no control in the matter, which amplifies my gratitude in that I can’t somehow praise myself.  I’m thankful for the freedoms we enjoy in our nation.  I’m thankful that we have a history rooted in Christendom.  I’m thankful that our values and morals have ancestral roots in the Bible.

I am not thankful for the American dream.

The American dream is an ideal that was likely founded with good intentions, something of a morality play on this idea that anyone in a free nation can rise up by their own bootstraps and make a better life for themselves.  It has evolved, grown sharpened teeth and serrated claws.  It’s spit is venomous and disease-ridden and it’s eyes are hungry and dangerous and shifty.  It has enthroned mammon – “the way of commodity that is the way of endless desire, endless productivity, and endless restfulness without any Sabbath” – and dethroned God, the God of rest.

Traditionally, the second week of advent sees the lighting of the “Love” candle.  As we embrace this season as one of longing, of waiting, of expecting, we are confronted with the question: what is it that we love?  Do we cling to an earthly ideal that mirrors the coveted American dream that plagues our churches?  Do we await the payout of mammon which costs us everything and fails to eternally deliver on any of its promises?

Or do we await the coming King who will usher in the true Kingdom of the God of rest, the Lord of the Sabbath?  We are reminded with a easily-worded but deeply difficult exhortation that requires wrestling from 2 Peter 3:11-13:

“Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?  You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.  That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.  But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.”

The way of this world has already been judged by God, who – thanks to the nature of his grace – sent us his son, Jesus who proclaimed both freedom and salvation to all who surrender their lives to him.  The fulfillment of this narrative of salvation is something theologians refer to the consummation and it’s the topic Peter is honing in on in our passage above.

Everything we know now – in its fallen way, in its broken state – won’t be mended or fixed and put back the way that it is. That’s not the message of consummation. The message is rebirth.  Remaking.  Recreation.  This is a brand new thing.  Yeah, DC Talk was right.

We reflect on Christ’s coming during Advent as the newborn king; but we also await the next time he comes to set finish what he started.  Until then we strive to live holy and godly lives – as those sealed by and empowered in the Holy Spirit.  We don’t do this so that we can transactionally earn God’s grace – we can’t.  We do this because this is the stuff of God: holiness, justice, righteousness.  We’re living, practicing for a kingdom that’s coming.  We’re accepting God’s formation as a way of aligning our own lives with the life of Jesus.  We want our loves and habits to reflect the things of God.

What is it that we are waiting for?

Are we waiting for the kinds of things that the world tries to tune our hearts to – money, possessions, power, the idols of self?  Or are we expectant for Jesus to make things right.  Are we hoping for more of the same?

The Beauty in Longing

This is the first in a series of blogs for the 2017 Advent season.

This year will be the first Christmas without my grandpa.

Since he passed on that hot afternoon in late August, my family has been making firsts.  Dad turned 60 without him around.  The first Thanksgiving came and went without him. His birthday was December 22 and it’ll come steadily into focus and then fade away just before Christmas – without him.