On the First Sunday of Advent

I wish that I could remain proverbially "fat, dumb, and happy" when it comes to things religious.  When I was young-ish, I could skate through most any church service without a care, only stumbling on things that were monumental in terms of heresy or apostasy or the like.  Now I find that I catch my feet on a thousand little things that I would hardly have noticed in my younger days.  I think that is caused by being much closer to my death than my birth.  When you are nearing the end of your timeline on earth you tend to take stock of all of the things you have picked up along the way because it becomes harder to carry them all, and you question things that you would have hardly noticed before because you are measuring them against eternity and trying to decide whether they have any lasting value for you after all.

On this First Sunday of Advent we heard about light, light coming into the world, light coming into the darkness.  And I wondered whether it was presumptuous of us, on this First Sunday of Advent, to once again mention the Us/Them distinction, as in, "We walk in the light", while "They (the elusive they) remain lost in darkness."  Okay, I know the scriptures, I can quote all of the ones popping into your head as your read these words that would seem to bolster this distinction.  But even if the world lies in the hands of the wicked one, can we really say that everything is darkness?  If so, where does innovation  invention, composition, or creativity come from?  From what source does courage, generosity, compassion, loyalty, or empathy spring? Did God really turn His back on the world and leave it to its own devices so that all it produced in His sight was the filthy rags of failure and despair during that interlude from Adam's sin to the coming of Jesus?  Or was there always a glimmer of eternity stuck away in the hearts of each and every person that was put there by the very hand of God, sometimes brighter, sometimes dimmer, never being completely extinguished, and ultimately finding its meaning in the coming of Jesus?  I only ask because I look at the world, then I look at the church, then I look at the world, then I look back at the church and it seems that the distinction is one of words only, and that both of us seem to be sharing a shade of gray more than either of the two extremes.  On this First Sunday of Advent I do find hope in the words of Isaiah 42 quoted also in the gospels, "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out..."  If this is what the coming of Jesus offers to me then I am thankful that whatever light I do have will not be taken from me until the day that makes all things light be fulfilled in me.

I See Men as Trees

I am facing cataract surgery in August and the whole process of aging (a more palatable form of describing the process of slowly dying or decaying) brings fresh perspectives into this interesting time of life.  Cataracts are probably different for each person who experiences them, but for me I see men as trees walking.  Everything is blurry all of the time, and nothing I do can improve the focus.  The light simply enters into my eyeball lenses where it is diffracted all to hell and never quite hits the back of the eyeball on target, or at least all of the light does not hit the same place at the same time.  I am starting to better appreciate my physics about not really seeing something but rather seeing the light reflected from that something.  In my case I lack the properly calibrated equipment to collect and focus that light, hence blurry has become my way of life.

Now as you age, you learn to live with things, things like joint pain, difficulty in sleeping, having to fight against gravity, loss of muscle tone, and more of all that.  I used to think that you could get use to most anything, that over time what is abnormal would become normalized, you just learn to live with it.  But constant blurriness is difficult to live with.  Oh, I've adapted to it, I can drive but not read highway signs until they are right in front of me, I can still read books and papers but may have to adjust the lighting, computer screens are now my nemesis with their own light source but somehow I get by typing...you get the picture.  But I don't like it, it's more than a nuisance, it affects everything that fills every day and gives me a headache by the end of the day.  I can't get used to it, never will.

And somehow I thought there might be a parable in all of this because as I have aged, my spiritual vision has likewise gotten blurry.  I thought it would sharpen with time, but I find that I no longer see those clear, crisp lines between black and white, I see a lot of grey.  My eagle-eyed vision that used to catch every jot and tittle and nuance now seems content to just try to take in the big picture and make some sense of that at least.  I know that some would use words like "lukewarm" or "left your first love" or "compromise" to describe my condition.  But I don't think that's a fair assessment.  What cataracts have done for me is make me appreciate the miracle of sight and become really fearful of what my condition might be if I ever lost it.  And I thought that was probably true for me spiritually as well.  I need another touch of Jesus' hand; seeing men as trees walking may be better than darkness all of the time, but for one that was used to seeing clearly it is a step down.  But here's the hard part to put into words.  I don't want to return to the way I used to see things around me, I want to see the light reflected from all of those things, to believe again that the world was created good, that man is redeemable and life has direction and purpose, that God has not abandoned us to futility, that the gospel is still good news, and that in the end of all things in His light we will see light (Psalm 36:9).

The Gospel, Pure and Simple

It often amazes me how hard it is to be a Christian and identify yourselves with any particular denomination, church, or particular flavor (i.e. pentecostal, evangelical, emergent, or home-church, just to name a few). I'm thinking about Pentecost. Peter preaches one short sermon and 3,000 people are added! And these guys and gals were serious. They devoted themselves to the apostle's preaching, they broke bread together, they prayed and praised, and they were filled with awe at what they were experiencing. And all of that without church membership, sunday schools, weekly home fellowships, new believer's classes, or coffee hours. Just repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Spirit, and welcome brother or sister. How unlike what we are used to. I mean, which of our churches would know what to do with 3,000 believers at an altar call? Why for goodness sakes are we praying for revival, we wouldn't know what to do with a large influx of people if they came. Or, we'd do with them what we have always done and little by little they would stop coming. Why do we make Christianity so darn complicated, when pure and simple it is found in these words of Jesus, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and heavily laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me...and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light." Everytime I read those words I have this feeling that this is not a message Jesus is offering to the unrepentant and lost, but to those that already belong to Him. Why is it so difficult to live as a Christian in the church today? It's at that point I hear another gospel warning, "Woe to you...you shut up the kingdom of heaven from those around you; for you will not go in yourselves nor will you allow those who want to enter to go in." It's time to lay aside all of this denominational and congregational nonsense and get back to the gospel, pure and simple.