Hosannah in our loneliness

Every Christmas eve, since our oldest was tiny, we've enacted the Christmas story with readings from Luke and Matthew and rough renditions of a mix of Christmas carols.

The tradition started with our very small daughter asking her stuffed animals: Who wants to be Joseph? Who wants to be Mary? 

This year, for the 36th year, that same dialogue unfolded, with discussion about typecasting, who would be King Herod, whether the same small person could be both shepherd and magi. 

But this year was a bit different. For the first time, the celebration took place outside, in a grey Phoenixville back yard, with light rain threatening.

The shed where chickens roost in snowy weather was the manger. The LED star was hung first on the chicken run, then moved to light the shed door.

Lentil, the rooster, joined the refrain of "Heaven and nature sing." Melvin, the rescue foxhound, happily joined the sheep and shepherds.

So we made it through Christmas Eve: outdoor, socially distanced, masks on except to eat some Christmas cookies and drink mulled wine under the patio roof.

Christmas Day was much colder, the festivities much shorter: backyard gift exchange with icy fingers. Air hugs. Roast chicken for two. Prayer for all who are ill, alone, anxious and afraid. 

It's been a much quieter season than usual, the first that Whitney and I spent alone, not visiting family, no children or grandchildren staying in our home. Lots of time to read and think.

What does it mean to rejoice in a season of sadness? 

What does it mean that God is with us, when so many are so very alone?

Reading through Christmas poems I found myself pausing on one I hadn't seen before, by Sister Chrysostom, first published in 1946: 

The winds were scornful,
Passing by;
And gathering Angels
Wondered why
A burdened Mother
Did not mind
That only animals
Were kind
For who in all the world
Could guess
That God would search out
Loneliness. 

One of the many mysteries of Christmas: God upended every notion of power and deity to be born as a helpless infant in a dark, dirty shed, surrounded by animal droppings, feed dust, the dank of dark places at night. Mary and Joseph were alone with their new baby, far from the comforts of family and friends, on the first phase of a long, difficult journey. 

Another poem, Descent, by Malcolm Guite, suggests the sheer strangeness of the story:

The other Gods demanded fear
But you gave love . . . 
They towered above our martial plain,
Dismissed this restless flesh with scorn,
Aloof from birth and death and pain,
But you were born.
Born to these burdens, borne by all. . .
Weak, to be with us when we fall,
And strong to save. 

In hospital rooms, prison cells, in refugee camps and shanty towns and every place where lonely hearts wait and pray, God comes near, not as a lofty, distant entity, unfamiliar with our grief, but as one of us: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. 

From that first Christmas, there have been some who believe, and some who don't. John's gospel made that clear.

The True light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and thought the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 

As the Message puts it, 

He came to his own people,
but they didn't want him. 
But whoever did want him,
who believed he was who he claimed
and would do what he said,
He made to be their true selves,
their child-of-God selves. 

The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, 
Like Father, like Son,
Generous inside and out,
True from start to finish.

No one has ever seen God,
not so much as a glimpse.
This one-of-a-kind God-Expression,
who exists at the very heart of the Father,
has made him plain as day. 

This year has been a hard one: political turmoil, deep division, raging pandemic, constant renegotiation of best ways forward. 

But there have been seasons of even greater grief, greater disruption, greater division.

In all of those, across centuries, across continent, across cultural divides, the great good news still sounds. 

Hosannah! Rejoice! 

The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.
Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.

Emmanuel, God with us, is making his home with men and women on this weary earth.

          Rejoice!  Hosannah! 

Advent Four: Those Moments of Choice

Yesterday I was out much of the day scouting birds for the annual Christmas Bird Count. In the freezing cold on the Strubble Trail, a man paused to tell me of eagles he's seen in recent weeks. He mentioned a spot on the river where he often sees them fishing and pointed me toward the cell phone tower as a place where a pair often roosts.

It's interesting how often people will stop to tell about birds they've seen when they see me with binoculars, scanning the woods. I've had some great finds thanks to stories of strangers: a bittern along a reedy bank in Exton Park, a scarlet tanager near a dam on Pickering Creek. 

In Manhattan, in Central Park,  I've had strangers point me toward local secrets: a perfect bird blind for a rainy day. A surprising garden of homemade bird feeders. A sunny rock where a local resident feeds birds by hand and shares his seed with anyone wanting to hand a seed to a waiting chickadee.   

There's always a moment of choice: listen, say thank you, and enjoy the gift, or shrug and continue on my way. My default is to enjoy the gift. Those tiny decisions have yielded abundant treasures. 

Reading the gospel accounts of the days surrounding the birth of Christ, I'm reminded of those tiny moments of choice.

detail from Gabriel appears to Zecharias,
Nicolaes de Giselaer, Netherlands, 1625

Imagine Zechariah, the aging priest. It fell to him by lot to burn incense, alone, in the holiest part of the temple. And there, alone, in the inner, sacred space:

an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped by fear. But the angel said to him: Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him Joh. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth.

I wonder how long it took Zechariah to realize his response was all wrong: "How can I be sure of this?"

The angel's reply suggests exasperation. To paraphrase:

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I'm Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God. He sent me here, to YOU, to give you this message (in the temple!) AND YOU WONDER IF I'M LYING? Give me a break. It will surely happen exactly as I told you. And YOU can be silent for the next nine months because you didn't believe me.

Did Zechariah tell that story to Luke? Or did he and and his wife Elizabeth share it with their beloved son John? Did John give the details to Luke for his account?

Elizabeth's own story is very different. Joyfully pregnant with the promised baby John, she was visited by Mary, newly pregnant with Jesus. 

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!

That promise of blessing cuts in two directions: to Elizabeth. To Mary. Both choosing belief and blessing. Did Elizabeth pass that story on to John? Did Mary tell it to Jesus? Did all tell Luke, as he gathered his accounts? 

I wonder as well with the wise men: who shared the details of that story? How long did they linger with Mary and Joseph? When did God warn them not to tell Herod what they'd found? Who did they tell, before they headed home, that God had warned them to go a different way?

Those pages of the gospels are a golden tapestry of blessings and sorrow, promises and warnings, stories told and repeated, believed and doubted, all echoing earlier promises, earlier stories. 

Each time, there's a moment of decision, a default position of belief or suspicion, hearts ready to leap toward joy, or holding a well-earned pattern of doubt, asking: How can I be sure of this?

In the geography of our own lives, we can point toward the moments of doubt or delight, the small turning points, the growing patterns, those moments of choice.

Our responses are not always as amusing as Zechariah's response to Gabriel. They are not always as immediate and joyful as Elizabeth's response to Mary's visit. They are not always as careful and deliberate as the wise men's decision to bypass King Herod on their travels home.

Sometimes we don't notice we're deciding, or asking, or doubting, until long after. By then the habits of heart are set and we live with the loss, not even knowing what we've lost.

Strange, isn't it, that two thousand years later, the world pauses to celebrate a baby's birth. Of course some of that is based on the capitalist delight in sales and profits and reasons to spend. And some is tradition: family gatherings around a tree, favorite meals, lights and decorations.

But across continents, across centuries, millions pause to read those accounts set down so carefully by Matthew and Luke: the genealogies, the visions, the dreams, the stories. And in those stories, we find ourselves stirred with joy, with delight, with the abiding mysteries: God spoke to a troubled world. God promised hope and healing. Then, mystery of mysteries, God, creator, sustainer, judge, became an homeless child.

How do we understand that? How do we explain it? I've wrestled with the question of miracles and virgin birth, but find that holds less and less interest. We all choose to believe things: that people are lying, or that they're telling the truth. That the universe is flat, and final, or that it's fused with mysteries we'll never understand.

Here are the stories I hold to this Christmas: God speaks in ways we all can hear. God keeps his promises, even when we don't believe. God's heart is love, toward this weary world. God came to live among us, to weep, to die, to conquer death. I choose to believe that. In the big moments, and the small. 

Blessed are all who believe!

As a Christmas gift, I'm sharing a concert from The Gospel Coalition: some old familiar favorites, some very new work, some artists I've known for years, some new discoveries. May your Christmas be joyful, hopeful, blessed in this strange pandemic season. May you choose well how to respond to every gift you're given. 

Advent Three: Joy

Both my husband and I were sick this week, with some of those symptoms we've all memorized and learned to dread: fever, chills, headache, cough. For five days straight we ate soup and crackers, napping mid-afternoon, doing little work.

My birthday was Thursday. Birthday dinner: half a can of soup. The big activity was registering for Medicare. I was in bed, asleep, by seven. 

The one other big activity this week was monitoring latest attempts to overturn PA election results. I was stunned to see that the PA House Republican caucus submitted an amicus brief in support of a suit by Texas and other states challenging PA election results. Every one of those legislators was returned to office in part thanks to those challenged ballots. The PA default position to other states has always been "stay out of our business." I've been grieving to see names of leaders I've met with supporting efforts to discard millions of PA ballots, including my own. 

The word for Advent Three is Joy. I confess, that's been a hard one for me this week. 

We had planned to gather today with children and grandchildren at Conowingo Dam to watch eagles and herons and eat some birthday cake. Not a normal celebration, but at least a remembrance. That idea was cancelled. 

I had also planned to take a day to visit local shops, finish Christmas shopping, then hike along a stretch of river to look for winter ducks. Instead, I ordered some books from Hearts and Minds Bookstore (spoiler alert!) and decided this will be an even more minimal Christmas than planned.

This year we've all had our plans rethought, and scrapped, and rethought again. 

Reading in the opening pages of Matthew this week I was struck by Joseph. His plans were set aside, then revised, then set aside again. He held them lightly and listened well to dreams: three in two chapters. 

Bethlehem, Egypt, Nazareth.

As he traveled, protecting his wife and child, he no doubt heard murmurs of sorrow: children massacred in the wake of Herod's jealous pride. Refugees camping on the banks of the Nile.

We struggle to live with our own fragile plans, but carry with us the knowledge of others whose stories led in different directions. Every day now more Americans die of Covid than died in the Twin Towers on 9-11. Globally the grief is even greater. Covid, war, poverty, displacement. 

What place does joy have in that?

In 1942, Dietrich Bonhoeffer write a circular Advent letter to a band of fellow pastors who stood together in opposition to Hitler and the Nazi regime. The letter began with a list of their friends who had died since the previous letter: ten names, then "“Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads”. 

From there he explored what it means to serve the Lord with joy, and probed the danger of becoming numb in the face of so much sorrow and pain: 

One person said to me recently, “I pray every day that I may not become numb.” That is by all means a good prayer.

And yet we must guard ourselves against confusing ourselves with Christ. Christ endured all suffering and all human guilt himself in full measure — indeed, this was what made him Christ, that he and he alone bore it all. But Christ was able to suffer along with others because he was simultaneously able to redeem from suffering. Out of his love and power to redeem people came his power to suffer with them.

We are not called to take upon ourselves the suffering of all the world; by ourselves we are fundamentally not able to suffer with others at all, because we are not able to redeem. But the wish to suffer with them by one’s own power will inevitably be crushed into resignation. We are called only to gaze full of joy at the One who in reality suffered with us and became the Redeemer.

It's easy to see the Christmas story as just that, a story. An irrelevant tale.

Yet across centuries and continents, people like Bonhoeffer have found comfort, sustenance, even joy in considering the mysteries of God born as human child. 

I have always loved Hebrew 11 and 12, the cloud of witnesses that suffered in faith, some with surprising miracles and wonderful escapes, but others with less joyful outcomes: 

I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

Faith does not promise a positive outcome. Not in this life. I have a brother who suffers from grave mental illness and has for decades. His faith has always been stronger than mine. His suffering breaks my heart.

Bonhoeffer's faith did not deliver him from the Nazi prison. He was executed just weeks before the war ended, at the age of 39.

This pandemic will take from us people of great faith alongside the scoffers who refuse to wear masks and cough in others' faces. 

Throughout it all, we're invited to joy: 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

I confess, in these grey, wintry days it's easy to grow weary and lose heart. 

Praying for myself and others on my birthday, I came across a new recording posted just the day before by two artists I encountered through the Porter's Gate project, singer-songwriter Liz Vice and guitarist Madison Cunningham. 

I can't listen to the song without crying, and it says nothing at all about joy, yet it captures for me Bonhoeffer's wisdom:

We are not called to take upon ourselves the suffering of all the world; by ourselves we are fundamentally not able to suffer with others at all . . . . We are called only to gaze full of joy at the One who in reality suffered with us and became the Redeemer.

I pray we will rest in that reality in this strange Advent season, and know the joy that echoes in these moving harmonies. 

 

Advent Two: Walk in Love

And this was the manner of Christ's birth
Eugene Higgins, 1940s, New York

Under the boot of a tyrant empire, the hope for political rescue is great. 

Wouldn’t we all want leaders who share our values, echo our traditions, invite us into positions of power? 

Jesus came to an occupied people: angry, resentful, weary, afraid. Whatever tyranny American Christians may complain of dims to triviality in the light of Roman oppression. 

Surely a deliverer would come with force and fury to overturn the heathen warlords?

Yet instead of the hoped for political leader, God gave his people Jesus, a carpenter’s child. And that child as he grew called his friends to join him in a life of service and sacrificial love.

Not safety. Not wealth. Not privilege, for them or for himself. 

Advent derives from the Latin advenire, to come. The second advent candle traditionally represents love. Not just love of family or friends, love of country, love of our own circle or clan, but a love that exploded all notions of love. A love so startling and confrontational it offended even those whose lives were constructed on the idea of love for God and neighbor. 

This new love was for enemies too. For opponents, accusers, tyrants. For outcasts, lepers, migrants, beggars, prostitutes, thieves, madmen. 

The words are so familiar we sometimes miss their power: God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

This is no casual summer trip. No cheerful visit from one realm to another. The story, if we believe it, is this: heir and creator of the universe chose the indignity of birth, the burden of daily, dusty life, the humiliation of being stripped naked, flogged, ridiculed, then hung on a wooden cross with iron spikes through hands and feet. 

The poor have the gospel preached to them
Eugene Higgins, 1940s, New York

Weary of wearing a mask? 

Tired of offenses large and small? 

Angry that things aren't going your way?

 Frightened at forces you can't contain?

Jesus talked often of the painful, practical love that would turn the other cheek, carry the burdens of others, forgive again, and again, and again, and again.

He said “Greater love has no one than this: that they give their lives for their friends. You are my friends if you do what I ask. Love one another.” 

That’s the story we claim as Christians: a love that turns the world upside down, shatters pride, expectation, privilege and self-protection, demands complete sacrifice, no matter how painful, on behalf of others. 

In reality, on our own, that kind of love is impossible. We hold onto offense. We protect our own rights. We push back hard when challenged. We simmer with rage and hurt and pride.

Jesus said "By this will everyone know that you're my disciples, if you love one another." 

More than that. He said "You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven."

This week I've been struggling with sadness at the way people I know and once admired scoff at the need to protect each others' health, accuse others of lies, corruption, fraud, duplicity. 

I've been grieving at people of faith stirring death threats against their colleagues. Claiming guns are the foundation of our freedom. Insisting lies are true. Attacking faithful civil servants exhausted in their work to protect our health, our election, our democracy itself. 

In prayer each morning I've been asking God what love looks like in this time, in this place. How do I speak back against lies in a loving voice? How do I affirm what is true without sounding angry or abrasive?

I will never get it right. I see through a glass darkly. 

Yet in my early morning prayer, in the moments of gray at the start of the day, I've been overwhelmed by the knowledge that God's love is far greater than the sorrows that surround us. God's love is greater than the challenge of the day. If I ask to set aside anger, fear, anxiety, sorrow, if I wait for God to fill me with love, I find it bubbling up inside me,

I have long had this prayer from Ephesians taped inside my kitchen cupboard:  

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I pray that for myself, for my family, for my friends, for you. 

I pray it for all God's people, near and far, confused, alone, angry, uncertain.

In this strange advent season, in this time of political disruption, anxiety and grief, I pray we will walk in love: agents of love, recipients of love, healed, held, restored by love.

And I pray we will be known to all who watch us by this joyful, forgiving, implausible love.