“Faith is the Measure”: A Lenten Thought

As I enter into the first full week of my Lenten journey I am pretty aware of the fact that I am distracted, tired and prefer doing something, anything other than focusing on the renewing of my faith which is one of the purposes of Lent. I may be one of those who suffer from SADD or SAHDD -- Spiritual Attention Deficit Disorder/Spiritual Attention Hyperactivity Deficit Disorder. Even though I have been practicing Centering Prayer and focused prayer for several years now, I still find it hard at times to be still and focus on the present moment and my relationship with God. Maybe you have the same problem.

If so, you and I are among the 99%. No, not the occupy Wall Street 99%, although I support their cause, but the 99% David Steindl-Rast refers to when he says: "Ninety-nine percent of the time we have an opportunity to be grateful for something. We just don't notice it. We go through our days in a daze".

I hate to admit it. But that’s me – going through my days in a daze. And because I am in a daze – either due to stress, or laziness, or lack of sleep or lack of intention or attention, I miss so much of what God wants to teach me and what life is all about. I miss so much to be grateful for.

That really is why I need Lent. It provides some structure to my life – forty days beginning with Ash Wednesday and running through Easter. It is punctuated with Sundays that remind me of the challenges and blessings of the journey and begins to come to an end with Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday* and Good Friday. I have devotional guides and the church to help with my journey. And the journey is all about slowing down, focusing and learning to see, again.

Juliet Benner reminds us that: “Spirituality is all about seeing. It is becoming aware of realities in which we are immersed but of which we are unaware….Spiritual vision requires learning to notice the presence of God within and around us.”

The Lenten journey, the spiritual journey, is all about learning to see, having our eyes opened to the wonder and the glory of life and God’s presence in it. It is about learning gratitude and to say alleluia! The 18^th century French Catholic Jesuit writer Jean-Pierre de Caussade, who is best known for his work Abandonment to Divine Providence (also translated as The Sacrament of the Present Moment), reminds us that “The present moment is always full of infinite treasures, it contains far more than you have the capacity to hold. Faith is the measure; what you find in the present moment will be according to the measure of your faith.” Thomas Merton says the same thing: “We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent, and God is shining through all the time.” And if I still didn’t hear it, there are other voices. The writer Frederick Buechner: “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is…There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always leaving you room to recognize or not to recognize him.” The theologian, Augustine: “God is always present to us and all things; it is that we, like blind persons, do not have eyes to see.”

The world around us, and the life we live in it, is saturated, alive with grace, if we have eyes to see. In fact, if the above voices and centuries of Christian witnesses are to be believed, there is more than we could ever hope to see. But let’s admit it – it is hard to really believe this. Our world of work, messy relationships, challenging classes, global and local tensions, economic concerns, health issues, etc. and etc., make it hard to believe that this world is “full of infinite treasures.”

This brings us back to this thing called “faith.” J.P. de Caussade reminds us that: “Faith is the measure; what you find in the present moment will be according to the measure of your faith.” A weak or shallow faith, a distracted or wrongfully preoccupied faith will find very little of meaning and evidence of the Divine in the present moment. Lent helps us to cultivate the faith that enables us to see. It grabs us by the collar and sits us down and takes our face in its hands and says: “Look! Look at what God is doing in the world and look at what God is doing in your life!”

Faith for the journey, is the willingness to trust God. Faith, in the Biblical sense, is fundamentally trust. It is trust in the character, the integrity, the care and compassion of God. It rests on the testimony of Scripture and Church – men and women who have come to know God in and through the rough and tumble experiences of life. For some, faith is robust and growing, for others it is weak and struggling. I like what Thomas Merton once said about faith. In one of his journals he is describing his many distractions, his weaknesses and the many things that can draw him away from God: “I am happy that I can at least want to love God. Perhaps that is all I’ve got, but it is already all that is essential. And He will take care of the rest.” Faith believes that in Jesus we meet one who knows our struggles, our pain, our experience of emptiness and abandonment, of growing faith and ebbing faith, and he still loves us and will work with that faith to bring us to maturity, if we want.

“What Will We Pay Attention To?” That really is the big question. The world and we are filled with so much noise, so many voices calling for our attention and time. We are constantly bombarded with images and sights that are supposed to tempt us, wow us, tease us, satisfy us.  How are we to hear and see in this vast sea of stimulation? And more specifically, how are we to see and hear and experience God in our midst? Lent helps us to cultivate a listening ear, to sharpen our vision, to sensitize our soul to the presence of the Holy in our midst.

One practical way to do that is to begin with gratitude. Many of us think that gratitude comes from happiness, but David Steindl-Rast reminds us that “It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but it is gratefulness that makes us happy.”

So, let me suggest that for the next week in your Lenten journey you try this exercise. When you wake up in the morning, instead of saying something like “Oh God! It is morning.”; try staying still for a moment and saying  or thinking) “Thank you God for this morning!” A grateful start to the morning can lead to a full day of gratitude; and turned into a daily practice, this grateful beginning creates a grateful life.

For the week, devote at least five to ten minutes each morning to considering life's gifts to you. If you already have or can set aside a special morning meditation time, great! If you have to go to work early or have classes or are immediately plunged into parenting duties or taking care of an invalid, choose some reminder — the first time you take a sip of a beverage in the morning; a chime on your cell phone; the coming to a stop at a red light; getting on or off the bus or train; something—to think of three things for which you are grateful. And then turn your awareness of your gifts into a time of prayer – thank God for the gifts in your life. And look for opportunities to tell someone. Maybe it will challenge them to see the giftedness of life and the graciousness of God.

Some other things to think about: 1) Is your life filled with too much noise to hear God? What are some things you could do that would free up some space to breathe deeply again? You might want to talk with a trusted friend about your decision to do less; 2) What do you think God delights in when God thinks about you? Why does God think that you were special enough to send Jesus for you? What is your response to this grace?

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*Also known as Holy Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Great & Holy Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, is the Christian feast or holy day falling on the Thursday before Easter that commemorates the Last Supper of Jesus Christ with the Apostles as described in the Gospels ( Mark 14:12-25; Matthew 26:17-19; Luke 22:7-13). It is the fifth day of Holy Week, and is preceded by Holy Wednesday and followed by Good Friday.

Being Healed

I think that many of us avoid or fear Lent and its call to spiritual self-examination and change in the same way that we avoid going to the dentist or doctor. It is a mixture of fear and pride. Fear that we might discover something that will unsettle us (we waited too long to get that growth checked and now it is infected; or we waited too long to treat the cancer and it is at an advanced stage) or cause us pain (an impacted molar, the need for a root canal or the simple lecture from the dentist that we should be having regular check-ups) or pride (“I can take care of myself”; “I’m not feeling well, but I will get better”; “The doctor is a quack, what does he know?”). And so we stay away.

When it comes to Lent, the penitential, reflective season of spiritual examination and call to renewal and starting again, we think it is nice for some people, but we really don’t need it. We may not be what we should be in our relationship with God, but we are certainly not that bad.

But Lent doesn’t let us off the hook that easily. It starts with Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday we are reminded of our mortality (”From dust you came and to dust you will return”) and our sins (“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin” Psalm 51:1-2). In fact the traditional reading of Psalm 51 is full of words like “transgressions”, “judgment”, “guilty”, “broken and contrite heart”, etc. Words that we like to avoid or fear. And it continues through the forty days as we are brought face to face with the goodness and claim of God on our lives and our continual falling short and our need for God’s help if there is ever going to be any change and if we are ever going to experience the fullness of life that God calls us to. It is easy to want to avoid Lent. Fear and pride, as well as sloth and preoccupation with other, seemingly more pressing things get in the way.

But the Season of Lent, like the regular visits to the dentist and doctor, is intended to help us and keep us spiritually healthy. Yes, we are confronted with our mortality and our sin and our repeated laziness or lack of interest in spiritual things or our preoccupation with temporal and more immediate pleasures and concerns, but at the same time we are reminded over and over again of God’s love and grace and God’s coming alongside of us as we travel this Lenten road towards greater self-awareness and transformation.

Several years ago, Edward Hays wrote a Lenten devotional guide entitled The Lenten Pharmacy: Daily Healing Therapies. It is a quirky, enticing book, like many Hays writes.  In it he focuses on Jesus the Healer. Each day, like a good doctor, Hays offers up a prescription to encourage the reader to explore his/her life and open themselves up to the spiritual healing Jesus offers. Along the way we are introduced to diseases like: “Tomorrowitis” – that procrastination fungus the postpones reform until next year’s Lent or even until one’s deathbed; “Sabbath Dis-ease” – that restlessness of always having to be productive or busy and failing to slow down and be present to the God-filled moment; “Templeitis” – the half-hearted religious life that puts its trust in ritual and routine, but neglects the passionate embracing of a relationship with God that shows itself in a transformed life.

All of these diseases afflict us as they do the people Jesus meets in the Gospel stories. And like a compassionate, sensitive healer, Jesus wants to bring us from dis-ease to ease; from illness to health; from a so-so life to a full and holy life. But if that is going to happen, it requires a response from us. And often our response is like the man who said to Jesus: “I believe, help my unbelief.” And in that honesty healing takes place.

Jesus once told a story which the physician-turned-Gospel writer Luke records in his gospel. It is found in Luke 18:9-14. Here is Eugene Peterson’s retelling of the story in contemporary English in his paraphrase The Message: ^9-12[Jesus] told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: "Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: 'Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.'  ¹³"Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, 'God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.'" ¹⁴Jesus commented, "This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."

In this parable, Jesus gives us a prescription for beginning and continuing the Lenten journey. It starts with humility and an admission that we need God’s mercy if we are ever going to be the people we are intended to be and if God is ever going to be glorified in our lives.

The disciplines of the journey – prayer, Bible reading, silence, fasting, worship, service – are ways to help us grow in humility and wholeness. Don’t procrastinate or think that you are too busy to slow down or hide in your comfortable or safe religious routine. True healing and wholeness comes with a cost and that cost is being humble enough to place yourself in the caring, healing hands of Jesus. That is the Lenten challenge and that is the promise of discipleship. Happy Lenten journey!

"The One You Feed"

There is a familiar Native American story called “The Two Wolves.” One version goes like this: One evening, an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all. One wolf is “Evil.” It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, and superiority. The other wolf is “Good.” It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, faith…and contentment.”The grandson was amazed at this. You could see it in his face. You could also see that he was puzzling over what he had just been told. Finally, he could no longer restrain himself, so he asked, “Which wolf wins?”The old Cherokee grandfather smiled slightly and softly replied, “The one you feed.”

The story reminds us that we all make choices in our life. And the consequences of those choices can sometimes spell the difference between joy and peace and sorrow and regret.

The season of Lent is also about making choices. Lent is an invitation. It is a call to reflect, refocus, refresh, and renew. It invites us to slow down and pause in the midst of life and to look within at the war that often is going on deep within us, or maybe not so deep within. We all carry wounds and scars from this battle. For some of us it seems like it is an eternal struggle with no way out. We have tried to calm the beast that rages within and also to fight against the ones that attack us from without, but we never quite seem to get the upper hand. This is even true for those of us who claim to follow Jesus, the Prince of peace.

When I look at my own life, I find that “evil” usually gets the upper hand because I forget to feed my soul. Instead, I fall into the habit of feeding my fears, my distrust, my anger, my resentment, my insecurity, my …. I feed them through allowing myself to see things as urgent, as normal or usual, as acceptable, as reasonable or as all that there is.

Grace alone can bring about a lasting change in our lives, a transformation of our deepest self. Grace alone can help us to push back against the darkness. Without grace – simply relying on our power alone -- we cannot be faithful to the divine calling and direction God has in mind for us from the beginning. What we need to do is create space for grace. And to do that means feeding those things that help create that space and make the gift of grace a reality in our lives. Only then can we come to know the serenity, the peace, the contentment that Jesus promises.

Someone has written: “If everyone is running around wringing their hands and crying, and you are cool, calm, and collected, you don’t understand the situation.” To live with serenity/contentment does not necessarily mean that outward conditions have changed. Serenity is an inner peace that is present even in difficult surroundings. It is a deep, inner sense that all will ultimately be well. The experience goes beyond our systems of emotional or rational intelligence. It is an intuitive or spiritual knowing that produces in us the inner experience of calmness, clarity, and awareness. In serenity, we learn to live more fully in the now moment rather than being bound to the past or living anxiously in the future. And because God is present in the now, God is present with us in the now, and no matter what we face, God will be there with us.

But as the story above reminds us, this awareness, this reality, this settled and settling conviction doesn’t just happen, it requires a response, a choice, a decision, an effort on our part. “The one you feed.” We can feed our fears and illusions or resentment or anger or self-pity, and they can continue to dominate our lives and overwhelm us with a hopelessness that can paralyze us; OR we can feed or cultivate that relationship with the God of peace who wants to give us LIFE and help us see our daily lives in a new and liberating light.

So if you have made the decision to feed your soul this Lent, here are some things to focus on: Slow Down – just as it is hard to enjoy a meal on the run, you need to allow time for rest and meditation; Reflect -- on where you are in life and what God, through Scripture, has to say about where you can and should be; Practice – the disciplines of prayer, silence, Bible Reading, worship and service; Don’t Give Up – nothing worth achieving comes easily and without effort; Live Thankfully – realize that each day, each breath, each opportunity is a gift God is giving you to grow in personhood and fullness; and Remember Grace – the God who invites you into relationship with himself also provides the resources to grow in that relationship. When we fall or fail, God is still there, ready to forgive and restore. While Grace is free, it is not cheap; it requires our surrender and willingness to receive it and live in it. Grace is the good news that, in Christ, I am more loved than I ever thought possible and that there is nothing in this life that I will ever have to face that God will not be there to face it with me.

Recalibration

Today is the first day in the Season of Lent, the forty weekdays leading up to Easter. I know that for many people “Lent” carries a negative tone and means self-denial and giving up something. And that is part of the tradition of this season. Lent is a time for introspection, to pause, reflect, reassess, repent, and refocus our relationship with God and the life that God has called us to in Christ. And to make time to do that and to focus on the deeper side of life often means that we have to carve out some space in our busy schedules by giving up something so that we can use that time, or be reminded by that sacrifice, to use the time to reflect on some deeper spiritual realities. As the British mystic and writer on the spiritual life, Evelyn Underhill put it: “Lent is a good moment for…a spiritual stocktaking; a pause, a retreat from life’s busy surface to its solemn deeps.” It is a sort of mid-course correction or as I have come to think of it this year – Lent is a time for recalibration, a spiritual recalibration.

            Recently, I took my car in to the shop for a tune-up. It was running a bit rough and I knew that the gas mileage and performance of the car would be improved if I had it tuned up. In the same way, Lent is a time to recalibrate our soul. To calibrate means to “correlate the readings of (an instrument) with those of a standard in order to check the instrument's accuracy.” In other words, there is a standard and we see how well something is performing in accordance with the standard. And when something gets out of calibration, we need to recalibrate it.

            I see Lent as something like that. It is a time for me to pause and see how well I am measuring up to the standard of what it means to follow Jesus, to be a disciple. In other words, how does my life measure up to Christ since Jesus calls me to follow him and learn from him and to imitate him?

            I could skip Lent. I could simply rock along on the way to Easter just like I could forget about tuning up my car and put up with the rough ride. But if I do, I will miss something.

            Lent is a time of returning to God. It is a time to reflect on where we have been looking for joy, peace and satisfaction as we make our journey through life. What standards, what instruments, what measures have we been using?  Have we sought it in the people and things that are around us? Do we really know what we are looking for, what we want, what we need, how to recognize it when we find it? It is so easy to use the standards, the measurements of the people and society around us and get hopelessly lost, frustrated or disillusioned. Without stopping to recalibrate, it is easy to get the wrong readings and forget that only God can give us what we really need. It is easy for our life, our thinking, our pursuits to get out of sync and miss the deeper things in life. This is one of the reasons we need Lent – to recalibrate our spiritual life.

Of course, we are not cars or instruments that can be so easily recalibrated. We can deny it, fight it or fake it. The choice is really up to us.

This brings us back to something I said at the beginning. Lent for many of us is frightening. It is frightening because it reminds us that to get to Easter – Life, we have to pass through Death. Henri Nouwen puts it this way: “Yes, Lord, I have to die—with you, through you, and in you—and thus become ready to recognize you when you appear to me in your resurrection. There is so much in me that needs to die: false attachments, greed and anger, impatience and stinginess. O Lord, I am self-centered, concerned about myself, my career, my future, my name and fame. …O Lord, make this Lenten season different from other ones. Let me find you again.”

What needs to die in you?

Spiritual recalibration means work. Through the Scripture readings for the Season, the devotional books written especially for Lent, the worship services, through regular times of silence and solitude and reflection, we recalibrate our souls – clean, repair and reset them. We correlate/align our understanding and measure of what makes up a good life, a satisfying life, a meaningful and fulfilling life with the standard/will of our Creator. And with that recalibration we are ready to see how Easter is more than bunny rabbits, chocolate eggs and pretty bonnets. It is the Good News. It is the Good News of what it means to be truly alive.

So I hope that as you journey through Lent this year you will experience a spiritual recalibration of your soul and that, in the midst of the hard soul-work involved, you will know peace and joy.

"The Ears of God"

As part of my devotional reading for this year I am reading excerpts from the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian who was martyred by the Nazis in the closing days of World War II. Bonhoeffer was just 39 years old when he died. He had spent some time teaching in the States and could have stayed and avoided going back to war-torn Germany, but felt compelled to return to help his fellow Christians and Germans live faithfully through the nightmare that was The Third Reich. He wrote much on what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus. His powerful attack on “cheap grace” – that is, professed faith in Christ that fails to understand and live out the radical claims of the Gospel, is a message that needs to be heard again and again, especially in our Gospel-weak and highly culturally-adapted understanding what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

In his little book, Life Togethe, Bonhoeffer shares some practical advice on what it means to live in Christian fellowship. In one section he talks about “The Ministry of Listening.” I was struck by this passage:

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists in listening to them. Just as our love for God begins with listening to God’s Word, so the beginning of love for other believers is learning to listen to them. God's love for us is shown by the fact that God not only gives us God’s Word, but also lends us God’s ear. We do God’s work for our brothers and sisters when we learn to listen to them. So often Christians, especially ministers, think that their only service is always to have to “offer” something when they are together with other people. They forget that listening can be a greater service than speaking.
     Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking when they should be listening. But Christians who can no longer listen to one another will soon no longer be listening to God either; they will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too. This is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension which chokes on pious words. Those who cannot listen long and patiently will always be talking past others, and finally no longer will even notice it.  Those who think that their time is too valuable to spend listening will eventually have no time for God and others, but only for themselves and for their own words and plans.
     …But Christians have forgotten that the ministry of listening has been entrusted to them by the one who is indeed the great listener and in whose work they are to participate. We should listen with the ears of God, so that we can speak with the Word of God. (pp. 97-99 adapted)

I suppose these words struck me because I have seen in others and in myself the absence of the ministry of listening. We speak too much. Or we listen, as Bonhoeffer also said, with “half an ear.” That is, impatient, inattentive listening. We already know what the other person is going to say, or we are only waiting for them to finish so that we can speak. No real listening here.

I have been trying to work on this. I try to listen to the store clerk or the tired service manager at the auto shop or the post office employee or the person waiting in line with me or the person in the pew next to me. People are hungry for someone to listen to them. And unfortunately, we Christians, often don’t do a very good job at listening.

I remember watching the TV series “Cheers” and sometimes feeling that there is often more of a ministry of listening in a bar than there is in the church. Ouch!

Several years ago one of our Seminary professors often started his classes with reflective, meditative readings. During one of those readings I was introduced Michael Quoist. Michael Quoist was a Roman Catholic priest and writer who worked mostly in the inner city and among young people. In 1954 he published a book of contemporary prayers that refreshingly showed God’s interest in all areas of life. One of the prayers is called “The Telephone”.

The Telephone

I have just hung up; why did he telephone?
I don’t know….Oh! I get it….

I talked a lot and listened very little.

Forgive me, Lord; it was a monologue and not a dialogue.
I explained my idea and did not get his;
Since I didn’t listen, I learned nothing,
Since I didn’t listen, I didn’t help,
Since I didn’t listen, we didn’t commune.

Forgive me, Lord, for we were connected,
And Now we are cut off.

This is a sad prayer reminding us that so often we miss a real opportunity to be present for another person when we fail to listen. Through our failure to listen we may have inadvertently missed an opportunity to be a healing, life-refreshing, hope-instilling presence in another’s life.

Bonhoeffer also reminds us that to fail to listen – to the other, to God – can be the beginning of the death of the spiritual life. It is easy to become so preoccupied with talking and being in control that we fail to miss what God wants to say to us and because we do, we fail to nourish that relationship that makes us more Christlike. Jesus often invited his audience to “listen”,  to “hear” what God was saying through him, the world, their life experience, the Scriptures and others.

What we need is to listen with God’s ears to the sighs, the cries, the longings, the silence, as well as the words of those around us. And if we can learn that, maybe we will be able to listen to our own deepest cries and the still, small voice of God as it speaks to us of peace and healing.

Maybe a good resolution for this year is to heed the words of the Book of James: “be quick to listen, slow to speak.” (James 1:19).

"I Want You"

In his timely book, which probably should be required Christmas reading for all followers of Jesus, Christmas is Not Your Birthday, Mike Slaughter quotes Alan and Deb Hirsch who point out in their book Untamed: “Of all the ways culture influences the church, nothing has had more of an impact on us than that of a consumerist vision of society. We have all been impacted by the powerful experience of society that is preoccupied with the acquisition of consumer goods. From good old Santa Claus (a religious symbol co-opted to disciple children in thorough-going materialism from early childhood on) to the complete ubiquity of niche marketing, we are daily being nurtured in the worldview generated by late capitalism of the twenty-first century—consumerism.” (Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship. Baker Books, 2010, 137).

We could elaborate on how this cultural influence can be seen in the ways that we approach worship, build and equip our worship places, buy “Christian” brands, gauge our success as churches by how many people we get in the seats, etc. But since they mention Santa, let’s just focus on Christmas.

I often get the feeling these days that I am not a very good American, not a patriot, because I am not consuming as much as I should. After all, the daily drumbeat of the news, with its constant eye on the Dow Jones, is a reminder that it is Christmas that makes or breaks the retail market, and, by implication, the health of our economy and country.

I just refuse to play that game. If I read the Gospels correctly and listen to the witness of the church, Christmas is a reminder that in the midst of all the “stuff” the world promises us, gives us and surrounds us with, what we really need is God’s love. First John puts it this ways: “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God. Dear Friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:9-11)

A while back I came across the story of a little girl who had to spend some time in a hospital. She came from a very well-to-do family, and her family show¬ered her with expensive gifts during her stay in the hospital. There were large overstuffed toys, including a 6 foot tall giraffe, dolls and a dollhouse, games of every description. The mother, who was well known in social circles brought something new every time she came to see the little girl. But she never stayed long because she always had to get to some luncheon or party. But she never failed to bring a gift. The nurses com¬plained about the enormous amount of toys that made it difficult for them to move about in the child's room. One day the little girl was particularly unhappy in the midst of all her many gifts, and held desperately to her mother as her mother tried to break free so that she wouldn't be late to a bazaar she was scheduled to attend. The mother tried to divert the child's attention to the new toy she had brought. "Mommy," cried the little girl, "I want you." Surrounded by gifts, surrounded by “stuff”, she wanted the most important thing of all, her moth¬er's presence and her mother’s love

I wonder how long it will take for us to realize that about Christmas, in fact, our total pursuit of the “good life”? What we really need is not just more stuff, but love. What we need most is not the promised security of things, whether it be a healthy bank account or a well-armed military to protect our “stuff”. What we need most is a meaningful personal relationship with the God who loves us and cares for us. And as a result of knowing that love, the ability to love others and to be loved by others.

Christmas IS first and foremost about love. Christmas tells us that God has come into our broken and lonely world to love us and show us what true love is. It is a love that is not based on how good we are or how smart we are, or how well connected we are, but simply because we ARE. Experiencing the love of God and allowing that love to wash over us and through us to others is one of the greatest experiences we can have this Christmas. Will it be yours and mine?

Bypassing Advent

A few years back, Stanley Grenz wrote an article that appeared in Christianity Today entitled “Drive Through Christmas.” Here is an adaption of what he wrote:

“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me." Tony Bennett's voice wove its subtle magic throughout the shopping mall. How appropriate, I thought, as I watched the shoppers scurry from store to store. The advertisements promised "just the right gifts at just the right price," allowing us to "give like Santa and save like Scrooge."

As I listened, I was struck with how we have turned Christmas around—not so much by commercializing the season, but through something deeper. Our McWorld of drive-through expectations has replaced patient waiting, followed by heartfelt joyous celebration, with the idolatry of instant gratification.

As members of the fast-food generation, we have become so eager to get to Christmas that we bypass Advent. Whereas an earlier generation encouraged fasting and reflection, we try to enjoy days filled with more Christmas festivities than we can endure. Christmas has displaced Advent on our calendars.

But our bypassing of Advent runs deeper—altering our attitude to the story of Christ's birth. We know how the story ends. Knowing the end of the story so well, we want to rush through the long and tortuous details of how God prepared a people—of how "God sent his Son…when the time had fully come" (Galatians 4:4). Rather than entering into the sense of expectation lying at the foundation of the story of Christ's entrance into human history, we read only the story's glorious climax. Rather than savoring the plaintive mood of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," we immediately want to hear a robust version of "Joy to the World, the Lord Is Come." In short, we have our Christmas early and create a drive-through Christmas."

What Grenz is lamenting is the reality that for many people there is no time or room for Advent, those four weeks preceding Christmas. It gets in the way. Like kids who just want to get to the dessert, we want Christmas.

But Advent is important. That is why the church for centuries has been observing it. With its emphasis on expectation and hope, peace and joy and the need for and discovery of real love, Advent helps prepare us for Christmas. It helps get us ready to fully appreciate and celebrate the real significance of Christmas and to see it in the grand scope of God’s plan for the universe.

In our home, for decades we have lit an Advent wreath. Each day of the four weeks, beginning with the fourth Sunday before Christmas, we pause in the evening to light the appropriate candle for the week (Hope/Expectation, Peace, Joy, and Love), read a passage of Scripture and a brief meditation on the passage in the light of that week’s theme, and pray. For me, this practice sanctifies time and reminds us that Christmas is more than decorations, parties, hectic shopping and gift giving. It is a time to rest and allow the profound truth that God, the Sovereign God of the universe, because of love, enters into the drama of our human lives and history in the person of Jesus. God comes as a vulnerable baby, dependent on others.

Advent helps me to see that in a world so often devoid of hope, peace, joy and love, that God comes to give us these gifts. Yes, Christmas carols and songs and some of the trimmings of Christmas can remind us of this truth. But spending four weeks reflecting and preparing for the celebration of Christmas can allow us to enter more deeply into the profound joy of the season.

As I write this we are already into the third week of Advent. In those three weeks, Connie and I have enjoyed the opportunity to pause, ponder and prepare. Advent reminds us, through its readings and emphasis on hope, peace, joy and love that no matter how much the culture around us wants to redefine these words through its hype and suggestions that these things come in neatly wrapped boxes from department stores, real love, joy, peace and hope are only found in opening ourselves up to the gift of relationship that God gives us in Christ.

So, let me encourage you to not “bypass Advent.” Savor it. Enjoy the four weeks leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ coming. Let this time bathe your soul and help you to really enter into the joy of the celebration of God’s greatest gift. Happy Advent!!