The fast is ending and the wait is almost over. Christ will soon be born and we will glorify Him, but not yet, not quite yet. I feel such joy at Christmas that the solemn wait of Advent is a good discipline. We began singing about God with us. Jesus came once and He will come again: the once and future King. We longed for peace that can only come when King Jesus returns and now we stand of the edge of Eternity.
Christ is come and Christ is coming again!
Fourth Sunday in Advent:
Sing:
1. Lo! now a thrilling voice sounds forth,
And chides the darken’d shades of earth:
Away, pale dreams, dim shadows fly,
Christ in His might doth shine on high.
Reflect:
One way to know God is the thrill of reality better than we could imagine. Most often in my life the book has been better than the movie, because (at least for me) my imagination has been better than the homogenized Hollywood version. Even in a great film such as the Fellowship of the Ring, our imagination surrounds us with the images of the text while even an IMAX screen has limits. There is an edge to the image.
Yet being at the Grand Canyon is better than reading about the Grand Canyon. When we rode a raft down a bit of the canyon, we lived and did not just imagine. Fantasy allows us to do what we cannot, but who would prefer the same good event in fantasy if you could have the experience in reality?
I think we wonder if fantasy isn’t better since reality often disappoints us. We imagine Christmas eve service, but then the Costco chair is much less comfortable than our imagination. The candle wax falls on our fingers and burns. Isn’t our imagination better?
I am not sure. I wonder if even the burning candle wax isn’t better, because it is not just me. I know this: when I read too much of an author, I learn his tricks. My summer of Dickens (all of his novels and short stories) left me tired of even his imagination. My own inner life is much less interesting than Dickens’! Living in my imagination is tedious after a time: same twists and turns, same prejudices and assumptions.
Our imitations are always so much less than His reality because our imagination is so much smaller than His. The Day is coming when the final healing of the world will occur. The entire creation will be glorified and nothing will disappoint us because we will have been remade to fit reality and reality will have been remade to fit us. Reality and humanity will harmonize with God.
Once I visited Harry Potter World at Universal in Florida and had a rare experience. Rowling and her team, for at least a moment, perfectly recreated Diagon Alley. I was there and it was marvelous. This is right I thought. The feeling faded . . . the magic was not real after all and butter beer was not as good as one would hope, but the moment when I first turned a corner and saw the street for the first time sticks with me as an image of Paradise.
Someday I will turn a corner and see the streets of the City of God and it will be right. On that street in that City, no compromises will have been made and the magic will be real. I will see Jesus and that will be just as it should be, because He is as He should be and so I will become what I might have been without sin.
Fourth Monday in Advent:
Sing:
2. Now let the sluggard soul arise,
Which stained by sin and wounded lies:
All ill and harm dispelling far,
Rises the new-born Morning Star.
Reflect:
A materialistic culture encourages sluggard souls. We consume food, drink, and things and this sates us. We sit and watch flickering images, give our life a sound track, so reflection and thought go missing. There is so much to do and so little time! Shouldn’t I go check and see if there is some of last night’s Chinese food left in the fridge?
Spiritual laziness is as easy as any other kind of laziness and like any other kind of laziness, leaves us broke, bloated, and bored.
We end up spiritually broke when we consume religious products. Our religious grifters, the church pastors who run Christianity Incorporated, are willing to sell us quick fixes. They will convince us that we can learn all about important issues in a quick read or sermon series: intellectual laziness. They will claim that the right prayer, attitude, or works will take care of our problems. If we just go to their church, watch their sermons, or read their “product,” all will be well.
We end up spiritually bloated when we intake without acting. Too many times I know what to do, study what should be done, and then do not do it. Do I wait for someone else to help when God has called me? Our spiritual ancestors had fewer resources and often more persecution, but they acted. They built churches, schools, and colleges.
We are bored with church when we consume and do not experience. Too often our reaction to this spiritual boredom is to look for a new church or liturgy. Someone will have a new trick that will make us experience God. This is ludicrous, of course. . . . merely opening our Bible would be enough to change our life, but we must act on what we read!
Stop. Pray. Turn off television. At the end of this devotion, go do something for the poor or the Kingdom. Ask God what to do and do it.
We must flee our beds. The spiritual struggle is not fast, but a lifetime. A good character, a great marriage, and true wisdom come from cooperating with the Holy Spirit over decades. Sometimes there is instantaneous healing, growth, or help from God, but this help comes when God wills. We can do nothing to manipulate the King.
Look up soul! See the rising Morning-Star! Wake up!
Fourth Tuesday in Advent:
Sing:
3. The Lamb of God is sent below,
Himself to pay the debt we owe;
Oh! for this gift let every voice
With heartfelt songs and tears rejoice.
Reflect:
We give gifts at Christmas to honor the gift God gave us: Himself. Once I read a secularist who could not understand the notion of God paying “our debt.” Why couldn’t God just cancel the debt? Why go through the bother of the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection?
As far as God was concerned (as God), He could have canceled our “debt.” God did not need anything we “owed” Him and has a super-abundance of grace. The problem as usual was us. If you have ever had a small child who owed you money, then you know that issue is not the money, but the growth of the child. The debt must be discharged in a way that will not corrupt the child.
And so it was with humanity. We chose badly and we were allowed centuries to find out the result of our choice. Humankind tried saving ourselves any number of ways. We worshipped false gods and ourselves. We lived like barbarians or totalitarians, but none of it worked. Ancient atheists tried ignoring the fear, but the fear did not go away. We wished away what should be and tried to be content with what is, but civilization is not built for stoics, but passionate men. Passion demands ought and not is.
We owed a debt we could not pay, not one He could not forgive and we needed to pay it for the sake of our souls. Easy forgiveness would have corrupted us and if God had stayed distant we would have thought He could not understand our pain. So God did what He did not have to do, because He loved us. He came and paid our debt the hard way: he became one of us and owed reality all we had ever failed to do. He emptied Himself and chose wisely where we had chosen badly. He forgave the debt by being one of us. God became man so a God-man could do what man could not and pay the debt of humanity.
Jesus, fully man, paid the debt we owed. God honors who we are and transforms us slowly, organically, to make us like Himself.
That is the message of Christmas.
Fourth Wednesday in Advent:
Sing:
4. That when again His light shines clear,
And wraps the world in sudden fear,
His utmost wrath He may not wreak,
But shield us for His mercy’s sake.
Reflect:
God could destroy the cosmos with a thought, but He does not because He loves His creation. Read history and you will see that when men stand at the edge of doom, they sense it, but nobody manages to do anything about it. A fair number of those about to be destroyed mock the destruction. How bad could it be?
Like the French aristocrats dancing with red bands around their necks to imitate the guillotine mark . . . we pretend that doom can be mocked and made better. The cart came to get the aristocrats after the party and death was no prettier because they had defied their doom. We know the Republic is in trouble, but then the Republic has been in trouble before now. We have been worse and “nothing happened.” Of course, we forget the Civil War, the Great Depression, or the need to go to Europe to fight a war we could have avoided.
People rose up and solved the problems that could have killed us, but we put it off as if men like they were simply will always come and save us. Our doom moves closer, no worse than dooms in the past, but this time nobody is acting.
God’s wrath will not wait forever, but the good news is that God’s wrath never comes as hard as it might. God always spares all He can and even His destruction is always an attempt to heal . . . to cut away the cancerous flesh and leave some wholeness. He gives us harsh medicine, but it is medicine and not poison.
This might make me sad, but after all, I am one man and not a “culture.” I can be complacent until I look at ongoing sins, problems I paper over. Am I loving to those who work with me? Do I treat those I love with dignity? Am I angry? These problems could doom me, so I must cry out to God. I have cried out to God in the past and He has saved me, but this must not keep me from crying out again. As I work out my salvation with fear and trembling, I must not forget to be involved!
God help me to avoid doom . . . and thank you that you wait to even the last moment to avoid wrath.
The Eve of the Christ Mass:
Sing:
5. To Him who comes the world to free,
To God the Son all glory be:
To God the Father, as is meet,
To God the blessed Paraclete. Amen
Reflect:
Tonight I will go to Saint Paul’s and the old carols will be sung: Christmas carols! The Twelve Days of Christmas will start. Advent ends.
Tonight children will sing “only one sleep until Christmas.” There is a deep truth here . . . because we are always one sleep from Christmas. In saner times, children were taught to pray” “if I die before I wake, I pray Thee Lord my soul to take.” Isn’t this morbid? And yet in that era, depression was less and suicide in children rare.
We knew that life was fragile and we are always one sleep from death, but that death need not be feared. We are one sleep from Christmas. You might not care for Paradise . . . it might be that “nothingness” seems more attractive, but this is a basic error. We have no experience of “nothingness” only sleep from which we awake. Nothingness is the one thing we logically cannot have. . . Parmenides was right: what is cannot not be. We are and so must look forward to something.
Christianity says we are one sleep from Christmas if we will change. We are broken and so unfit for eternal beauty, utter wisdom, and piercing pleasure. . . but we can be changed. By grace, through faith, and God’s mercy, we can be transformed from within to become ready for Paradise.
By his grace, I am only one sleep from Christmas.
Maranatha! Come quickly Lord Jesus!
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