{"id":1348,"date":"2014-11-29T17:01:21","date_gmt":"2014-11-29T22:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/tomzampino\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2014-12-23T21:00:59","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T02:00:59","slug":"advent-a-child-not-a-rambo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tomzampino\/2014\/11\/advent-a-child-not-a-rambo\/","title":{"rendered":"Advent: A Child, Not A Rambo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Stallone. Schwarzenegger. Willis.<\/p>\n

Three names, among many,\u00a0that we effortlessly associate with action, rescue, triumph.<\/p>\n

Somewhere, something in the world \u2013 order, structure, freedom \u2013\u00a0has fallen away. Or, perhaps,\u00a0evil has overwhelmed good.\u00a0An ordinary\u00a0man gets pressed into service and, with guns blazing and bombs blasting, he\u00a0becomes a one-man rescue operation.<\/p>\n

Loud. Aggressive. Masculine. Effective.<\/p>\n

The world is set to rights and all is made well yet again.<\/p>\n

Our\u00a0focus is easily drawn to the dramatic, our attention uncontrollably compelled to the sensational. We want to know \u2013 we need to know \u2013 that\u00a0evil can be brutally and lastingly defeated, even if we don\u2019t quite always\u00a0recognize good<\/em> when we see it.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s pretty easy to understand how a solid action movie can be so viscerally satisfying to our senses.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0as Isaiah (55:8)\u00a0reminds, God\u2019s ways are not our ways.<\/p>\n

Two thousand years ago, with His people off course yet again, God Himself undertook a rescue operation.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the thing:<\/p>\n

He could have blasted His enemies off the face of the earth. Instead, He commanded that we love our enemies.<\/p>\n

He could have gathered up His people, and left everyone else to die. Instead, He let His people turn against Him, and\u00a0He\u00a0Himself died in\u00a0our place.<\/p>\n

He could have sent a Rambo. Instead, He sent a child.<\/p>\n

A weak, helpless, physical presence in need of a mother\u2019s loving touch, and a father\u2019s gentle instruction.<\/p>\n

As C.S. Lewis taught in Mere Christianity<\/em>,<\/a> a moment\u2019s reflection might bring some clarity as to why a child<\/em>: the dark, spiritual\u00a0enemy that had overtaken the earth was so powerful, so all consuming, that Christ was obliged to arrive surreptitiously and clandestinely by sneaking behind enemy lines.<\/p>\n

Brilliant.<\/p>\n

This child\u00a0came armed with no weapons \u2013 except for His words.<\/p>\n

But these words would later\u00a0forge a century. Ultimately,\u00a0they changed the course of the world itself.<\/p>\n

And so we commemorate the season of Advent in these shortened days before Christmas.<\/p>\n

It is a time when the Church<\/p>\n

makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior\u2019s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming (CCC 524)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To commemorate the anticipation of His birth is to also acknowledge His death, resurrection, and return.<\/p>\n

Before I reverted to the Catholic faith, I never quite understood any of this. I had always looked upon the Advent and Christmas\u00a0season as a way that\u00a0we unthinkingly deflected Christ\u2019s real power and presence in the world.<\/p>\n

I found it disturbing that we focused our attention on a helpless, infant son, instead of upon the saving grace and the healing\u00a0power of the mature Son of Man<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s all part and parcel of the same event, the same heroic rescue.<\/p>\n

This is what I had been missing about Advent all of these years.<\/p>\n

I think I get it now.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more, something that I\u00a0ran across today.<\/p>\n

Caryll Houselander, writing in Wood of the Cradle; Wood of the Cross<\/a>, <\/em>years ago wrote succinctly on all\u00a0of this.<\/p>\n

I wanted to include a significant portion here as these are beautiful, precious words.<\/p>\n

I found them compelling in forming my thoughts for this piece. I hope that you find these words compelling as well:<\/p>\n

The infant Christ is the whole Christ. Christ was not more God, more Christ, more man, on the Cross than He was in His Mother\u2019s womb. His first tear, His first smile, His first breath, His first pulsation in the womb of His Mother, could have redeemed the world, in fact, Christ chose the life of growth and work and suffering, and the death on the Cross which we know; but by His own choice all this was to depend on a human being giving herself to Him in His infancy, giving her own humanity to the actual making of that infant\u2019s humanity and giving Him her life in which to rest. If every person in whom Christ lives at all, in whom He is an infant \u2013 which means anyone whose soul is alive at all \u2013 surrendered themselves to Him, resting in Him so that He might rest in them, in each one of them the world\u2019s redemption would begin as it began in Mary, the Mother of God. Christ is formed in us, and we are formed into Christ, when we rest in Him and He rests in us.<\/p>\n

During Advent Christ rested in Mary \u2013 still, silent, helpless, and utterly dependent. The Creator trusted Himself to His creature. He trusted to her the expression of His love, the expression of God\u2019s love for the world and of His love of His Father, just as the work of His love would be trusted to us, in His life in us.<\/p>\n

He was dumb; her voice was His voice.<\/p>\n

He was still; her footsteps were His journeys.<\/p>\n

He was blind; her eyes were His seeing.<\/p>\n

His hands were folded; her hands did the work of His hands.<\/p>\n

His life was her life; His heartbeat was the beating of her heart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

May you experience\u00a0the blessings and the joys\u00a0of Christ during this Advent season.<\/p>\n

Peace<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Houselander Quotes: airmaria.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The C.S. Lewis Interpretation: h\/t to Father Robert Barron<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stallone. Schwarzenegger. Willis. Three names, among many,\u00a0that we effortlessly associate with action, rescue, triumph. Somewhere, something in the world \u2013 order, structure, freedom \u2013\u00a0has fallen away. Or, perhaps,\u00a0evil has overwhelmed good.\u00a0An ordinary\u00a0man gets pressed into service and, with guns blazing and bombs blasting, he\u00a0becomes a one-man rescue operation. Loud. Aggressive. Masculine. Effective. The world is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1976,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nAdvent: A Child, Not A Rambo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Stallone. Schwarzenegger. Willis. 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