This week as we honor the gift of peace we have received through Christ’s birth, it might be good to take some time to look at what hinders that indwelling peace. I think we might agree that anxiety in our culture has reached an epidemic level. Two verses from the New Testament, I believe, help us turn to the One who gives us the peace that brings wholeness and well-being.
Paul in Romans 8:15 – “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father!”
And John then in 1 John 4:18 – “there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
In the verse from 1 John, “perfected” might be better translated as completed or fulfilled. You could say John is saying – “freedom from fear is ours because God’s love for us has been fulfilled (in Christ!)” The context for this verse is found in the verses that preceded this – (and for that matter, the verses that come later). John is not talking about imperfect love as if there was something we could actually do to counteract fear in our lives. Looking at the verses that come right before verse 18 – I love what John says about this kind of love –
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.
God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.
1 John 4:16 (ESV)
I’ve included these two passages in this particular prayer of confession because anxiety breeds a lot of shame – and what we see in both Paul and John is that love is the antidote to fear. We are promised a Father in heaven – because of what Christ has done for us we now call him, Abba, dear Papa… And we are told in the passage from 1 John that the way through fear and anxiety is to receive the kind of love that leads to abiding in Him.
All this to say, that when we come to the prayer of confession in our theme of peace, I think it’s unproductive to simply say – “repent of your fear or anxiety.” I’m not saying there isn’t a need to repent of any attitude that keeps us from receiving all that God has done for us in Christ. I just don’t think that’s where we start.
As we look to the Holy Spirit to reveal our hearts let’s be open to seeing the ways our sins against others, ourselves or God keep us bound to anxiety. Here are some questions that might help us be specific in our confession and thus to go on to receive His forgiveness.
Are there ways you try to manage our anxiety through unhealthy practices? In our confessions of sin last week, I talked about defensive mechanisms that keep us numb. – over-using our phones, binging on shows (I do love my murder mysteries), scrolling through social media, over or under eating… These are all ways we might try to manage our anxiety. Here are a few others:
Do you compare yourself to others? This can almost be unconscious, because we do it so often. We walk into a room and immediately measure ourselves against others there. We’re better, smarter, cooler, whatever. Or we’re painfully aware of how we don’t measure up – we will never be that smart, good, cool, whatever…
Do you judge others harshly – out of an attempt to mask your judgment of yourself?
Are there self-destructive patterns of behavior you engage in while trying to mask anxiety?
Do you hold onto unforgiveness because you believe you could never measure up to what you “think” God demands of you?
Do you find that your thoughts spiral down in paralyzing ways?
Prayerfully consider these questions as you come into this prayer confession. Confess, repent, receive and then come back to a place where you can abide in His love for you! And let that assurance bring you the kind of shalom peace Christ has purchased for you. That kind of love and peace Christ gives us restores in us wonder and worship. There is no other god like our God!
…we cannot talk about sin for very long without being drawn into doxology. Were it not for the mercy of God surrounding us, we would have no perspective from which to view sin, for we would be entirely subject to it. That is the reason for affirming that wherever sin is unmasked and confessed, God’s redemptive power is already present and acting. Fleming Rutledge
Begin by centering your heart in God’s presence… Give thanks to Him that you do not need to hide anything from him. Affirm that He is faithful and good, and his mercy and grace are “new every morning.” The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22-23).
Now let Him begin the process of searching your heart. Are there ways you have not honored Christ this week? Where were your thoughts and desires not centered in Him? How have you failed in obedience to Christ?
Then, simply confess in as specific a way you can the sins that trouble you. Don’t rush through this process. Simply rest in God’s presence as He does this.
Now choose to let this go and receive Christ’s forgiveness for you. Remember – “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9)
Receive His assurance of pardon – 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ . (Eph 1:7-9 ESV)
And finally commit this confession to the Lord. As you rest in His forgiveness ask Him how to walk this out. Ask for the supernatural power of His Spirit to give you what you need to move forward. “Cast your burdens unto Jesus!” Friends, I couldn’t resist this video – I remember singing it often during Pastoral Care Ministries schools!
Please note here, I realize there often is a need to get professional help in dealing with anxiety disorders. I am not trivializing that by giving you “five points to freedom from anxiety.” Please know that God is deeply concerned about what you need. And whether it’s spiritual help or psychological help you need – please reach out to get the help you need!
“This is the place of my song-dream, the place the music played to me,” whispered the Rat, as if in a trance. “Here in this holy place, here if anywhere, surely we shall find Him!”
Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe fall upon him, an awe that turned his muscles to water, bowed his head, and rooted his feet to the ground. It was no panic terror—indeed he felt wonderfully at peace and happy—but . . . he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near. . . .
“Rat!” he found breath to whisper, shaking. “Are you afraid?”
“Afraid?” murmured the Rat, his eyes shining with unutterable love. “Afraid! Of Him? O, never, never! And yet—and yet—O, Mole, I am afraid!”
Then the two animals, crouching to the earth, bowed their heads and did worship. 1
This is from a wonderful children’s story called The Wind and The Willows. Kenneth Grahame, like C.S. Lewis, and George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton wrote often about childlike wonder. Lewis, in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, said of the Penvesie children when they heard that Aslan was on the move: “At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in his inside.” The name for this was awe – a biblical kind of fear. All four of these authors wrote for children and adults, but they captured awe and wonder especially well in their books for children.
What they are reaching for is to bring their reader into a grasp of the haunting otherness… either of God or of some other created thing. Lewis, writing in the preface to George MacDonald: An Anthology, said this of MacDonald: “The quality which had enchanted me in his imaginative works turned out to be the quality of the real universe, the divine, the magical, terrifying, and ecstatic reality in which we all live”. He, MacDonald and Chesterton (and others) knew that children are more awake to this glory than most adults. They draw us into the “weight of glory,” which is less like beauty or light, and more like weight and depth. (Glory in the Old Testament is related not to light, but to weight). Most children’s books, especially those written by those with a Christian worldview, are so much better at wonder than books for adults.
Yet, while I love the innocence of childlike wonder it’s old wonder that captures my heart. The kind of wonder that survives the groaning of time, of pain… I know Simeon should be saved for after Christ’s birth, but I just can’t help it. He is my Christmas hero. And the way Luke describes him! “Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him” (Luke 2:25). (But the whole account should be read! 2:25-35). Such beauty, such poetry and simplicity. A 500-page novel could be written from these few words. Picture if you will, this man (we think he is old, but we don’t really know that for sure) – a simple devout man, who came to the temple often. When did he come? Did he leave a wife and family at home every day? Did he travel the same path to the temple? Did he come with an expectation that this might be the day? We don’t even know if he was a priest, Luke only tells us he was devout and righteous; but the Holy Spirit rested upon him and told him things about the Messiah.
The reason I am so stuck on Simeon in this week, is that the virtue we celebrate this week is peace. Peace is what Simeon was looking for – but he uses a quite unusual word for it, “consolation.” Simeon was waiting for Consolation – His people were waiting for Consolation, a Messiah who brought a peace that would never cease, never end. This picture for me is not just comfort or solace – even though those things are needed! The picture of consolation conjured up for me is so fraught with the idea of deep sorrow, oppression, and suffering. When I think of consolation the first word that comes to me is inconsolable. I see someone wracked with sobs… not a dainty cry, but an ugly cry. The people of God in Simeon’s day were inconsolable because they had suffered for so long and were in such great despair and fear that their Messiah would not come. Simeon’s response to holding the infant Jesus is a kind of wonder that is not merely magical or hopeful – it is old wonder. It’s wonder that has walked a long distance and yet still has the capacity to say of God – “He has met us here… He is “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isa 9:6 ESV)
To embrace mystery (and so encounter wonder) means we are stirred by “otherness;” especially when it comes to God in Christ who was made man.
We can marvel at the baby in the straw because we know His glorious end.
We marvel not only at the strangeness of this, but with the knowledge that the Creator of heaven and earth, so loved us, that He sent his Son to die for us. Not even the noblest of humans could have done that. Wonder is all over the place in Luke’s narrative of Christ’s birth. The angel in Luke 2:14 cried – “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
Old wonder is a gift to those who have left behind their cynicism about the state of the world. It’s the capacity to stay in the grace of awe and worship in spite of hardships. We tend to sanitize the birth of Christ -through Christmas carols like “Away in a Manger” and yes, even “Silent Night.” There could not have been much quiet or sweet smells in a stable full of animals, and where a woman is giving birth in pain like any other mother. A cacophony (don’t you just love that word?) of noise, and the smells of wet sheep, trampled straw and the smell of birth. In only a short time, an unimaginable horror would take place – the slaughter of every boy under the age of two in the region of Bethlehem. This was the world that the “Consolation of Israel” was born into.
Longanimity is the virtue that allows us to hold onto wonder through long periods of suffering and pain. It’s what Paul calls long-suffering, and it enables us to endure by the power of the Indwelling Spirit of God…
It gives us what we need to stay the course, to press on to the “Day of the Lord” where we will once and for all leave behind our suffering and pain and take up our home where there will be no more tears. Longanimity is the grace that helps us look toward the end. – It’s a virtue that I believe Jesus called his disciples to, especially in the garden of Gethsemane when he asked his disciples, to keep vigil for him. Three times He asked them, and after one of those times, he asks Peter “could you not watch for one hour?” (Mark 14:37). (Ugh, that pierces my often fickle heart). Simeon was a man who kept vigil well. He waited his whole life for the Consolation to come to his people. Again, longanimity is the grace to stay the course – to look not only to the end of our pain and suffering, but to Him who is our peace.
“Peace on earth” – this is the word of the Lord as it came through the angel singing over the shepherds. This is the peace that Consolation brings – not a truce between enemies, not a ceasefire in battle, but a deep abiding sense of well-being. The Old Testament calls it shalom – wholeness, right-ness, wellness and completeness.
Peace is not a gift that passes from Christ the giver to us the receivers. His peace is ours because he is ours, and the peace he is experiencing we are experiencing. Our experience of peace is his peace in us because he is in us.”2
John Piper
This is echoed by Elizabeth Goudge – “Peace had come down to dwell with men forever. No matter what the suffering, the fighting, the storms, the distress, nothing now could ever take from the lovers of God the gift of his peace. Men could never again doubt the goodwill of God toward them, for God had given his own Son to be born, to live, to die, for their salvation. God’s goodwill was incarnate now as a little child lying in a manger.”3
Old Wonder – Simeon’s words to Mary and Joseph were not words of the kind of peace that is conciliatory or cheap. Simeon knew he held in his arms the hope of the world, the entry of a radical new world, an upside world where finally, there would be peace. But he knew that there would yet be much suffering. As he gives the baby Jesus back to Mary, he says to her – “and a sword will pierce through your own soul, that the hearts of many might be revealed.” This is echoed in what Jesus later says, when he says, “34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mat 10:34 ESV). Wait, didn’t the angel just say – “Peace on earth, goodwill to men?” Jesus does not speak to any kind of peace which seeks merely the absence of conflict, or a weak truce between enemies. No, His peace is a peace that goes deep into the souls of His people, a shalom peace. In the gospel of John he says “peace be unto you,” seven times, three of which are after His resurrection and are meant as an encouragement to not be afraid of Him as He brings His resurrected body before them.
The image that comes to my mind of this kind of peace is of hands crossed over the heart, receiving what only God in Christ can bring. In fact, while the Holy Spirit only rested upon Simeon, He lives within every heart that calls Christ Lord. Take a moment, and simply do this: place your hands over your heart and welcome the shalom God brings to your life. Receive well-being, receive Him once again as the healer of all our pain and sorrow. Finally, receive Him as your eternal “Consolation.” And then, bow the knee in worship before Him.
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” Numbers 6:24-26
Prayer is of course one of those spiritual practices that help form Christ in us. I started this particular practice last year because I wanted to keep the Lord’s Prayer fresh in my devotional life. I encourage you to do this as well. I simply wrote out the prayer from Matthew 6 and then asked the Holy Spirit to help me write my own with that week’s theme in mind.
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day, our daily bread,
And forgive us our sins,
As we forgive those who have sinned against us.
And lead us not into temptation.
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
And the glory, forever. Amen.
Matthew 6:9-13
Our Father – You whose name is so holy that we cannot help but worship; we are in awe that we have a Father in heaven and not some distant or indifferent power. Who else is there but You – and if we have you, what more do we need? You lavish us with not only your blessed kingdom, but also what we need to satisfy our hungers. Yet, Lord, we ache for the fullness of a kingdom without hunger or thirst, a kingdom without fear or despair. Our sure and fast hope is that you will bring that kingdom to us, your beloved on the Day of the Lord. Turn our hearts away from our own willful ways to your will alone, and forgive us Lord. We do not take it for granted, and so out of gratitude for this wonder[ful] gift, we give you praise and honor. How can we then keep from those who have sinned against us that same grace and charity? Hide us, Abba, through your Holy Spirit that we might not fall into temptation, but stay true to you alone. May we persevere with hope until that day when you will make all things new. Keep from us all wiles of the devil or the world that we might for all eternity bend the knee to you for whom belongs all the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.
Advent is a way for us to remember the story of God as told through the Hope of His people. Hope (in what is not seen) reaps a reward – the reward of an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet 1:4-5). Our Hope is a Person – not some watered down desire or wishful thinking.
Our hope is Christ in us – which is the glory of the mystery of the Incarnation…
Colossians 1:27
Our hope is a firm anchor; our hope is God himself, and this hope carries us through our longings, our failings, our disappointments or despair… Our Advent Hope speaks to three comings: the coming of Christ in the stable and at the Cross – the coming of Christ into every heart that proclaims him Lord; and the coming of Christ at the end of the age.
This week’s focus on hope gives us the opportunity to bring to Christ the ways that we have not held onto biblical hope. Perhaps there are places in our hearts that have held onto unmet expectations, unanswered prayers, or unhealed pain. Despair is the soul’s reaction to pain, suffering or disappointment, particularly when these are prolonged. It is so much more than sadness or depression. It’s a place in us where resignation lives, where all sense of hopeful future has died. It can show up in our lives in many ways – boredom (ennui), sloth, passivity or on the opposite end of that, restlessness or activism.
Despair is hope’s enemy, that effectually diminishes our capacity for wonder. Advent hope is what dispels the power of despair – but the path to that may be arduous and difficult. We were made for hope and when we discover or recover its power we can say with Mother Julian of Norwich – “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” As we ask God to show us what needs to be confessed in light of despair, I have not found it helpful to strictly focus on despair as the sin we need to confess. What I have found helpful is to ask God to show me any of the sinful ways I have tried to mask that despair, or even to grasp how much power it can have in us. In this day and age, we have right at our fingertips the tool that would repress our despair – our phones. There are other ways we sin or attempt to defend against our pain as well – binge watching, over-eating, not-eating, withdrawal from community… Yet, our Father in heaven has sent His Son to heal us and to restore us. He wants to restore our hope and joy. I believe as we confess these defensive patterns and name the sins therein and go on to receive His forgiveness we can begin to see Him lifting that despair off of our hearts. And the disenchantment of despair will lift as well. We see in new ways the wonder of our incarnate Savior – we can worship the Father and bow in awe because He has restored to us the hope of our salvation.
Begin by centering your heart in God’s presence… Give thanks to Him that you do not need to hide anything from him. Affirm that He is faithful and good, and his mercy and grace are “new every morning.” The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22-23).
Now let him begin the process of searching your heart. Are there ways you have not honored Christ this week? Where were your thoughts and desires not centered in Him? How have you failed in obedience to Christ?
Then, simply confess in as specific a way you can the sins that trouble you. Don’t rush through this process. Simply rest in God’s presence as He gives you the grace to do this.
Now choose to let this go and receive Christ’s forgiveness for you. Remember – “He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9)
Receive His assurance of pardon – 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ . (Eph 1:7-9 ESV)
And finally commit this confession to the Lord. As you rest in his forgiveness ask him how to walk this out. Ask for the supernatural power of His Spirit to give you what you need to move forward. Thank him that you “have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer [you] who live, but Christ lives in [you]” (Gal. 2:20).
Who is like a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression For the remnant of his inheritance He does not retain his anger forever, Because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins Into the depths of the sea. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers From the days of old. Micah 7:18-20
All of a sudden we just know: prayer is a conversation in which God’s Word has the initiative and we, for the moment, can be nothing more than listeners. The essential thing is for us to hear God’s Word and discover from it how to respond to him. His Word is the truth, opened up to us. For there is no ultimate, unquestionable truth in man; he knows this, as full of questionings, he looks up to God and sets out toward him. God’s Word is his invitation to us to be with him in the truth. We are in danger of drowning on the open sea, and God’s Word is the rope ladder thrown down to us so that we can climb up into the rescuing vessel. It is the carpet, rolled toward us so that we can walk along it to the Father’s throne. It is the lantern which shines in the darkness of the world (a world which keeps silence and refuses to reveal its own nature); it casts a softer light on the riddles which torment us and encourages us to keep going. Finally, God’s Word is himself, his most vital, his innermost self: his only begotten Son, of the same nature as himself, sent into the world to bring it home, back to him. And so God speaks to us from heaven and commends to us his Word, dwelling on earth for a while: “This is my beloved Son: listen to him: (Mat. 17:5) [1]
Psalm 146:5 – Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth the sea and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever; who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry…
Step One – Read the passage slowly, attentively. Allow yourself to be taken in by the words – pay attention to any word or phrase that strikes you in the passage. (If you haven’t studied this passage, you may find this first reading will stir observation questions in you – such as who, what when, where, how).
Step Two – Read it again. Meditate and reflect on the passage. What is it in your life that needs to hear that word or phrase? Sit in silence for a time, attending to the thoughts, images and impressions that begin to come to you. Turn that into prayer.
Step Three – What is God saying to you? What do you begin to feel called to?
Step Four – How does God want you to live this passage out? What are you resolved to do?
[1] Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press), 1986. Translated by Graham Harrison.
Dear friends, this week we start our journey through the life of Christ, and of course, we begin with Advent. I’m amazed with each new year just how many people are drawn to observe Advent. There are Christians and non-Christians who experience the longing and a deep ache for a time and a place apart. I think we all want the same thing. We want to know hope, and peace and joy and love and we want to experience their fullness. Christians alone, however, have a name for that longing. We call it the Incarnation – the birth of a child who will rescue a dark and angry world from its remorse and regret and who will do so in astonishing and “awe-ful” ways.
Our world is so jaded, and social media has done us no favors because we are presented with constant idealized images of perfect gifts, decorations and company. We turn to Christmas movies and songs and traditions in hopes of finding a way out of our cynicism and weariness.
Last year as I reflected and wrote, the call for Advent to be a penitential season struck me. Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions have historically been much better than other traditions at emphasizing that. Advent like Lent should be a time to ask the Holy Spirit to help us prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord, by acknowledging and confessing our sins and great need for grace and forgiveness.
Yet this year, I have been drawn back into the wonder and incredible mystery of Christ’s coming to dwell with us and among us and in us. In this season of Advent I want to draw on the experience of wonder and awe in the face of hardships and trials.
“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation.” (C.S. Lewis)
Miracles call for wonder – for the imagination to dwell on the unknown, the unbelievable, and the unfathomable. We shake our heads and say to ourselves – “I never knew it could be like that…” Wonder is the natural habitat of the child who has not had time to become jaded or cynical! Lewis Carroll called the one who delighted in the childlike – ” the child of the pure unclouded brow and dreaming eyes of wonder!” (Through the Looking Glass, 1865). I know several people like this – but sadly would not count myself as one of them.
A good friend of mine shared a story when as a young mother she had a job cleaning a Catholic church. Part of her responsibility was to vacuum the sanctuary. She had been a Christian only a short time and had no idea what she should do as she cleaned the aisle between the seats and before the altar. She knew vaguely that their tradition was very different from her own and that there might be specific rituals called for in their sanctuaries. So, she put a tissue on her head, and as she vacuumed the rows of seats whenever she reached the aisle she would genuflect before the crucifix. She would bow every time she moved across the rows! There was not an ounce of legalism in what she did – and as she told this story, it made her hearers smile and chuckle; mostly because this was typical for her. She delighted in the simple (but alien to her!) ritual whether demanded of her or not.
One of my favorite commercials from several years ago that aired during December pictures for me the essence of Advent joy. There are 3 (maybe 4) children seated on a couch in front of a fire; their stockings hung on the mantle above. The scene shows their glee and unbridled joy at waiting for Santa to come and fill their stockings. Before long though they had fallen asleep, in the dark, with the smoldering ashes of an almost extinguished fire. Ah… the weary waiting… I can barely remember what the commercial was for – except that each one of these children had a headlamp around their head! So as the night deepened and the fire dwindled – all you could really see were four flashlights glowing in all different directions as they fell asleep! I suppose the commercial was about batteries but for me it was about Advent, and excitement and waiting and the anticipation of miracle!
Wonder, in many ways, is like a sixth sense. Leanne Payne described it as an “intuition of the real” – the substance of which is neither strictly tangible or objective nor feeling-based or subjective. It’s a way our souls (and bodies) react to something unfathomable in the world around us.
At the heart of wonder is the experience of being drawn beyond ourselves. It is about an awestruck encounter with ‘otherness’…
Mike Starkey
Mike Starkey writes that “at the heart of wonder is the experience of being drawn beyond ourselves. It is about an awestruck encounter with ‘otherness’; with people who are different from us with a world full of unexpected marvels, a God who draws us beyond the trivia of our own expectations.” [1]
To embrace mystery (and so encounter wonder) means we are stirred by “otherness;” especially when it comes to God, and even our understanding of the Incarnation is so other than any thing we could have ever imagined. We can marvel at the baby in the straw even though we know His end. We marvel not only at the strangeness of this, but at the knowledge that the Creator of heaven and earth, so loved us, that He sent his Son to die for us. Not even the noblest of humans could have done that.
Awe is another name for wonder. True wonder is not naïve – nor dependent on children watching a fireplace late into the night on Christmas Eve. Instead, it is the inner knowledge of the miracle of the Incarnation that ignites wonder in us. It was wonder the shepherds experienced in hearing the voice of the angel. The wise men followed the star “rejoicing exceedingly with great joy” (Mat. 2:10), because they held awe and wonder in their hearts. Even the animals in the stable knelt in awe before the new-born king. (ok – this is probably a stretch but who knows!)
Wonder endures when it is rooted in worship. It is not dependent on our circumstances or our introspections.
Many of the beloved Christmas carols we sing this time of year were written in times of war or great tragedy. We’ve sanitized them though, singing along with Michael Bublé’s version of “I Heard the Bells”, as we walk the malls on Black Friday. Christmas Bells was a poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow after a long season of personal tragedies. The last of these tragedies was nursing his son back to health after fighting in the Civil War. That Christmas morning in 1863, he heard the bells and despaired over the absence of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men.” “He cried out, ‘Where is peace?’ He looked around and saw hate, despair, all mocking the idea of peace. But as the bells continued to ring, he was reminded that God was not dead or asleep and that there was still hope for personal and national peace. The poem he wrote included two or three verses directly referencing the Civil War. When the poem was set to music several years later, those verses were omitted from the carol.” (War-Time Christmas Carols, https://amusicmom.com/war-time-christmas-carols).
The opening scene of my all-time favorite Christmas movie (White Christmas) begins with the sounds and sights of warfare. It’s Christmas Eve and Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye are singing “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas” against a stage backdrop of a snowy winter’s day. They move on to honor their general who is leaving the front but before they are done they hear enemy fire and soon bombs drop and battle disperses the hope of Christmas. It was war that was the true backdrop of the song and not the crafted painted scene of a New England winter’s day. Awe is made sweet often at times because it is fragile, and its object is often threatened. The enemy would dash both our hopes and our longings. The birth of Christ that day in a stable revealed just how fragile life is. He came not as the warrior-king His people hoped for, but as a vulnerable, frail and weak infant.
1 Chr. 16: 12-17 – Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced, O descendants of Israel his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones. He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded, for a thousand generations, the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Israel as an everlasting covenant.” Such an incredible truth for a people who often fell away and had forgotten their own covenant. It is the same with us, is it not?
I think what sets us apart as Christians from the world around us is that we can hold on to awe even in the midst of dark circumstances. It is indeed a weary world we live in, and we are so often buffeted by storms and trials, but our hope is sure and fast. Wonder thrives where there is hope.
“Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).
My hero in Luke’s story of the birth of Christ is Simeon. Every year when I read of his encounter with his Messiah I am filled with awe – at his prescience, at his wisdom, and at his wonder. His words are often the last prayer of some traditions’ evening service – compline. “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32). He had spent decades waiting for “the consolation of Israel” to appear and now he held him in his arms. Now his hope was realized – now his wonder complete. As he “took him in his arms… he praised God…” (verse 28).
And so it can be with us. Let’s enter Advent with wonder in our hearts. Let’s let it simmer in our hearts, let’s light the candles and sing the music. For our Savior has come and will come again. May our worship be full of awe and wonder.
“A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks the new and glorious morn”.
[1] Mark Starkey, Restoring the Wonder (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge), 1999. P. 31.
If you’re inclined here is a version of “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day” set against the background of the civil war.
In the blog post I haven’t written yet, I talk about three ways I believe we are given to navigate suffering. Note here that I am not talking about answers to suffering, but about ways we are given to press in and through it.
The first is that which God has given us through prayer – specifically the prayers of lament and protest – a language that reflects both our trust and faith in God and our struggle to understand why there is suffering in the world. We see lament in so much of the Old Testament. The people of Israel knew their God and had little problem expressing their pain and protest. “When we voice protest over the suffering and evil we encounter in life, we do more than just vent our rage. We engage in an ancient and profound form of prayer, an appeal to the honor of God” (Tom Long, What shall we say). (More on that later!)
The second way is what Thomas Aquinas and others call the virtue of longanimity. Paul calls it long-suffering (in the list of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22)). More on that later!
The third way we are given to press into the goodness of God and how to reconcile that with suffering in the world is beauty. What an odd couple – beauty and suffering – what on earth could be the connection? Suffering of any kind is chaotic, disordered and anarchic. We know it as something born of sin and brokenness. Beauty, in great contrast, speaks of wholeness, and truth, ordered and steadfast.
By beauty here, I am not primarily referring to physical beauty – but to a beauty that reflects truth, single-mindedness and eternal rightness. God in his creation of the world lavished Eden with a perfection of beauty that remained as long as its inhabitants worshipped God. But with the first bite of the apple the perfect beauty God intended for His creation drained away…
I remember a movie from many years ago, Pleasantville, that began in black and white as two teenagers are transported from the 1990’s to the 1950’s to a suburban town steeped in “repression.” As long as its inhabitants did the “good” thing they remained in black and white. But when the rules began to be broken so that people could be “themselves,” color came to town. The theme as I read it was -the world is only beautiful when everyone asserts their own way. That grieves me – and how that must grieve the heart of God.
True beauty calls one to go higher up and further in… It soothes – it compels, it ennobles. And that beauty is never limited to the physical beauty so desired by the culture of the world… True beauty is both moral and spiritual. From the center of that beauty emanates a radiance that could only have originated in the divine. “Josef Pieper noted that in its original sense beauty is “the glow of the true and good irradiating from every ordered state of being, and not in the patent significance of immediate sensual appeal.” Quoted in Thomas Dubay – The Evidential Power of Beauty (p. 35).
Beauty is incarnational. To know any created beauty, to really see it, we must know that we are looking into the very nature of God.
The Son is the radiance of [the Father’s] glory and the representation of his essence.
Hebrews 1:3
Nothing is more radiant than the Son, and so all that God created in the garden was beautiful and radiant. If a flower is beautiful how much more beautiful is its Creator. If we find the sunrise over the ocean glorious, how much more glorious is the One who made it? Moses in his encounters with God would come down the mountain, returning to his people, with a face that shone. He carried with him, on his face, the very radiance of God’s presence. And it was beautiful. How sad was it that the beauty faded the more time he spent with his people?
Beauty, like integrity is simple – whole, undivided in its very nature… The end of time – the final crescendo is the story of the city of Jerusalem – “coming down from heaven” bearing the glory of God – radiant like a most rare jewel” (Rev 21:10-11). The end of time- the beginning of eternity … tells a story of beauty. We are not bodiless souls who sit on clouds – or even in houses made for us by God. (I think Jesus was describing a metaphor in John 17 – although I wouldn’t mind a mansion of my own choosing!)
There is a river, there is a street made of gold, and there is a tree with leaves that bring the healing that ends for all eternity the pain of grief, of sorrow, of migraines and of all manner of sickness.
And every time we look up and out from the ash heap of our pain – we are invited to see God – to truly see beauty. Many years ago, I prayed for a woman who would drive to Toledo from Cleveland every six weeks or so. She had experienced so much trauma – her body and her soul wracked with the pain of abuse. I remember feeling inadequate, woefully so, but I would listen, and we would pray. And God revealed Himself to us as we did so. One time, I asked her to do a bit of homework before her next visit. I think I had been reading Clyde Kilby’s ten resolutions (included on the site as a page). In one of those resolutions, he would tell his students – “every day, go outside, and look… Look at a flower, a cloud, a bird… and give thanks for what it is- something made by God for the sheer joy of creating something beautiful…” (paraphrased by me here). She came back the next month and I asked her how it went for her. She talked about how hard it was, but that she had determined to do it. She spoke of seeing a bird one day and being amazed at its intricate beauty. In that moment – she was able to turn her attention away from the darkness in her soul – to gaze at something so ordinary, but so simple, so undivided in its nature, something beautiful, something totally other than her pain.
I think it was a turning point for her. In her struggle, in her doubt, she found a way to see the eternal nature of God in the beauty of His creation. It didn’t fix her – and it wasn’t intended as an assignment to help her change her focus. It was an encounter with beauty that helped lead her on her way toward her healing.
Beauty invites us into a story – the story of a good and faithful God – but a very unlikely story. We are not met by a knight riding his beautiful steed into our suffering to sweep us off our feet with instant healing. In the end, at the end, our salvation will mean that we were not ultimately “healed by Jesus’ miracles, but by his wounds.” (Tom Long, What Shall We Say). Of course, we have seen Christ’s kingdom come – not in its fullness but in ways that bring us solace and hope and freedom. We should never cease praying for suffering to end! God meets us there and sometimes delivers us, and sometimes He doesn’t. But He always remains with us, and in us, to give us what we need to remain steadfast and true. The cry of our hearts in season and out of season, remains, “Maranatha – Come Lord Jesus” – make all things good and beautiful!”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky in one of his novels said – “Beauty will save the world”. (The Idiot). He was not, of course, speaking of eternal salvation, but of the power of beauty to reveal the good, the beautiful, the true nature of all created things. That beauty also reveals God in His glory. I have a picture of one of my grandchildren, Eisley, who at the time the picture was taken was about 18 months old. It is a picture of her face – and it captured not only her personality, but the beauty of her “otherness” – in this sense it was the childlike femininity that exuded from her face. The photo inadequate as it was, nevertheless captured the transcendent beauty there portrayed.
Once, at a Pastoral Care Ministries school Leanne Payne, speaking from the stage, held up a poster with the inset image of an angel’s face from a Leonardo Da Vinci painting, “The Virgin on the Rocks.” Our registrar that week had made a way for a man to attend who had been homeless, and who had struggled with mental illness most of his life. When Leanne held up the poster, he left his seat and went up onto the stage to get a better look at the angel’s face. Leanne was pointing out the eternal quality of true femininity Da Vinci had painted in her face and this man was simply drawn up out of his seat to see what she saw. He (like us all) was captured by the transcendent beauty Da Vinci had painted. He wanted to get close, not simply to see what Leanne had seen, but to be immersed in that eternal quality of the true feminine.
We say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder – while I think there is more to it than that, this idea does capture the idea that what is loved is beautiful. Looking at the hands of a beloved grandmother and calling them beautiful is seeing all that those hands have done. Every child held, bathed, clothed, every meal prepared, every bandage applied was done with love- all of our beloved’s life is seen in the raised veins, the delicate purple tint and the age spots – and these are all beautiful because of love.
This love is also the love the Father poured out in the sacrifice of His Son on the Cross. In a most ironic way then, we could say that the Father’s love made the crucifixion of Jesus beautiful.
“The cross shows us the true beauty of love. Dear young friends, the beauty of Christ crucified is the great paradox of our faith. It is the beauty of a love that gives itself completely to you and me, to each and every one of us. It is the beauty of a love that bears the marks of our wounds. It is the beauty of a boundless love, yet a love utterly concrete and thus credible, which brings us to our knees, moves us deeply, brings tears to our eyes and leads us to pray from the depths of our heart: “Lord, as I contemplate your terrible sufferings, I find myself able to believe in love” (Primo Mazzolari, Un volto da contemplare, Milan 2001, 86) (Pope Francis).
How great is his goodness and how great is his beauty!
Zechariah 9:17
“To love the good, the beautiful, the just, the true, is mysteriously, to be drawn up into them – or to use another image, to become incarnate of them, to participate in them. To love God, for example, is to be drawn up and out of ourselves (the hell of the self-in-separation) and into Him. In loving Him, I become incarnate of Him. The imagery here is of ascending and descending. God descends into us, and we are drawn into Him. This is a profound thing to think on, for it is the way we get in touch with all that is real. If I come to know and understand justice by loving it, I receive it into myself. If I rejoice in the beauty of another’s face, I become more beautiful.” (Leanne Payne, The Healing Presence)
In saying this, Leanne is writing not only about the power of beauty, but also about how our love of it is transformative. She continues: “This is precisely why the capital sin of envy is so deadly a destroyer. By envying what we feel to be more beautiful, just, good, true, etc., or trying to possessively hold it for ourselves through jealousy, one of the dread daughters of envy, we cut ourselves off from becoming. To envy is to hate.” (ibid)
In the Apostle John’s first letter to the early church, he tells his readers that “everything in the world – the lust (concupiscence) of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life comes not from the Father, but from the world.” Concupiscence (a sinful longing for sensual experience) is the unholy desire to possess, to take over, even to destroy (and so it is another way of talking about envy). It stands in stark contrast to the desire to “behold” beauty. Pornography is but one act of this lust of the eyes. Josef Pieper says, “concupiscence of the eyes” does not aim to perceive reality but to enjoy “seeing” (The Four Cardinal Virtues). To behold beauty is to rest our eyes on the object of that beauty and see the eternal truth and goodness represented there as well as the beauty. But “lust of the eyes,” like envy seeks to consume and then destroy.
To love the beauty in my granddaughter’s face is as Leanne says, to be drawn up into it. And this is the very thing that can save us from the destructiveness of suffering. My advice to my friend from Cleveland helped her to look up and out. In no way did this dismiss her trauma or her pain; instead, it gave her a rest and a respite from the weariness of her pain.
Eternal beauty awaits us, friends. Not merely in the physical beauty of the city of God described in Revelation 21, but the spiritual beauty of the full reign of God.
I see the landscape of my pain – the dry parched places, the rocks, the cliffs of despair, of fatigue, of intractable migraines, and yet I can look up and also see that my destination is the place described by John in Revelation 21-22. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of light, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit each month (wouldn’t that be a cool gift of the month subscription?). The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations… They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads…”
Our home at the end of the journey is a city – a holy city descending from heaven when Jesus comes to be our dwelling place. A city, where there will be no loneliness, for God himself will be with us as our God. A city, where there will be no more tears, no more death. A city described by John with an incredible attention to detail – every measurement of every rod and detail given; every jewel set perfectly in its place. Look at verse 15 of chapter 21 – “And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and its wall.” – Is that not beautiful? Perhaps in our pain, or in our suffering, it would do us well to go to these two chapters at the end of the Scriptures and meditate on the beauty that will become our eternal home.
Years ago, I was staying at a guesthouse with other friends and colleagues in the ministry. We were in England (but I can’t remember where). I walked outside one morning and felt the chill of an early Spring day. The gravel crunched beneath my feet as I walked across the driveway. I went out to a low stone wall at the edge of the house and looked at the view before me. I saw the mist rising from the hills, and the earth still covered in dew – and I saw newly prepared fields for farming laid out before me, marked by the same low wall I was standing by. Those stone walls had been there for centuries! And I felt this quickening in my soul. It was a moment both of longing and of joy. In some odd way I felt at home. There is an old English hymn, the lyrics of which were written by the poet William Blake. Its title is “Jerusalem”, and it stands in a sense as an unofficial national anthem. Here are some of the lyrics:
And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God on England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the countenance divine shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here among those dark Satanic Mills?
The reference to the dark satanic mills is to the excesses of the Industrial Revolution. The hymn sings of the loveliness of England and how because of the beauty, it must have been a place of Christ’s visitation (It wasn’t).
Beauty awakens in us the longing for something more than what we see and experience here on this earth.
I’ll end here with a beloved quote from one of the Narnia books:
“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing—to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from—my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” (C.S. Lewis – The Last Battle)
