It's Advent: It's a time for pilgrimage

The last two years, I have been particularly struck by the way in which society on the whole and even many Christians romanticize the birth of Christ. We have manger scenes with cool-looking animal figurines; we have attractive manger scenes on the front-lawns of some of our churches. Sometimes even, the story of Christ’s birth reads like a fairy tale – just look at popular books and movies. There is nothing wrong with these things, and they often are very enjoyable and are great for teaching and witnessing to others about what Christmas is truly about. But I have realized that sometimes that these things, they can also potentially keep me from seeing something else about the Nativity – its earthiness, its fuller reality as it occurred here, on earth, under real and somewhat stressful circumstances in tumultuous political and social climates.

Every Advent, and even sometimes outside of Advent, the song that strikes me as being most true to the perhaps real dynamic preceding the birth of Christ is “Breath of Heaven” – yes, the Amy Grant song. The lyrics talk of Mary’s waiting and silence on the Lord, her fatigue, her desire for the Lord to draw near to her even as she bears him in her womb. I imagine the pilgrimage that the Holy Family embarked on in order to get to Bethlehem, and how that journey must have been quite a task. I think about how Mary may have felt – joyful, yet overwhelmed at arriving in a crowded city that was not her home, pregnant, and on the cusp of giving birth, to the Messiah. I imagine her to be joyful, yet utterly exhausted. I can’t imagine the scene, though I have tried: knocking on every single door in Bethlehem that fateful night, only to have every single one shut in my face – wanting rest, about to give birth, and striving to be faithful and faith-filled about God’s timing , provision, and plans.

Finally, a stable: this is where the Lord Jesus Christ has his earthly birth, and this is where God always had intended for the Christ-child to be born. Again, I’ve tried to wrap my mind around this, too: God, sovereign and almighty, had always intended for his son to be born in a stable, a space that was never made for human habitation. Why not just a simple inn, not a fancy one, just a simple one? Here, in a detail like this, I see that God is wonderfully creative, and I learn that he works outside my human paradigms of how things should and do function. There’s something I see here about God’s character: it’s not enough for God that His Son be incarnate; His son will also be born in a stable. God is a God of details, and He cares about them and us. The Lord shows off and teaches me even more about Himself when, in this stable, shepherds come and worship, angels appear, and kings from afar come with gifts.

In Advent and in life in general, I often find myself on pilgrimage to Bethlehem or just inside the city walls, seeking shelter, knocking on every door, hoping that one will open because it’s late, I’m tired, and I’m uncomfortable, and sometimes, I only perceive all the doors I knock on closing in my face. But then I think of Mary and Joseph. The doors that were closed to Mary and Joseph: they were closed so that the prophecy might be fulfilled. The birth had to take place in Bethlehem because Jesus is the descendent of David – more prophecies fulfilled. And who bore the earthly implications of these prophecies fulfilled? Joseph and Mary. They bore them joyfully and faithfully. In Christian circles, we often use the image and wording of doors open and doors shut, and sometimes, we put more precedence on the ones that open more than on the significance of the ones that shut. But I look at this holy family, and how every shut door in Bethlehem, even, every added moment of waiting, stress, and fatigue, brought them closer and closer to the gloriously intended stable and more into the center of God’s will for their lives and brought more glory to God.

And then, I’m inspired, because isn’t this the reason why we take manger scenes and add glitz to them? It’s our way, as Christians, of reifying for ourselves and proclaiming to the world what we know in our hearts and souls to be true: that here, in this simple, humble manger scene, something miraculous and beautiful has occurred, and we must note that, glitter, rosy pictures and all, before the whole world.

--- Somewhat unrelated, but the most provocative Advent reading I've read this year ---

Peter Chrysologus, an excerpt from a sermon on the subject of the Incarnation and God's Love:

"...But the law of love is not concerned with what will be, what ought to be, what can be. Love does not reflect; it is unreasonable and knows no moderation. Love refuses to be consoled when its goal proves impossible, despises all hindrances to the attainment of its object. Love destroys the lover if he cannot obtain what he loves; love follows its own promptings, and does not think of right and wrong...A love that desires to see God may not have reasonableness on its side, but it is the evidence of filial love. It gave Moses the temerity to say: 'If I have found favor in your eyes, show me your face.' It inspired the psalmist to make the same prayer: 'Show me your face.' Even the pagans made their images for this purpose: they wanted actually to see what they mistakenly revered."

What follows are a couple different but connected, but certainly not totally cohesive or polished thoughts.

Thought #1:

Shame. Fear. Low self-esteem. Anxiety. What are the differences between all of these things? How do they affect individuals and groups? What are their causes and remedies?

I would wager that some of us all too often chalk shame, fear, low self-esteem, and anxiety up to a set of things that are "wrong" or "disordered" or the "effect of sin" but perhaps we don't know much more than that so we tend to not focus on them too much. Not that we each need to be licensed psychologists or social workers (though I plan on being one!), or that we should focus on these things more than on the Lord, on fixing our eyes on Him, but as I'm learning, as could be gleaned from my reading The Emotionally Healthy Church and since becoming interested in Social Work as a field, if we want to understand how social systems work and how relationships thrive and how community life flourishes, it is important to understand the things that break them down because such understanding is a vital part of moving toward overcoming them, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Thought #2:

When does shame first appear in the world? Fear? I've been meditating a lot on Genesis 1-2.

They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" He said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked.

Why does the Lord seek after Adam in the garden? Because God loves Adam. While I'm tempted to think of God here as storming after Adam, upset and ready to judge him on the spot with emotional harshness, what I see now is a God who wants to repair the relationship, the God of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It is Adam who moves away from God not God from Adam. I've also been studying the differences both in action and heart motivation between fear and love, and in God's pursuit of Adam here in Genesis, I see the character of our God, steadfast in love. Love is signified by a "moving towards" rather than "moving away," I've been learning. As a result of original sin, our inherent desire to move toward has been fractured but not removed.

Moving toward, connection to others, building relationships, creating community: we have been hardwired to do these things--it's true that they're in our God-given nature. Additionally, I believe they also bring healing and are a weapon against Satan.

Thought #2.5

I'm starting a book called I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame by Brene Brown. In the Introduction she says, "I have found that the most effective way to overcome these feelings of inadequacy is to share our experiences. Of course, in this culture, telling our stories takes courage." She's talking about sharing testimonies, building community, connecting to others.

In the Introduction, she differentiates "shame" and "self-esteem."

Shame and self-esteem are very different issues. We feel shame. We think self-esteem. Our self-esteem is based on how we see ourselves--our strengths and limitations--over time. It is how and what we think of ourselves. Shame is an emotion. It is how we feel when we have certain experiences. When we are in shame, we don't see the big picture; we don't accurately think about our strengths and limitations. We just feel alone, exposed and deeply flawed....[we] lose...sense of context.

I think about Adam in that garden. Clearly, he lost sight of the "big picture"--He was in paradise! and beloved by God, and yet, according to Brown, shame not low self-esteem motivated Adam to hide from the his loving Father. What we think is different than how we feel, and both are important and valuable. Our relationship with God is about the knowing but it's also about the feeling. Adam and God both "knew" that God was right and Adam in the wrong. But if that reality had been important enough, the the Lord wouldn't have gone after Adam. God's mercy is more than fact; it is experience, because we are human--heart and flesh, thinkers and feelers. Think of it this way: there is a difference between being on a deserted island by yourself, knowing that there are roughly seven billion people in the world and being on that island with just one other person.

Okay, I know I am getting rambly, so I'll cut myself off. Look for further thoughts on Brown's book. So far, it is fabulous.

some Scripture

Grief is "godly," or can be, and without the Lord, leads to death. In the Lord, grief bears fruit.

A Scriptural coda to the most recent post:

"For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment!" (2 Corinthians 10-11a, italics mine).

My knees absorb the shock, and my soul absorbs the pain

True: When I run, my knees absorb the shock, and the shock damages my knees.

True: When I experience suffering, my soul absorbs the pain, and the pain strengthens my soul.

Disagree? Confused? Keep reading.

Speaking of reading, I am currently reading this profound book entitled The Emotionally Healthy Church by Peter Scazerro, who argues very convincingly that today's Church doesn't quite know how to integrate emotional health into a Biblical, spiritual paradigm of discipleship. He offers his own testimony to this, the founder of New Life Ministries whose wife almost left the church he started and divorced him, all the result of neither of them knowing how to integrate their emotions, their past, and their desire to serve God's people into one, cohesive, Christ-led life. I'm almost to the end of this book, and I'm impressed by Scazerro's honesty and vulnerability--plus he's a very good writer and with a Master of Divinity, he has the Biblical foundation to really open the Scriptures as well. Anyways...enough of the book report. Go read it. Everyone should, especially those "in ministry."

In the chapter I recently read, "Principle 5: Embrace Grieving and Loss," Scazerro quotes Gerald Sittser's How the Soul Grows through Loss. Sittser, in a car crash, wrote this book having instantly lost his mother, wife, and their four-year-old daughter and thus in the throws of grief:

"Catastrophic loss by definition precludes recovery. It will transform us or destroy us, but it will never leave us the same. There is no going back to the past...It is not therefore true that we become less through loss--unless we allow the loss to make us less, grinding our soul down until there is nothing left. Loss can also make us more. I did not get over my loved ones; rather I absorbed the loss into my life until it became part of who I am. Sorrow took up permanent residence in my soul and enlarged it....One learns the pain of others by suffering one's own pain, by turning inside oneself, by finding one's own soul...However painful, sorrow is good for the soul...The soul is elastic, like a balloon. It can grow larger through suffering."

Sorrow, grief, and loss are all gifts! How much do we believe this with our Christian worldview, yet in our emotions, thoughts, and actions, deny this truth, living and speaking as if we don't? As Scazzero and others have said, "Holiness is impossible without wholeness." Do I really believe that "absorbing loss" until it "becomes a part of me" is the best thing for me, that diving headlong into grief and each loss, big or small, is going to bring me closer to Christ? Wow, I need more faith. Or do I do as Scazerro suggests Americans do:

"Many of us have taken on our culture's pain-denying view of grieving...People in our churches minimize their failures and disappointments. The result is that for many today, at least in prosperous North America, there is a widespread inability to face pain...Our culture trivializes tragedy and loss. Every night on the news we are given pictures of crimes, wars, famines, murders, and natural disasters. They are analyzed and reported, but there is no lamenting. Our national capacity to grieve is almost lost...When a loss enters our life, we...treat it as an alien invasion from outer space. Is it any wonder that there exists so much depression in our culture? Is it any wonder there has been such an explosion of drugs prescribed for depression and anxiety? This is unbiblical and a denial of our common humanity. The ancient Hebrews physically expressed their laments by tearing their clothes and utilizing sackcloth and ashes. Jesus himself offered up prayer and petitions with loud cries and tears (Heb. 5:7)...."

This past year, I have grown to really love the Franciscan cross. Why? Because it illustrates Jesus Christ's death as well as his resurrection. Yes, Jesus is on the cross, nails in his hands and feet, body stripped bare. But he has the Medieval halo, and saints and angels surround him, and it is clear that Christ is also resurrected and in Heaven with God the Father. Both realities are present, death and new life, a human death, a divine resurrection, in this single image.

How much better does the reality of Christ's resurrection taste when I know how in-need I am of a Savior? How much better I know God's unfailing love when I open every gift he puts in-front of me, even if the wrappings of some are grief and sorrow? Would that my own fear, anxiety, and pride not keep me from receiving everything that God gives, and not only receiving with just my mind, knowing "in-principle" that X or Y is a blessing, or half of my heart, trying to drum up a happy feeling about something that makes me feel nauseous.

But, as it's almost Lent anyways, let us turn to God and admit with honesty and humility that we still aren't whole, because we're still not adoring Him with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, even if we're giving him most of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. That's the reality, and there is no better place to live than in reality. And in living in this reality, we can finally ask Him to help us, because finally, we can see.