Second Wednesday of Advent: Why We Long for Jesus' Appearing: Judgment (and why it's a good thing)

December 10, 2013 Daniel Harris

Beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish. 2 Peter 3:14

We began these Advent reflections last week as I wondered what it would be like to come to Christmas this year with a soul well-prepared to celebrate Jesus' birth, and I tried to point out how Christian tradition provides a different, seemingly indirect way of preparing by waiting through Advent. Though Advent's themes will come closer to Bethlehem as its days wind down, until those final days before Christmas, we are encouraged to consider themes quite different from those that normally come to mind with images of the nativity. If we go with the culture's calendar and consider ourselves to already be in the Christmas season rather than waiting for it, we probably won't give much thought during this time to the importance of topics like waiting, longing, Christ's return, resurrection, or new creation. If we have already mentally put the baby in the manger, we're certainly also unlikely to ponder today's topic, which the Advent scriptures point us toward repeatedly: judgment.

On the other hand, if we practice the patience of waiting through Advent and listen attentively to the scriptures through these weeks, the topic of judgment won't be far from our minds. We are warned to be on guard so that our hearts aren't weighed down with immorality or the worries of this life. We are reminded to live our lives as if we are workers caring for our master's things while he is away, always being mindful that he could return at any moment. If we notice any ways that our lives have become out of line, we're urged to heed John the Baptist's call to repent and prepare the way for our King's return, so that when he comes our lives would be like trees producing the kind of fruit expected of them.

Be ready. Keep awake. Stay alert. Live honorably. Salvation is near. Be blameless.

Yet I suspect that if most of us were to write the things we longingly wait for in life, God's judgment would appear on very few lists. One reason for that could be that we're legitimately unprepared for it, like the student who dreads taking a spelling test because they chose to watch a movie instead of study their words. If that's the case, you can do something about it, which is why we began last week by discussing practical ways that we can wait on God now.

For most of us, however, our lack of longing for God's judgment comes from a misunderstanding of it. With the subject being our lives rather than spelling words, we may all feel like that unprepared student, and the stakes here are higher than a grade on a spelling quiz. Since the scriptures insist that we will be judged and should therefore live readily for it, it matters immensely how we think about the one who will be judging us.

Here again, I think we've been overly influenced by popular images of the end times. They present us with a Clint Eastwood-esque picture of God's judgment: He's the sheriff who's been away for some time before riding back into town with infinitely loaded pistols firing from each hand, annihilating anyone who's caused any trouble in his absence (and scaring the wits out of anyone else who he sees fit to leave standing). It's pretty difficult to reconcile that image of God with the loving Father of Jesus, and–like the grandfather pointing to a mushroom cloud discussed on Monday–it's hard to sincerely think of that as the hope for which we wait during Advent.

Among the many biblical metaphors for our relationship with God, one of the most common is that of a loving Father with his children, and I think we can better understand God's judgment in that context. God is a loving parent who is resolutely working against the things that destroy his beloved children, and when Christ returns, that work––already achieved in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection––will be brought to final and full completion.

The scripture's insistence that there will be a judgment assures us that God is not like the overindulgent parent, described well by James Bryan Smith:

This god is like permissive parents who let their kids drink and do drugs and have sex without guilt. When we were young, we thought they were cool, but they weren't; they were lazy and did not really love their kids....These may be the kinds of parents you think you want when you are fifteen, but you really don't.

I don't want a god who says, "It's cool. Don't sweat it...." This god does not love me. Being soft on sin is not loving, because sin destroys. I want a God who hates anything that hurts me. Hate is a strong word, but a good one. Because the true God not only hates what destroys me (sin and alienation) but also has taken steps to destroy my destroyer, I love him.(1)

When Christ returns, as the Apostles' Creed states, "he will come to judge the living and the dead." This is great news, because it means that the victory over sin that he won on the cross–by taking the judgment against sin upon himself–will be completed. Everything that destroys us will finally and fully be dealt with––both the kinds of things that are outside of us which we lament in the news each day, and the ones that run right through our own hearts––everything will be made right when he comes as judge.

Of course part of that judgment will mean that those who refuse to allow God to be God will be granted their wish and finally be able to live free of him, with the kinds of consequences that we would expect whenever a proud child refuses the guidance of a knowledgable and loving parent. As C.S. Lewis has described so masterfully in The Great Divorce, no one is dragged to heaven or hell kicking and screaming. Rather, God will simply allow us to have that which we have chosen.

Along with God's people through the centuries, I have chosen to be his. There are parts of my world, and parts of me, that need to be set right. Therefore, trusting God as my loving Father, and knowing myself to be his beloved child, I eagerly await that day "when he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, [when we will] without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing."(2)

Judgment is how God will finally deal with the sin that destroys us. Tomorrow we turn our attention to what will happen because God has dealt with our our other great destroyer, death: we will be resurrected.

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A Prayer for the Day:

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.*

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsity Press, 2009), 124-125. (2) "Preface to Advent" from The Book of Common Prayer.

Second Tuesday of Advent: What We Are Waiting For

December 9, 2013 Daniel Harris

If possibly the popular understanding of the end times that we discussed yesterday is indeed not what we're waiting for, and that there are other legitimate interpretations of the relevant passages of scripture, then what are they? What is it that we're waiting for throughout Advent each year–and throughout our entire lives as followers of Jesus? At this point in the Advent series, I'm now realizing that I have a serious challenge on my hands (a little late to be realizing this). The fact that there are such widely varying interpretations of these passages of scripture should let us know that the writers of the Bible were trying to communicate things that were difficult for them to express. They were extremely competent writers, who took part in writing the best-selling and most influential book in world history. Apparently when I was planning this series, I had the faulty thought that I might be able to clarify in a few days' devotions what it was difficult for them to find the language to say. I think taking up this challenge is worth a shot, though, because it will be extremely difficult for any of us to practice Advent's waiting unless we have a better idea of what it is that we're waiting for. Therefore, I'll attempt to be both brief and say quite a bit to summarize this today, and then we'll spend the next three days unpacking it.

One of my favorite hymns is "This is My Father's World," and it has a couple of lines that grip me every time we sing them:

This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done: Jesus Who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heav'n be one.

The idea of earth and heaven being united, with the vindicated, crucified and risen Jesus in the center as King, is surprisingly foreign to the way that I had previously thought about Jesus' return, yet I have become convinced that it is indicated as God's original intent and mission throughout history from the beginning of the Bible until its dramatic "Come, Lord Jesus!" conclusion at the end of Revelation.(1)

While I previously thought we were looking toward a dreadful end of the world, the Bible speaks instead of "the end of the age" and "the age to come." Instead of thinking that the world will be destroyed as we escape it, the scriptural hope is that the world will be made new.

I previously mentioned how helpful N.T. Wright's For Everyone commentaries on the New Testament have been to me, and one of the things about them that either points to how incredibly beneficial they are, or to just how nerdy I am, is that they're the first books in which I've ever paid close attention not just to the text itself, but also to the glossary. Any of us could increase our level of biblical literacy dramatically just by studying his glossary, because Wright clears up the meanings of so many biblical terms which usually only carry vague meanings at best in our minds, even though we hear and use them often.

The glossary's paragraph on "second coming" is worth a long quotation here, and it gives us a framework for the rest of this week's explorations. There's plenty packed into these words to chew on for a while, so you may want to read it more than once:

When God renews the whole creation, as he has promised, bringing together heaven and earth, Jesus himself will be at the centre of it all, personally present to and with his people and ruling his world fully and finally at last. The Christian hope picks up, and gives more explicit focus to, the ancient Jewish hope that [Yahweh] would in the end return to his people to judge and to save. Since the ascension is often thought of in terms of Jesus' 'going away', this final moment is often thought of in terms of his 'coming back again', hence the shorthand 'second coming'. However, since the ascension in fact means that Jesus, though now invisible, is not far away but rather closely present with us, it isn't surprising that some of the key New Testament passages speak not of his 'return' as though from a great distance, but of his 'appearing' (e.g. Colossians 3:4; 1 John 3:2). The early Christians expected this 'appearing' to take place not necessarily within a generation as is often thought (because of a misreading of Mark 13 and similar passages), but at any time – which could be immediate or delayed. This caused a problem for some early Christians (2 Peter 3:3-10), but not for many. For the early Christians, the really important event – the resurrection of Jesus – had already taken place, and his final 'appearing' would simply complete what had then been decisively begun.(2)

In contrast to the Great Tribulation/Rapture/Antichrist view of the end of the world we described yesterday, I want to wait for Jesus to come again, finally and fully reigning as King, setting everything right and making everything new as Wright describes above. That kind of hope stirs my longing to see it come to pass rather than my desire to be part of history that won't have to witness it.

Most importantly for our discussions here, I can order my Advent–and indeed, my life–around waiting for the day when we will see Jesus as I seek to live always ready for it, constantly preparing my soul and the area of the world over which I have any say to be ready and able to welcome Jesus as King.

Over the next three days, we'll look more closely at three aspects of Jesus' return, and how they shape our Advent hope: judgment (and why it's a good thing), resurrection, and new creation. Then, we'll finish the week by considering how we can live now in light of what's to come.

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A Prayer for the Day:

O God, the author of peace and lover of concord, to know you is eternal life and to serve you is perfect freedom: Defend us, your humble servants, in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in your defense, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) For more, see N.T. Wright's Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. (2) N.T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 224-225.

Second Monday of Advent: What We Aren't Waiting For

December 8, 2013 Daniel Harris

I was recently entertained online by a reviewer of Christian books as I browsed their annual list of the year's worst Christian book covers. Their prize-winner for 2012 was the cover of a commentary on Revelation which depicted a gray-haired elderly man standing and pointing down a road toward a dark sky with his other arm around the shoulder of a boy, possibly his grandson. The subtitle of the book was "Hope Beyond the Horizon," which highlighted the object in the distance to which the grandfather was pointing the boy's attention: a mushroom cloud. The reviewer's comment, though sarcastic, identified the irony in thinking of any such event as being the Christian hope: "Look there, Sonny, it’s our long-awaited hope, appearing just beyond the horizon…and it’s a nuclear explosion!"

Of course, frightening images of people's interpretations of biblical prophecies aren't hard to find. The Left Behind series of books and movies was incredibly popular, and (I would argue) has had more effect on the beliefs about what the Bible teaches than has the Bible itself for many people in our culture. I certainly don't have a problem with authors and Bible teachers communicating their interpretations of scripture in the most effective ways that they can, but when interpretations of difficult passages of scripture become popularized we can unknowingly begin to think we're familiar with what the Bible teaches, even if it turns out that we've only actually become familiar with an idea from a popular book or movie. Then, we fail to ever wrestle with what the Bible actually says.

This week, I want to clarify what I understand to be the biblical picture of the events in the future for which Advent is our annual reminder to wait readily. In order to do so, in today's reflection I'll look at some views of the future which I think are inaccurate. Then, for the remainder of the week, we'll do our best to consider what Jesus and the writers of scripture were indeed trying to communicate.

From the previous paragraphs, you probably won't be surprised for me to state that I disagree with the widespread ideas about the end times which are communicated in many places by many people, most notably through the Left Behind series over the past couple of decades. For many of us, though, it may be a surprise that there even are any other interpretations.

I mentioned yesterday how I was a teenager during the years around the Gulf War, and I can remember the intensity with which connections were being made between biblical passages and the political events of those days. Because there were so many Christian books and videos identifying that period as possibly being the "end times," I assumed that even if they were wrong about the timing of the events they were predicting, I had no reason to doubt that the coming of those events was clearly prophesied in the Bible. In other words, because I so often heard Christians with more knowledge than me talking about things like the Great Tribulation, the Rapture, someone who would be identified as the Antichrist, and the end of the world in general, I assumed that the Bible taught those things(**).

I accepted those interpretations because of my limited knowledge of the scripture and because I was unaware of any alternatives. I can remember being shocked when a college friend who was a Bible major mentioned in conversation that he didn't believe there would be a rapture. I thought, "this guy is a Bible major and he doesn't even believe what the Bible says!" He challenged the beliefs that I had inherited from my culture, and as I have studied the scriptures in the years since then, I am thankful that he did.

I don't think it would be particularly useful to spend much effort writing here to detail why I think these others' interpretations are wrong. What I would rather do would be to assure any of you for whom these widespread conceptions of the future don't sit well that they are not the only possible interpretations. In fact, they have only become popular since the beginning of the 20th century, and largely only in America. Christians in other parts of the world today and for centuries have looked at the Bible in different ways.

What matters here is this: For what are we hoping? Advent is our annual reminder to live in a constant ready waiting, but for what?

To be honest, if the Bible insisted that our future includes a Great Tribulation, Rapture, Antichrist, and end of the world, I wouldn't want to wait for that. I certainly wouldn't long for it in hope––the only thing I would hope would be that I could somehow avoid all of it. Instead of these things which I'm proposing we aren't waiting for, we will clarify a longstanding Christian view of Jesus' return, judgment (and why it's a good thing), resurrection, and new creation. My hope is that with our lenses cleaned and better able to see ahead, we will be better able to join centuries of God's people in waiting for Christ's return and more clearly understand how to live and wait on God daily from now until then.

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A Prayer for the Day:

O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness while it was day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. **Though I have chosen not to delve into deconstructing these interpretations of scripture in this series, good resources are available to help anyone who wants to examine them in further detail. I have been most influenced by the writings of New Testament scholar N.T. Wright whose For Everyone series of commentaries on the entire New Testament is remarkably readable and helpful, and is available in Midland First UMC's church library. Here is a brief list of resources for anyone who may want to research further:

N.T. Wright, "Farewell to the Rapture"
N.T. Wright's For Everyone commentaries on the passages often misinterpreted, including: Matthew 24, Mark 13, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, 1 John 2:18, 1 John 4:1-4.
N.T. Wright, Revelation for Everyone.
For a more academic treatment of Revelation, see M. Robert Mulholland Jr.'s commentary in the Cornerstone Biblical Commentary series.

Second Sunday of Advent: Advent Future

December 7, 2013 Daniel Harris

As a college student, I took an elective course titled "The New Testament and the End Times." I took it because, while others appeared as if they knew exactly what the Bible said about the future, I felt thoroughly confused about it. My sense of confusion about the Bible and the future began as a teenager when, during the Gulf War, I remember feeling intrigued and overwhelmed with how people in my church and the media were tying the political events of those days to prophecies in the Bible. I can remember the evening when President Bush announced Operation Desert Storm. I went to my room, opened my Bible, and came across some verse which convinced me the world was going to come to an end that night. As you might guess, it took me a while to fall asleep. I eventually did sleep though, and woke up the next morning with the world still in existence.

I was thankful to wake up the next day and realize that the world did not come to an end that night, but that didn't stop my confusion from increasing. Christian bookstores seemed to have an ever-increasing supply of books that deepened my sense of being on the outside of those who understood. It was like there was a code in the Bible which others had a secret key to unlock, but I hadn't yet figured any of it out.

So I took the elective course in college in hopes that it would help resolve my confusion. After being given the assignments of reading several books on the subject and studying the relative passages in the Bible––I still felt throughly confused about what the Bible taught about the future. My consolation from that course was to learn that I came away convinced that things weren't spelled out in the Bible quite so directly as other people had seemed to think. The best memory I have of that semester is observing my professor, who knew the Bible thoroughly and had studied it diligently for decades, and seeing how he refused to speak to the issues with the "this is obviously what is going to happen" kind of confidence I had seen in Christian books and videos over the previous years. I didn't come out of the course with any answers, but–instead–enjoyed observing a New Testament scholar who had so many questions too.

I am attempting to make a point by describing all of this, but before I do, I'll acknowledge what may be going through some of your minds as you read this: "Why is he talking about the end of the world when these are supposed to be devotions about Christmas?" When we began last week, I described how Christian tradition teaches us that we will be better prepared for Christmas if we have the discipline to wait until it arrives, and it still isn't here yet. While the culture around us in into its Christmas season full-swing, many of Christ's people through the centuries have insisted that what we can best do during this time is to wait, because it's Advent.

Last week we considered how we can wait on God in our lives now, and this week we explore one of the main themes of Advent: we need to wait, always living ready and watchful for the day when Christ will return. Identifying that as our theme for the week may pique the interest of some of you, while for others it might create a knot in your stomach and make you want to skip this week's readings. If you'd rather read about, well––almost anything than what the Bible says about Christ's return, please hang in there with me. What I'm going to say about it is almost surely different, and better news, than what you've heard.

Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of interest in the topic, Christ's return is simultaneously one of the most confusing and most popular topics among Christians today. How are we supposed to wait readily for it when it proves so difficult to understand anything about it?

I'm going to spend the rest of the week passing along guidance which I've found to be very helpful in considering what the Bible teaches about the future, but first I'll give you fair warning: some of what I'm going to say will likely meddle with your understanding of parts of scripture. Before the week is over, we will cover ground that gives us very good news, but in order to get there, we will need to evaluate some of the things we assume the Bible says.

In addition to the practices of waiting that we covered last week, to set this week's stage for the way that Advent trains us to wait on what God has in store for our future, I invite you to join me in praying as often as you think about it the simple prayer that is the exclamation point at the end of the book of Revelation:

Come, Lord Jesus!

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A Prayer for the Day:

O God, you make us glad with the weekly remembrance of the glorious resurrection of your Son our Lord: Give us this day such blessing through our worship of you, that the week to come may be spent in your favor; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary.

First Saturday of Advent: Wait–Learn to Love

December 6, 2013 Daniel Harris

Whenever we get to spend the holidays with my wife's family, I always look forward to their tradition of watching what is perhaps the funniest Christmas movie ever made, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Part of the reason the movie is so funny is that we can identify with both the Griswold family's eagerness to have relatives come to their house for Christmas, and their eagerness for it to be over as soon as possible. At one point, after the extended family begins to arrive at their house, Clark says to his wife, "Well, I'm going to park the cars, and get––check the luggage, and well, I'll be outside for––the season."

The "we're glad to see them come, and we're glad to see them go" sentiment is easy to identify with. [Just to clarify for any of my own relatives who may be reading this: of course I'm speaking hypothetically here. I hear that most other families are like this, but obviously I'm really looking forward to being with all of you–just like always. It's just unfortunate that while we're together, I'll occasionally have to be somewhere else and work on finishing up these Advent posts.]

But here's the thing that holidays with our families can teach us: regardless of how alike or dislike your family may be to the Griswolds, you aren't going to go shopping for other families to spend Christmas with this year. Just because you may have your own living version of the movie's Cousin Eddie (or just because you may be the living version of Cousin Eddie) doesn't make it likely that you're going to try to find a new family who is more fun to be with. We understand that our families are our families forever–even with all of their imperfections [again, dearest relatives, hypothetically here], they are the people who have been given to us to love.

A friend whom I admire greatly recently told me about a habit he has developed with people who cause him difficulty in life–whether they are family or not. On the surface, this will seem obvious and like it isn't anything profound, but its effects run deep. He said that, whenever there is someone who irritates him or causes him strain, he intentionally begins to pray daily for that person. He said, "you cannot help but to look at someone differently once you have been praying for them."

I am convinced that we need such simple and reliable advice in our relationships at many levels. We certainly need it in our family gatherings at this time of year. I mean–um–you probably need it in your family gatherings at this time of year. Yet there are other contexts where it is just as needed. I think that God has given us two primary circles of people who should provide the context in which we learn to love others and be loved by them: family and church.

So if you are one for whom family get-togethers during the holidays doesn't involve being around people with whom you would need to follow my friend's advice, surely your church can provide someone for you. If all of your family relationships are easy, go to church and you'll be sure to encounter someone more difficult! [Once again, dear church family–hypothetical!]

Yet how differently do we treat those two sets of relationships? Our families may annoy us, but we still get together with them year after year. However, if someone in church gets under our skin, we're likely to either seek to put them in their place or avoid them. If it's someone in our Sunday School class, we can stop attending or go find another. Or, of course, we always carry the threat in our pockets of going to find another church.

When we do so, we completely miss the point: we are in these relationships to learn to love.

So our final suggestion in laying the groundwork this week for waiting on God throughout Advent is:

Focus on learning to love those with whom God has already connected you–whether through family, church, or other relationships. Love them as they are without attempting to fix them or let them in on the great plan you have for their lives.
Take my friend's advice in regard to any of your difficult relationships by praying for that person often–before, during, and after interacting with them. (Of course, now many of us may have a whole new reaction when someone at church mentions that they're praying for us!)

The connection between learning to love and our theme this week of practices for waiting on God may not seem as obvious as some of the previous days' suggestions, but we make a costly mistake if we ever separate our personal spiritual practices from our relationships. If I pray, read the scriptures, take Communion, and spend ample time in silence and solitude, but am a selfish grouch, it's safe to say that I have not waited upon God in those practices but have only done them in ways that have allowed me to remain in control. Or from the positive angle, when we wait upon God through these practices as well as learn to love people through our ordinary relationships, we will find that the time we spend alone with God always, inevitably, has effect on our relationships.

So far in our reflections, I have tried to lay a foundation by digging into things that we can be doing to wait on God throughout Advent. For the remainder of these weeks, we will begin exploring the stories that have shaped Advent for so many Christians for so long. While this week has focused on the present aspects of Advent (how Christ comes to dwell more fully in us now) tomorrow we turn a corner and look to the future. We now have some tools that will help us to heed the Bible's call to always be ready, but what is it that we're supposed to be ready for?

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A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.*

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary.

First Friday of Advent: Wait–Quiet

December 5, 2013 Daniel Harris

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall never be shaken. (Psalm 62:1-2, NRSV)

So far this week, we have considered three practical ways of waiting on God, each of which requires action on our part: prayer, reading the scripture, and receiving the Lord's Supper. Today, we'll look at another way of waiting which is related to those and enhances them. Today's way of waiting is perhaps the most radical of any of the practices I'm recommending for Advent, and will likely be the most difficult for many of us. This is ironic because this is the discipline that actually asks the least of us––rather than asking us to wait on God by requiring our action, today we'll consider how we might wait on God by our inaction.

To be precise, today I am tying together two practices for waiting on God that have been recommended for centuries by those who have waited on God before us: silence and solitude. (Don't panic, extroverts, you'll have your day tomorrow.)

Here's an interesting thing about these two practices, and for the moment we'll focus on solitude: we read about the priority it played in the lives of many people in the scripture, including Moses, Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul, and Jesus himself. Yet we somehow think that in our day it's a practice that's only useful for monks or contemplative-types who are particularly into "that sort of thing."

Dallas Willard describes this well:

"The life alienated from God collapses when deprived of its support from the sin-laden world. But the life in tune with God is actually nurtured by time spent alone. John the Baptist, like many of his forerunners in the prophetic line, was much alone in the deserted places of his land. Jesus constantly sought solitude from the time of his baptism up to the Garden of Gethsemane, when he even went apart from those he took there to watch with him. It is solitude and solitude alone that opens the possibility of a radical relationship to God that can withstand all external events up to and beyond death."(1)

I suspect, though, that the last sentence of the paragraph above identifies the issue for many of us: is the kind of "radical relationship with God" that would include regular practices of silence and solitude really necessary? Can't we get by fine without them?

It's possible that you're strong enough to lead the kind of life with God that enlivens your soul and blesses the world through you without practices as drastic as silence and solitude, but I certainly am not. I wither without them. I readily admit that part of the reason for that has to do with my personality, and that these practices are perhaps more necessary for people as introverted as I am than for most people, but I think the issue goes deeper than our personality preferences.

Here's my theory: as a generalization, we have stopped using the lives of Jesus and the great ones of his way as our practical standard for how we can live our lives. We look at them, admire them, think about the ideas they talked about, and usually begin to use some of those ideas in our conversations, but we rarely consider the obvious option of taking on their lifestyle–seeking to do the kinds of things they did in order to become the kinds of people they were. So, when it comes to Jesus and Paul, or more recent figures such as John Wesley or even people we have known and loved, we tend to admire them, but we treat them as oddities–eccentric people who had been zapped by God with special abilities to go to such great lengths.

Particularly in the case of Jesus, treating him like that may be a form of admiration, but it isn't a form of trust. It's a way of keeping our lives at a distance from his, a way of associating ourselves with Jesus without giving him control, a way of avoiding waiting on God like Jesus did.

Willard again:

"Our modern religious context assures us that such drastic action as we see in Jesus and Paul [in their use of practices such as solitude] is not necessary for our Christianity––may not even be useful, may even be harmful....Both the secular and the religious setting in which we live today is almost irresistibly biased toward an interpretation of these passages that condones a life more like that of decent people around us than like the life of Paul and his Lord. We talk about leading a different kind of life, but we also have ready explanations for not being really different. And with those explanations we have talked our way out of the very practices that alone would enable us to be citizens of another world."(2)

Because these practices are so radical for us, it's wise to approach them in an experimental manor (not to mention that it's wise to approach them at all!). Something that is true of all spiritual practices–which particularly comes into play with silence and solitude–is that we need a long-term view of them since our practice of them is more about the way that they shape us over months, years, and decades of engaging them more than it is about practicing it on one day and then wondering whether we got anything out of it or not. Remember–after all–this is about waiting on God and allowing him to work how he wants, when he wants, whether we even end up being aware of it or not.

So here are the simple, but very challenging, suggestions for waiting on God this Advent through silence and solitude:

Silence: Waste five minutes per day with God, accomplishing absolutely nothing. You aren't studying the Bible nor going through a prayer list, but just being quiet and seeking to increase your awareness that God is with you. You can go on a walk or drink a cup of coffee, but do something with your body that will remind the rest of you that you're spending this time with God. (In other words, doing laundry or paying bills probably wouldn't help.) Your mind will become distracted, but don't let that concern you. That's more of a bother to you than it is to God.
Solitude: Option A: Semi-Radical: Take advantage of the "little solitudes" that are already in your normal days. In other words, when you find yourself alone and able to choose what to do, don't waste the opportunity by turning on the TV immediately or checking Facebook one more time. Leave the radio off in the car while you're driving, or take whatever opportunities present themselves to enjoy being alone with God in the course of your normal days. Option B: More Radical: Take a full day sometime between now and Christmas to be alone with God. I've written up some brief guidelines for how to do so here.

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A Prayer for the Day:

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, (New York: HarperCollins, 1988) 101. (2) Ibid. 107-108.

First Thursday of Advent: Wait–Eat and Drink

December 4, 2013 Daniel Harris

Thirdly. All who desire an increase of the grace of God are to wait for it in partaking of the Lord's Supper. – John Wesley

I am not a pastor (though I did engage in brief experiment with having the title a few years ago), but I do enjoy spending a good bit of my time and energies helping pastors in different ways and accompanying them in their very difficult work. One of those ways which I enjoy most is when I have the opportunity to assist a pastor in serving Holy Communion.

When I am one of the people who gets to help distribute the bread and juice to others as together we all seek to take in the body and blood of Christ, I get a different view on what is happening. I get to see more faces, more hands, and more eyes of the people participating alongside me as we take part in this ancient form of following our Messiah. I've seen all kinds of things when I'm on that side of the Lord's Supper.

Some of the things I've seen haven't been pretty. Once, when Communion was being served in the method that pastors call "intinction" (when people are given a piece of bread to dip into juice and then eat), I saw a woman realize that she had begun to eat her bread before the arrival of the cup. Then, in one of those war movie-like ultra-slow motion moments which I was too far away to stop it, she took the bread back out of her mouth and dipped it in the cup while the pastor was already looking ahead at the next person. Lesson learned: I will always watch the person I'm serving, and–if need be–assure them that Jesus doesn't mind if they did things out of order and that another piece of bread is available.

Thankfully, seeing those kinds of things has been extremely rare. Much more often, I see things that aren't particularly important in any way, but just interesting observations. Some people like to fold up their piece of the body of Christ while others prefer it fluffy. Some people chew the bread slowly and others pop it as if it were medicine. When the juice is distributed in small cups for each individual, some people like to wait with their bread until they also have their juice in hand. Then, of course, there are those who look very comfortable with such a small glass and almost attack it, throwing their head back like it's a shot glass.

And even more thankfully, more often than those things, I get to see things that remind me of the holiness of the moment: like when I see an elderly man hobble to the front with his cane but still insist on kneeling to take Communion; or when I see a line of people waiting for the Lord's Supper which includes people from across every distinction that gets drawn in the world around us–men and women, different races, young and old, educated and uneducated, rich and poor–each coming to Jesus' table together. Some people's faces express pain, others' joy. Some people's hands are rough and mature, others' are soft with the large majority of what they will touch in life yet to be done. Some people's eyes are young and reveal that they can't possibly fully grasp the significance of what they're about to do with that bread and juice, other people's are old and also reveal that they can't possibly fully grasp the significance of what they're about to do with that bread and juice. There are many distinctions, but we're all there together, each and every one of us as equally undeserving of the invitation as everyone else.

When we receive that bread and juice, we–in the most physical, concrete way possible–are inviting Jesus Christ to come into the deepest places of who we are. Or, I guess it would be better to say that we're accepting his invitation to be a place where he comes to dwell. Either way, it's worth doing, and worth doing at every opportunity.

I hope that you have the opportunity to receive the Lord's Supper during Advent, because it's one of the best ways we have to wait on him. We do it repeatedly throughout the course of our lives because as he makes his home ever more fully in us, there is always another room in the houses of our souls that he hasn't yet occupied.

But there's another angle to this, which blows my mind: Waiting on God by taking the Lord's Supper during Advent is especially appropriate because, as we'll explore next week, one of the themes of Advent is the reminder to live in a constant state of readiness for Jesus' return. We await the new heavens and new earth when all of the dead will rise to new life and God will finally and fully set everything right–forever–with the One reigning at the center of all of it who said, "Do this in remembrance of me."

The Bible tells us precious little about what will happen then, but it repeatedly compares that day to a banquet. To my memory, Jesus only mentioned one thing that he would do with us, after that day when what has happened to him in his resurrection will happen to us and to all of creation–when everything is made new: "I tell you, from this moment I will not drink of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it in a new way in My Father’s kingdom with you."(1)

The words Jesus said to his disciples just before that are the same words we hear each time we're invited to partake: "Take, eat. This is my body...Drink from this cup, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant..." In other words, here's the mind-blowing part: We will receive Jesus' supper again with him in the future, when all things are made new, and every time we receive it in the present is an advance participation in what, one day, we will do together again with him.

So we eat, we drink, and we wait–in remembrance of him.

The Advent suggestion for this practice is simple: receive the Lord's Supper at every opportunity you're given.

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A Prayer for the Day:

Heavenly Father, in you we live and move and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.*

A Prayer for the Week:

Readings for the Week*:

*Prayers are from The Book of Common Prayer and readings are from the Revised Common Lectionary. (1) Matthew 26:26-29