Too Much Stuff

But who can endure the day of His coming, and who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap. (Malachi 3.2)

My partner and I have lived in the same apartment for 18 years, which has turned it into a veritable archive of our time together. Our closets, shelves, and drawers are crammed with memories and artifacts. Many are meaningful. Some have lost their meaning; we can’t recall why we thought it necessary to hang on to them. And a few are hanging on to us. They remind us of unsettling conflicts and events that found us at our worst. There’s the note dashed off in anger, the vacation photo taken on an afternoon that went sour, the article of clothing that will forever be associated with an unkind remark from a friend or relative. We’re always surprised to find these things. The discomfort affixed to them is long gone. Yet stumbling on them still manages to churn up unpleasant emotions that open old wounds. That’s the trouble with too much stuff. Things you assumed you’d thrown out have a way of hiding in the piles. We don’t need them. We don’t want them. We don’t like them. But they’re there.

In our house, we’re most apt to find relics of conflict when cleaning up for visitors who will be with us for an extended stay. Making room for them gives us the impetus to purge our cupboards of a lot of useless nonsense, particularly things that resurrect dead ideas and deadly emotions. We actually look forward to hosting houseguests because our excitement about their arrival compels us to clear away reminders of old conflicts and unwelcome turmoil.

Advent works the same way. This is the time to sort through our stuff and toss out anything that may crowd out the Prince of Peace. Unhealthy memories and attitudes that hang on to us have to go. The peace of Christ is a costly one. It comes at the expense of long-held grudges and animosities and clinging to an unhealthy past as our means to justify nagging prejudices and behaviors. The prophet compares the coming Christ to a refiner’s fire that burns up our trash and fullers’ soap that bleaches out stubborn stains. Purged and purified, we will welcome the Babe we herald in carols of peace on earth, good will to all.

Charles P. St-Onge, a Lutheran pastor in Houston, writes

Immanuel will bring lasting, true peace. Not just an end to physical war, although that is what we usually think of when we think of peace. No, this is a deeper peace. A peace between us and God.

Two weeks from today, the Prince of Peace will arrive to make His home in us. It’s time to start cleaning house.

Naming Names

The needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever. (Psalm 9.18)

Eddy, Terrence, Randy, George, Toloff, Jeff, Steve, Patrice, Brett, Renard, Ivan, two Larrys, Tony, Joey, three Michaels, Eileen, Laird, Dean, two Patricks, five Johns, Eric, two Jameses and a Jimmy, Howard, Keith, Rodney, Charles—the list of hollows that HIV/AIDS has carved in my heart goes on and on. The roster of friends and loved ones living with HIV/AIDS is many times longer. And it would be dishonest to pretend I’m any different from them. But for God’s grace, there’s no reason why I’m not listed among the lost or afflicted. In this, I am not alone. Many of us have behaved recklessly in the past. None of us can explain how or why we’ve been spared.

These days, it’s very rare that we grieve AIDS-related deaths. For that we are truly grateful. Yet not an hour passes without more fatalities added to the list. Today, the lives lost to or afflicted with HIV/AIDS have names like Gulu, Siphiwe, Noé, Toku, Jaspreet, Wang Pinghe. The grotesque horrors we endured in the fast-receding past are constant realities in Africa, India, and Asia. There, it’s much harder to identify HIV/AIDS patient types and focus prevention on at-risk populations. On the other side of the globe, HIV/AIDS is an equal-opportunity destroyer. It sweeps up men, women, children, gays, straights, rich, poor, educated, illiterate, powerful, and powerless with random disregard. It takes its toll in lives, religious and social violence, economic hardship, and decimated families.

With this weekend's observance of World AIDS Day, I invite all of us to bear witness to lives currently afflicted with HIV/AIDS by recounting those we lost so long ago. Naming names is our most powerful means to remind us of the virus’s terrors. Take a moment to open the comments and record the names of people you’ve lost. If it’s one or one hundred, name them. Recall how helpless and angry and betrayed you felt as they slipped away. Now think of hundreds of thousands—many in faraway places, with strange-sounding names—presently experiencing what you went through. Wherever they live, they cannot be forgotten. We cannot allow their hope to perish.

Pray for them. Suffer with them. And offer whatever you can—your money, time, or talent—to help combat this plague and end their pain.

Naming the names of those we’ve lost to HIV/AIDS is how we bear witness to the sufferings of those currently ravaged by the virus.

Our Place in This World

I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but I ask You to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. (John 17.15-17)

Where Does This Leave Us?

Sunday marks one of those strange partings, when liturgical congregations split according to which lectionary they follow—standard or revised. Some of us will focus on the Ascension (Acts 1.1-11; Luke 24.44-53), while others contemplate Jesus’s parting prayer for His disciples (John 17.6-19). And while each passage’s nuances will invite varying observations, I believe both lead to one question that the disciples surely wrestle with: “Where does this leave us?” For all practical purposes, Jesus has become their world and with Him gone, they have no idea where and how they fit. Once they absorb the blow of this sudden—though not unanticipated—goodbye, they must recalibrate their place in this world. It will be no easy task.

Approximating how the disciples feel is key to navigating these passages. Since none of us has experienced anything remotely like either event, we might compare them to the end of a concert. We’ve just spent an extended period of time in the presence of an artist whose words and music found us where we were, spoke to us in very real and meaningful ways, and challenged us to see ourselves differently. From the first note, the concert has steadily built to its climax—the most beloved song in the artist’s repertoire—followed by an encore that extends her/his stay. We’re grateful beyond measure for these extra few minutes, even though they’re filled with poignant awareness that all of this will end soon. The artist says goodnight, exits the stage, and the house lights come up. Our eyes remind us the outside world awaits us. It’s a hard thing, accepting it’s time to move on. But the artist is gone. Our time with him/her is passed. High-flown emotions are dissipating, replaced by implacable, workaday realities.

More than “Goodbye—we’ll meet again” is going on here. The disciples who overhear Jesus pray on their behalf and see Him ascend into Heaven have internalized His teachings. Every word He said is stamped in memory, not as text, but as spoken. As they relive their time with Jesus, they hear His voice—the tone, phrasing, and cadence of His actual speech. They associate certain statements with events that bring back all the emotions and personal significance. It’s every bit like the way that we tie songs and conversations to major moments in our lives. The disciples have relied on Jesus’s voice to enlighten, comfort, and guide them. His physical presence and the music of His speech have rooted their beings. Now Jesus is being taken from them. The silence must be crushing. More than that, their sudden sense of disconnectedness surely terrifies them. Where does this leave us?

Not Easy

Turning to Jesus’s prayer  in John 17, it’s all too evident that the Lord recognizes how jarring His departure will be. “Now I am no longer in the world,” He prays to God. “But they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them in Your name that You have given Me, so that they may be one, as We are one. While I was with them, I protected them... I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost [i.e., Judas Iscariot].” (v11-12) The concern that Jesus expresses is overwhelming. He’s keenly aware of how dependent the disciples are on Him. As He prays, He’s mindful of all the instances when their faithfulness to Him placed them in jeopardy—times when standing with Jesus exposed them to hostility and ridicule. “I protected them… I guarded them,” He reminds God. Yet, at the same time, Jesus is no fool. He knows that He’s leaving the disciples in a dicey spot and they’ll need God’s protection once He’s gone.

As David Lose points out in “The Other Lord’s Prayer,” Jesus knows that things haven’t been easy for the disciples. “The world has hated them because they do not belong to the world,” He says. His acknowledgment primes us to expect He’ll beseech God to fix things in their favor, to lighten their load—especially in the coming days, when dealing with His absence will be plenty to handle, let alone coping with His (and now their) enemies. But Jesus doesn’t ask God to lighten the disciples’ load. “What does He pray for?” Lose writes. “Not that it will be easy. He knows it won’t. This world is captive to a spirit alien to God’s spirit. It is animated by a sense of scarcity instead of abundance, fear instead of courage, and selfishness instead of sacrificial love…. So Jesus doesn’t pray that it will be easy, but rather that God will support the disciples amid their challenges and that they will be one in fellowship with each other and with Jesus and [God] through the Spirit.” Returning to our concert analogy, Jesus is all too aware He’s filled the disciples’ hearts and minds with unpopular music that puts them at odds with the world’s same old gimme-gimme song. Before He leaves, He’s going to charge them with singing His new song with all they’ve got. It’s a song the world most definitely does not want to hear.

One

Sunday’s reading stops short of the truly revelatory moment in all of this. In verses 20-21, Jesus expands His prayer, saying, “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one.” Here Jesus confesses two amazing articles of faith. As He looks ahead, He sees you and me. He recognizes us as people who will sing His new song. He trusts we will be there. Furthermore, He believes that the disciples will withstand the hardships of their world to teach His new song to those of us who’ve not heard it first-hand. Finally, He prays that we “may all be one.”

Thus we find our place in this world—not as lonely outcasts sentenced to the fringes of society, or as dissonant voices in a culture that doesn’t like our music. We are called to be a harmonious, united band of believers whose song of love and hope magnifies Christ’s presence beyond our borders. After the Ascension, two angels appear beside Jesus’s followers and ask, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, Who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.” (Acts 1.11) Jesus may have left the stage. The house lights may have come up. But the concert is not over. While we await Christ’s reappearance, our place in this world is out in the world—not hanging around, staring up at the stage, and wondering when Jesus will return. Christ has given us a new song to give the world. It’s not “Won’t You Stay Just a Little Bit Longer”. Not “Just You and I”. It’s “Takin’ It to the Streets”.

Jesus may have left the stage, but the concert’s not over. While we await His reappearance, we take His new song of love and hope to the world.


Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/05/19/our-place-in-this-world/. 

Remembering to Forget

The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and God’s ears are open to their cry. The face of the LORD is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. (Psalm 34.15-16)

Emotional Landfill

Although Lent’s wilderness is a metaphor, if we pursue the experience properly, much of what happens to us reflects a desert existence. The journey’s demands foster a kind of primal instinct that seeks to conserve energy by eliminating unnecessary burdens. Many have compared Lent to a refiner’s fire, suggesting the desert’s heat and sandblasts burn off impurities so that we stand pure and unmasked before the cross. I believe this is true. There are moments during every Lent—whether it’s our first or fiftieth—when we become aware that we’ve been relieved of detrimental thoughts and habits by force of nature. But if Lent is nothing more than voluntary exposure to the elements, our participation in the process becomes incidental. If all we must do is show up and allow Lent to work on us, then what do we learn?

I prefer to think of Lent as a parallel process during which the Spirit does Its work on us, while we also work through various conflicts and cycles to discover what we no longer need. I see it as a seasonal adjustment that rejuvenates our growth, so that we can leave the desert stronger, healthier, and freer. Without a doubt, the Lent pilgrim quickly discovers her/his trek will require dropping things along the way. The journey is too arduous for excess baggage, and by all means, we should travel light. Yet the wilderness is, above everything else, a wasteland—a place where we can consciously discard encumbrances that impede our future progress. Some things we can carry into Lent with the express purpose of walking away from them. We might think of these burdens as emotional landfill. And, though it may sound unkind to put it like this, much of what we need to lose revolves around people and relationships that weaken our lives.

Tainted and Deadening

We’ve heard so much about “toxic” relationships and people that we give the notion little thought. “Toxic” has become a sort of grab bag we keep handy for tossing away what we don’t like. How many of us have friends who abandoned relationships before they even got off the ground, saying, “He was toxic,” or “She was deadly? We’ve become such efficient toxicity diagnosticians that we objectify who and what’s going on in our lives as if we’re daytime TV therapists. Maybe I’m just blessed to be an exception to the rule. But my dealings with authentically toxic people and deadly relationships have been few and far between. What I’ve come across more often have been tainted people and deadening relationships—people whose negativity and warped views make me toxic, relationships whose chemistry numbs me to God’s touch and the gentle flow of human affection. While I would never judge folks who trigger these responses as “evil,” what they do to me most certainly is evil and, in the end, I am accountable for allowing that to happen.

It’s the fabled frog-and-scorpion scenario, isn’t it? Our desire to show kindness exposes us to risks of getting stung. And when we ask those who sting us why they did it, their only answer is, “It’s my nature.” If we’re wise, we’ll recognize that these people—and the relationships they draw us into—do evil to us. Not because they hate us, necessarily; indeed, we’re more likely to be harmed out of twisted love than outright hate. Not because they take pleasure in hurting us; indeed, most people who habitually infect others with poisonous ideas and emotions live in states of perpetual remorse. Not because they’re morally bankrupt; indeed, most people who visit evil on the world act out of a sense of moral superiority. (Does “love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin” ring a bell?) Yet our awareness that much of the pain and sorrow we endure comes from tainted people and deadening relationships that unintentionally wound us doesn’t change the fact that the harm they do is evil. And Psalm 34 can teach us a valuable lesson—as well as offer us invaluable advise for our Lent journey—if we recognize evildoing that poisons and numbs us.

We Can’t Quite Cut the Cords

In verses 15 and 16 we read, “The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, and God’s ears are open to their cry. The face of the LORD is against evildoers, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.” God is watching us, all of us, good and bad. God sees that our goodness creates vulnerabilities to others’ diseases. God hears our cries of pain and heartbreak. These situations and symptoms are commonplace in Spirit-led lives. In verse 17-19, the psalmist says, “When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears, and rescues them from their troubles. The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD rescues them from them all.” We accept that good we do will sometimes be returned with evil, and we look to God for rescue and relief when that happens. But it fascinates me that before the psalmist expounds on God’s care for us, he pauses in verse 16 to remind us of God’s response to those who do harm. God turns away from them, the poet says, and cuts off their memory. Before seeing about us, God remembers to forget those who’ve injured us. That doesn’t mean God no longer loves them. It doesn’t say God’s decided they’re not worth saving. It means as long as they persist in their tainted, deadening ways, God pays them no mind.

Lent opens us to the possibility of leaving tainted people and deadening relationships in the wasteland. It’s as much about remembering what we must forget as what we must always keep in mind. There are tainted people who make us toxic. They are how they are and will remain so if they choose not to repent. There are deadening relationships that numb us to God’s presence. They will continue to do so as long as they survive without God’s intervention. Many times we detach ourselves from unhealthy people and relationships, yet we can’t quite cut the cords of memory. But we must. If God can do it, so can we. Remembering to forget is part of God’s rescue protocol. If we’re earnest about traveling Lent’s desert in search of God’s ways, we should remember to forget anything that poisons and anesthetizes us to God’s guidance.

Lent enables to us bring unhealthy relationships and people into the desert with us for the sole purpose of leaving them behind.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/02/28/remembering-to-forget/.

Postscript: Question 6

Pop psychologists like to talk about “addictions” to “toxic relationships”—but I think the question is more basic (and hence more complex) than that. What compels us to think we must indulge poisonous personalities and situations to prove we love someone? Are we trying to prove we’re stronger than they? Or are we stronger when we remember to forget unhealthy individuals and relationships?

What God Wants Us to Know

Because of Your promise, and according to Your own heart, You have wrought all this greatness, so that your servant may know it. Therefore You are great, O LORD God; for there is no one like You. (2 Samuel 7.21-22)

“None Like You”

As a young person eager to grow in faith, I studied adults in my family and faith community closely, watching how they behaved in and out of church, listening to how they prayed, and staying attentive to shards of Scripture peppered through their conversation. (In those days, the saints were so conversant with the Word it routinely surfaced in their casual speech, often as no more than a phrase wedged into a sentence. It’s an art that, alas, has fallen from fashion.) Kids have innate sensors that flag sincerity and sham, and with little effort I gravitated to believers whose best practices I admired and hoped to emulate.

One of my greatest faith mentors was Rev. Eugene Gray, youth minister to a large church I adopted as my second home. As he took me under wing, I soon discovered what an uncommonly tender man he was; if a hateful thought crossed his mind during the years I knew him, it never passed his lips. Gene’s prayer mannerisms first drew me to him. In service, he prayed extemporaneously, with the confidence of a son who knew his father had all the answers and could do anything. A feature I truly loved was how Gene “sent” God to troubled souls. “Somebody is sick and without hope. Look in on them,” he’d pray. “Touch their bodies and lift their spirits… A mother’s son is languishing in prison. Speak to his heart and shield him from harm… Somewhere a teenager feels unloved and alone. Take her in Your arms. Let her know she’s Your child.” You didn’t have to be called out in Gene’s prayer for it resonate. Whatever your struggles, his assurance extinguished all doubt God saw you and was with you.

I learned where Gene’s trust originated during our prayer times together. Away from the pulpit he laid a hushed love feast before the Lord. He neither hurried nor tried to impress. He just talked to God, always starting with a list of thanksgivings that couched his requests. “Because of all You’ve done, I know You’ll do what’s best,” he’d say. Once he ended his requests, he hung around for quite awhile, simply to express how wonderful God was to him. He frequently latched on a phrase—usually from David’s psalms or prayers—and repeated it over and over, pausing to let it sink deeper into his heart with each repetition. “There is none like You,” he’d say. “None like You… None like You,” echoing David’s awe at God’s unfathomable kindness in 2 Samuel 7.22: “There is no one like You.” Gene’s been gone for many years, but his best practices survive in thousands who rarely end a prayer without telling God, “There is none like You.”

Utterly Bowled Over

David’s prayer, covered in 2 Samuel 7.18-29, is less about asking God for anything than extolling everything God is. In fact, God’s already spoken to David through the prophet, Nathan, answering many of the young king’s questions and soothing his anxieties. David’s so utterly bowled over, he sits down by himself and talks to God. To get the full effect of what he says, we should back up. In quicksilver time, David ascends Israel's throne, defeats its perennial enemy, the Philistines, and installs the Ark of the Covenant housing Judaism's holiest relics in the Tabernacle, a vast tent in which Jews have worshiped since Moses’s days. After the festivities, David looks at his palace and suddenly feels guilty about living in opulence while the Ark rests under a ragged canopy. Building an even more lavish temple seems the proper thing to do. But God puts the brakes on his idea, saying, “You don’t need a new project. It’s more important you slow down, get your bearings, and reflect on how far I’ve brought you. From shepherd boy to king—this wouldn’t be possible without Me. I promise to give you a son endowed with wisdom and skill to construct the greatest temple the world will ever know. Leave that to him. All I want from you is to realize how far you’ve come, because you’ve a long way yet to go.”

Totally undone by God’s kindness, David doesn’t know where to start. So, naturally, he does his best to say what words can’t describe. Yet he somehow manages beautifully. (Check out the entire prayer in the postscript and you’ll be amazed.) He’s still enthralled and tremendously humbled by the enormous palace he now calls home. “Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house that you have brought me thus far?” he exclaims. (v18) He uses “house” in both senses—Israel’s royal residence as well as the House of David, the dynasty promised to him. Then he runs dry. “And what more can David say to you?” he asks in verse 20. Plenty, it turns out, once his thoughts turn from all God has done for him to what God wants him to know. His prayer comes to life in verses 21-22: “Because of Your promise, and according to Your own heart, You have wrought all this greatness, so that your servant may know it. Therefore You are great, O LORD God; for there is no one like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.”

Greatness That Constantly Amazes

So easily we’re flummoxed by how far we’ve come, where we are, or how far we’ve yet to go. God has brought us over great expanses pocked with rugged, unpredictable terrain; we look back and wonder how we got where we are. It’s tremendously humbling to realize our lives are richer and bigger than we ever imagined. And God's promises for greatness in store makes us lightheaded. Our first instinct is to do something worthy of the kindness we’ve received—to keep going full speed ahead. Yet the word spoken to David comes to us. It’s important we slow down, get our bearings, and reflect on where we’ve come from because there’s something invaluable that God wants us to know before we venture on.

There is no one like God, no god besides God. Anything we may attribute with our progress thus far—intellect, tenacity, courage, curiosity, support systems, insuperable hurdles, and even what some call plain old good luck—every blessing (including those we initially perceive as curses) would not be were it not for God. There’s not a power known to humankind or a force in this universe that compares to our Creator and Keeper. God is precisely Whom Gene Gray’s prayers projected—the Parent with all the answers, Who can do anything. Or, as David puts it, the Source of greatness that constantly amazes us. What more can we say but, “There is none like You”? That says everything. And that’s what God wants us to know.

When we recollect the great things You’ve done for us in the past, O God, the great blessings we presently enjoy, and imagine ever greater things ahead, we’re so utterly bowled over we sit down and try to say what words can’t describe. With nothing more to say, we thank You because You’re You. There’s no one like You. None. Amen.

It’s important we slow down, get our bearings, and reflect on where we’ve come from because there’s something invaluable that God wants us to know before we venture on.

Postscript: David’s Prayer

"Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that You have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in Your eyes, O Lord GOD; You have spoken also of Your servant's house for a great while to come. May this be instruction for the people, O Lord GOD! And what more can David say to You? For You know Your servant, O Lord GOD! Because of your promise, and according to Your own heart, You have wrought all this greatness, so that Your servant may know it. Therefore You are great, O LORD God; for there is no one like You, and there is no God besides You, according to all that we have heard with our ears.

"Who is like Your people, like Israel? Is there another nation on earth whose God went to redeem it as a people, and to make a name for Himself, doing great and awesome things for them, by driving out before His people nations and their gods? And You established Your people Israel for Yourself to be Your people forever; and You, O LORD, became their God. And now, O LORD God, as for the word that You have spoken concerning Your servant and concerning his house, confirm it forever; do as You have promised. Thus Your name will be magnified forever in the saying, 'The LORD of hosts is God over Israel'; and the house of Your servant David will be established before You.

"For You, O LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to Your servant, saying, 'I will build you a house'; therefore Your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to You. And now, O Lord GOD, You are God, and Your words are true, and You have promised this good thing to Your servant; now therefore may it please You to bless the house of Your servant, so that it may continue forever before You; for You, O Lord GOD, have spoken, and with Your blessing shall the house of Your servant be blessed forever." (2 Samuel 7.18-29)

Sanctuaries

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” (Matthew 2.13)

One Vision from Two Versions

Attempting to weave a unified timeline from Matthew and Luke’s Nativity accounts invites madness. The Holy Family, Bethlehem, the Virgin Birth, and (of course) the event’s magnitude are their only common threads. Luke’s version highlights Christ’s humble beginnings: Mary and Joseph are modest people; the Child is quietly born in a stable; angels summon shepherds from the countryside to worship Christ the Savior. Roughly 40 days later, as required by Mosaic Law, Mary and Joseph present Jesus to the Temple priests in Jerusalem. There, a holy man named Simeon confirms the Babe is the Messiah, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” (Luke 2.32) Luke’s is a tender, heartwarming story.

Matthew’s tone and timing couldn’t be more dissimilar. Since his story is all about Christ the King, he wraps it in august language and political intrigue befitting a monarch. Joseph takes center stage, as his family traces its roots to Abraham—i.e., he comes from royal blood. A star on the eastern horizon captivates eminent astronomers who traverse the Arabian Peninsula to greet the Christ Child. They stop in Jerusalem to pay homage to King Herod, telling him they’re in search of the recently born King of the Jews. Their news troubles Herod and his court. Worse yet, it places Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in mortal danger. After the Magi leave the house where they find the Holy Family—Matthew will have none of this lowly stable business—an angel instructs Joseph: “Get up! Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” (Matthew 2.13) It’s anyone’s guess how they flee to Egypt, remain there until Herod’s death, and still manage a high-profile appearance six weeks after Jesus is born—in Jerusalem, of all places—in the Temple Herod built, no less—where a prophet announces Jesus is the Child Herod’s scouring the land to locate and destroy. How do we get one vision from two versions?

Why Egypt?

Up to the birth, we sort of blur them together. The accounts basically run in parallel and if we fudge a few details to line up the Wise Men and shepherds for the star-lighted manger scene, well, it’s a small fee in exchange for such a priceless tableau. After the guests depart, however, no amount of buffing can fix the discrepancies between the two stories. If we insisted on reading every word in the Bible as factually true, we couldn’t be sure which to believe. But since Biblical truth transcends trivia like dates and times—and Scripture’s purpose surpasses those of almanacs and textbooks—we can divorce Matthew from Luke to consider what each wants to show us. Luke’s intention behind the Temple presentation is straightforward. He slips in Simeon’s prophecy to establish Christ as the Savior of all humankind, Gentiles and Jews. Matthew is less forthcoming with his reasons for placing Jesus in peril and sending Him in exile as an Infant.

Our first question is, “Why Egypt?” Mary and Joseph just as easily could go east—more easily, actually, as the distance from Bethlehem to Judea’s eastern border is less than a third of the 200-mile trek to Egypt. The angel’s directive somehow seems backwards. Egypt represents everything Christ will defeat: oppression, powerlessness, loss of identity, and death. Yet its remove and reputation are why there’s no better place to go. It’s the last place anyone expects to find Israel’s newborn King. Furthermore, since the Egyptians are religiously isolated from Messianic mindsets, Christ’s anonymity is guaranteed. In many ways, it would be like hiding the infant Dalai Lama in America’s Bible Belt. For all the locals know, Mary and Joseph are merely sojourners; the Child’s identity holds no import for them.

Newness Covers Our Lives

Then, beyond its pragmatic appeal, Egypt’s selection symbolizes something so thrilling we strain to absorb it. The angel tells Joseph to move Christ to Egypt to liberate Israel from its past. God does a new thing here, transforming the site of the Jews’ greatest sorrows into a sanctuary for their highest hopes. Unlike his Old Testament namesake—who enters Egypt as a slave and ushers Israel into bondage—Christ’s presence enables this Joseph to enter and leave Egypt as a free man. The Egyptian shadow is no more. The kingdom of terror and torment is now a safe place.

In retrospect, it’s a good thing that Joseph and Mary don't leave Bethlehem before the angel reroutes them to Egypt. One can hear their loved ones challenge them: “Are you crazy? Egypt is nowhere to raise God’s Child! How did you dream up such an idea? After all our people suffered there, that makes absolutely no sense!” Blinded by deeply imbedded phobias, they’d miss the point. Christ changes everything. Former oppressors become future protectors—often unawares. Hierarchies that divested us of power inadvertently wind up preserving it. Places that stole our identity as God’s people ultimately prove instrumental in restoring it. Villains who threatened our lives unwittingly help us thrive. The past we knew without Christ is no more. God is doing a new thing, and that newness covers our entire lives. It turns wherever we go—not just literally, but as we journey back and forth through our days—into a safe place. The Christ with us, in us, transforms our sites of sorrow into sanctuaries of hope.

Christ comes to liberate us from the past we knew by transforming it with newness that covers our entire lives.

Postscript: “Imagine Me”

I’ve posted this video before, yet its power keeps calling me back. Turn up the volume and as you watch its riveting depiction of a past without Christ and how Christ’s presence changes everything, see your sites of sorrow transform into sanctuaries of hope. Kirk Franklin’s extraordinary ballad, “Imagine Me.” (Lyrics here.)

Glow

See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn… Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy. (Isaiah 60.2-3,5)

Arise and Shine Now

Yesterday I spent a priceless half-hour on the phone with a young hip-hop artist diagnosed with a debilitating condition. I entered the conversation in my capacity as a healthcare writer inquiring about his progress on a treatment my client manufactures. But our talk soon surpassed his resurgence after starting medication. Despite setbacks and sorrows—his crowd rapidly thinned once it became apparent getting his health restored would delay his success—he kept returning to a theme: “It taught me a lot about my circle, my family and friends, and me.” With his career back on-track, I asked if he had a message for younger fans with similar illnesses. “I want to tell them this is the first of many challenges they’ll face,” he answered. “But if they learn from it, they’ll wake up grateful for each day, just like me. It will keep them glowing.” Not “going." Glowing.

After the call, I closed my notes to find my browser open to Isaiah 60. I’d had the passage up for some time without getting to it. The first few verses took my breath. “Arise, shine, for your light has come,” verse one reads, “and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.” That’s the verse we know—the one we sing and recite at this time of year—God’s glistening promise to restore Jerusalem’s glory after decades of debilitation. Yet revisiting the text in the wake my conversation startled me. Its message is not a forecast. It’s an invitation to arise and shine now. Its promise hinges on courage to defy circumstances—to keep glowing: “See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but LORD rises upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn,” verses 2 and 3 say. Verse 5 declares, “Then you will look and be radiant, your heart will throb and swell with joy; the wealth on the seas will be brought to you, to you the riches of the nations will come.” Just as the musician’s attitude chastens us for nursing self-pity and pessimism when life takes a cruel turn, Isaiah challenges our belief that light and joy are contingent on God’s blessings and goodness. Both insist we’ve got it backwards. Blessings, healing, and deliverance don’t make us shine. We don’t wait for brighter days before stirring from our stupor. First we glow, and then we grow.

Taking Back the Night

We jump on Advent’s juggernaut, hurtling through darkness with eyes trained ahead. Salvation is coming. We long to be there when it appears. We ache once more to see nascent glimmers of redemption in Christ’s newborn eyes. Finding our hope cradled in Bethlehem’s manger, we instinctively raise our sights to Calvary’s cross. The moment hums with excitement about the future: this changes everything. In our forward-focused enthusiasm, however, we can’t forget there’s more to Christmas than a new dawning. It’s also about taking back the night. Fears and dangers that left us scrambling for shadowy corners or trembling behind bolted doors can torment us no more. Injuries and injustices that haunted us shrivel under our radiance. That’s right, our radiance—the glory of God that rises upon us in darkness. The Christ-Child is our light. John 1.4 tells us in Jesus “was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” Christ’s gift of redemption pivots on enabling us to perfect God’s reflection in our lives and world. We are created to glow. The glory rising over us gives us power to destroy darkness in our present, future, and our past.

Now we have a choice. Either we treat this metaphorically, which puts it with other prophetic poetry we unpack at Advent. Or we embrace it as a real thing—a phenomenon we experience and practice all year. What does that mean? As far as we run from our pasts, our pasts are never far from us. I suspect most of us seldom finish a day without bumping into a reminder of fears and losses that vexed our nights before Christ illuminated our lives. Holidays and homecomings are notorious for plunging those of us who’ve escaped unhealthy pasts into dizzying darkness. We timidly enter these scenes, needlessly availing ourselves to prejudices and pressures by dimming our lights. But we weren’t created for low light. God made us to glow. We shine because light has come to restore what we lost. Whether darkness invades our minds with a passing memory or surrounds us in settings we’ve outgrown, we keep glowing, never faltering in our quest to take back the night.

No Posturing Needed

But, realistically, how do we manage this? Should we act like memories and night haunts don’t menace us? We’re talking about incredibly mean stuff here. We’ve got scars that brushes with the past repeatedly rip open, wounds that never completely heal. All it takes sometimes is a word, a look, a voice—even a room or smell—to hurl us into the blackest of nights. Are we supposed to adopt an impervious posture to keep glowing? Can we even do that? Here’s where faith in God’s promises becomes critical. Remember Isaiah 60.5? “You will look and be radiant.” Who we were when we lived in darkness is not who we are now. God’s glory has risen on us, shattering our night. Our light has come. We found it in a manger. It changed us forever, enabling us reroute our future and empowering us to reclaim our past. No posturing is needed. We simply have to be. We look radiant when we reencounter darkness because we are radiant. It's that simple. Darkness holds us no longer. And we have only one lesson to retain from its meanness: when we glow its power fails. Through this season and always, be radiant. Glow.

God’s glory rises on us and we glow. Our radiance defeats our darkness. It’s not a posture or pretense. It’s who we are.

Postscript: “Walk in the Light”

I mentioned in an earlier post how this Advent keeps sending me down well-trod musical paths from my youth. As I worked on today’s reflection, I couldn’t shake this glorious rendition of the classic hymn, “Walk in the Light,” by a treasured late friend and musical genius, Thomas Whitfield. I slapped together a quick video, but the beauty—the triumph—is in the song!

WALK IN THE LIGHT

Walk in the light, beautiful light

Come where the dewdrops of mercy shine bright

Oh, shine all around us by day and by night

Jesus is, Jesus is

The Light of the world.

No need to worry, no need to fret

All of my needs Jesus has met

His love protects me from hurt and from harm

Jesus is, Jesus is

The Light of the world.

If the Gospel be hid, It's hid from the lost

Jesus is waiting to look past your faults

Arise and shine, your light has come

Jesus is, Jesus is

The Light of the world.

Jesus is the Light of the world

Jesus is the Light of the world

Jesus is the Light of the world

He's ever shining in my soul