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  • Christmas is here—still

    • 28 Dec 2009
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    I stepped into one of our (many) local Starbucks today to enjoy a cup of coffee courtesy of my family. Giftcards for coffee are always a winner with me. It took me a moment to recognize why it looked sparse inside the cafe; after a pause I realized that nary a Christmas decoration remained to be seen.

    Now, given that their religiously-neutral red-and-white snowy winterscapes had been up since Halloween, I understand. And anyway, this week America lies sprawling in the wake of buyer's remorse, sugar- headaches and the melancholy that accompanies getting your cake, eating it, and feeling rather ill afterwards. (My friend Steve commented today, "All I want to eat is fruit. No more chocolate!")

    All the same, as far as the church calendar is concerned, Christmas is only started. For centuries, Christmas was a season. Lasting 12 days, from the Feast of the Nativity on the 25th (Christ's mass), until Epiphany on the 6th of January, the church recognized that meditating on the incarnation was too big a job for one day. Advent prepared us, turning our longing toward the presence of God—and now is the season to rejoice! Emmanuel—God with us—has indeed come.

    So this year I am celebrating still. My advent wreath is lit each night (the first candle is getting perilously low), the tree is glittering in the window and I am unabashedly playing my Christmas music in the car. But more: I am trying to ponder the mystery of the entrance of God into this world as one of us.

    Luke tells us of Mary's quiet pondering, treasuring up all the wonder surrounding the birth of her Son and meditating on them within her heart. She is our guide in this season—a time to continue on in quiet, rapt wonder of our God.

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  • Home for Christmas

    • 21 Dec 2009
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  • Advent, Sin and Attention

    • 18 Dec 2009
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    Most forms of Christian practice devolve, over time, into a system of sin management. What begins with passion for the felt presence of Jesus, shifts. Generally we become aware of how our sin pulls us into guilt and shame, and makes us lose the sense of closeness to God we had so enjoyed. So, with the primary intent of drawing close to God, we buckle down against our sinfulness. But our eyes are now on us, and the self (to use Plato's imagery) is a burning fire, bright and attractive and even magnetic. Once we attend to ourselves it is very difficult to pry ourselves away. We find ourselves infinitely interesting—even if self-absorption is also stifling and reductive. Eyes on self, our desire for Jesus wanes and wanes and we are left at last win only a terror of sin and enslaved to our need to be better than we are.

    Advent is a season to break out of this cycle. We are reminded of the many, many texts in the New Testament that promise freedom from sin ONLY at the return of Christ. It is inevitable; but we are to wait patiently, even with groaning. (See Phil 1:6, Romans 8, 1 John 3:1-3, Colossians 3:1-4.)

    Essentially, Advent is a time to remember the other half of the Gospel —that Jesus is returning to restore and recreate and heal. And the effect of this, strangely, is to free us more from sin now. Because if our hope is certain that we are both forgiven AND made new, and that we await only the revealing of who we are NOW in Christ, then and only then can we get our eyes off ourselves. My sin or lack of it is no longer the issue. I am reconciled to God so that I can turn my eyes to Him, boldly and with joy—not so that I can leave them fixed on myself.

    And this means we are free to love. So long as we remain obsessed with self, our "love" is only a reflection of self. We will treasure those people and things that make us feel worthwhile. But if we are assured of God's love and presence—as only the full Gospel can assure us— then we are fully free to begin paying attention to the things around us. We can look attentively at God, at the creation, at others, with loving regard.

    It is a terrible shame when the Gospel is forgotten among Christians because it is then tha we become self-absorbed and ignore the needs around us; and our lives become as stuffy and stale as a room without windows or fresh air. The Gospel opens the door, airs out our lives with the Fresh breeze of the Spirit and love, draws back the curtains and lets us look outside. All because we need not be concerned with our selves. We are freed from the magnetic pull of self to the far greater pull toward God, who is not only a fire but a Sun.

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  • Advent week 3

    • 14 Dec 2009
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  • Abby's birthday

    • 12 Dec 2009
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  • About

    Pastor of Spiritual Formation at First Baptist Church, SLO (www.fbcslo.org). Working on figuring out how a local church community can move toward a healthy, Gospel-centered rhythm of spiritual disciplines, community and missional presence. Sure that, whatever it looks like practically, the mechanism is "beholding the glory of the Lord."

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