I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. --John 16:33 (ESV)
God did a unique thing for us at Christmas that gets lost in our celebrations often. It was not that Wise Kings from the East brought gifts and gave us the practice of exchanging gifts. It was not that Angels sang and gave us Christmas Carols. It was not that we over stuff ourselves on every kind of rich food and inch our midsections toward heart disease -- just where did THAT come from? What God did that was unique was to enter into the birthing process and take on flesh exactly like every single person on the planet who has ever lived. God joined with human flesh and blood to see the world through our eyes and understand us a bit better and deeper. God cared that much that God came to visit us in how we live. Through this joining God experienced sadness, grief, anger, accomplishment, and defeat. Through God in Christ we can know that God gets us.
Do we get God? It would be impossible for us to pull off what God did in reverse. We obviously can not become God, but we can take on the Christ. By spending time soaking up the words of the Gospels about Jesus' life we gain insights into how God operates in human form. God clearly strives to bring us peace. God clearly strives to overcome the world filled with tribulation and strife. The God nature through Jesus shone a light on a different way to be human that was grounded in peace, compassion, and healing. That we have a God-living-through-human example should inspire us in our quest to experience God living through us. It may begin in your gospel reading. It might continue in partaking of the elements of Holy Communion. It might expand when we reach beyond the focus on our needs to helping those at the margins with their needs. Perhaps when Jesus says, "Take heart, I have overcome the world," he means that we can also overcome the world? If so, then what is stopping you? Read, pray, serve -- and stop worrying over the tribulations.
Prayer:
Dear God, there are many troubles all around but you know what that's like, don't you? In awe and gratitude we give thanks for how you overcome them all and for handing us unity with you. Amen.
This only would I learn of you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? --Galatians 3:2 (Douay-Rheims 1899)
Scientific tangibility is reality for most people. If we want to know what is real or what can be believed with certainty, we turn to science (along with all its laws.) Scientific validity creates believable fact, a world upon which we can base our life. An adherence to such certainty is the center piece of belief in the present age. In the days of Bible writing the Law of Moses had this same solidity of reality and certainty. It was deeply believed that violating the Law of Moses would lead to your demise. Being a good person and following the letter of the Law brought you righteousness, or togetherness with God. There was a "legal tangibility" that made clear how one could and should live. Even when God felt absent you could continue through the motions by following the law and what you easily could know by listening to the rabbi. Then entered a short time of The Spirit.
In the book of Acts the Holy Spirit arrived on the gathered masses on Pentecost. While not deconstructed or destroyed, the chains to the Law of Moses were loosed. The believer was set free to believe, to trust, to have faith in a deeper reality: that God eternally loves and redeems wrong and the wronged. This reality is more like an intangible fact -- the base on which science or legalities rest. How do we know it is there, or real? Because we trust that it is so -- convinced that the mystery of God is holding up the world and its future whether we can reach out and touch it, dissect and understand it, or not. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by the hearing of faith? A modern rewrite of the verse would be "Did you receive the Spirit by the certainty of scientific method, or by hearing of faith?"
Many today write off faith. If it can't be satisfactorily proven, measured, or the workings thereof elucidated it is of no value. Faith, the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ, the Church, and even God get tossed. Yet, if these are all tossed then so must all their fruits including "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23) Having experienced and witnessed each of these "fruits of the Spirit" I cannot conceive of or agree to live in a world with them outlawed by a law or a science that does not account for what I have heard of faith: Christ died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
Prayer:
God of faith, stand by us when uncertainty and other unknowing voices try to convince us that our beliefs are "silly superstitions." Help us stand near you, O God as well. Amen.
Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. --Matthew 22:37 (Douay-Rheims)
Loving God is a simple, yet challenging, task. It isn't really accomplished through so many common everyday avenues -- avenues like following what is legal or following what the society/culture accepts as "normal" or necessarily even adhering strictly to what your church, teachers, or parents taught. To love God requires a spiritual awakening within your soul that attunes itself to that wee small (but strong) presence. All the other avenues while possibly helpful in the quest to love God, really don't accomplish the whole task. I don't believe we fully love God only by being busy for God. By being busy for God I mean having the to-do check-list -- you know the one:
- Went to church
- Taught Sunday School
- Fed the hungry
- Said nighttime prayers with the children
- Said mealtime prayers
Check, check, and check. Those things are not bad (and are even helpful) but there is something more and richer than doing for God. There is being with God. Being with God is being still and knowing the nearness of God to you. That nearness is ever-present, yet flurries of activity, or worries, or busy thinking keep us at arms length from experiencing it. Pausing from all the bustle of living, in the quiet dark of night and feeling our own personal loneliness in our soul as a unique individual who is beloved by God allows in the sweet living spirit that nourishes the love between Lover and beloved. The way to love God with your whole heart, soul and mind is to plumb the depths of silence for the One who carries you eternally forward in time -- to sense the depth of intimate caring and concern that God has for you and whatever you are enduring. Be still, know and love God.
Prayer:
Merciful Lover of our heart, soul, and mind, release us from all our doing and busy-ness to find and have moments and moments every day where through our silence we sense -- touch, feel, hear, or see you more clearly and dearly. Amen.
