Sometimes, a sermon series grows a life of its own and gets beyond my control. Most of the time, I believe this to be the work of the Spirit. Sometimes, it is human failure of focus that God uses despite my best efforts. Advent is usually (I note the irony that I have only been a pastor for three Advents) a controlled burn for me toward Christmas Eve. My series is set, and I hold back until a Christ-drenched lightpalooza on Christmas Eve. Even weirder is that this series was set since July or August of this summer. It started innocently enough, with the claim that Jesus is the exact representation of God's being (Hebrews 1:3). But somewhere in the intervening weeks, something went... weird.
I can cast the blame a few directions. Much of what I said in this series was inspired by a life-clarifying book called "Simply Jesus" by NT Wright. His work on locating Jesus in a culture and context (both then and now) is insanely good and I found myself amening (if that can be a verb) 99% of the book. I can blame the Saturday Morning Men's Bible study, since our meticulous study of Luke has cast a light on Jesus' care for the marginalized and excluded. What is good news for us on the outside looking in? I can blame the work I have done with HelpLink in recent months, for reinforcing the point above and forcing me outside my comfort zone to wonder how the Kingdom of God interacts with the kingdoms of our planet (and it does... more than many Christians give credit. I have seen the Spirit at work in government agencies, non-profits and churches alike. While we as the Church are signposts of the Kingdom, God's activity is too big to limit to only us).
And so, what happened Sunday morning, is that I said exactly what I didn't think I would say on the Sunday before Christmas - there is something wrong with the way things are. The fear of death has empowered empires from Rome to modern consumerism to crush the soul of the world. And with the birth of a child, these empires react and rage. And yet, in the birth of this child, the empires are brought to their knees by a Kingdom of heaven. And now that Kingdom is unleashed, shaping a new kind of world organized by peace, justice and righteousness. I realized that Jesus never waged war on the Romans or any other empire because it isn't about the government or the powerful people. It's about the forces that are at work within every human being to either be life-giving or life-denying. The Bible is full of stories of God's people being life-denying and "the outsiders" becoming life-giving. I don't understand it all.
So here I sat at home, realizing that the series wrapped up and went horribly awry. I have my blame in order, I have my conclusion, but I do not sit at ease.
Welcome to Advent. This is the season that God took the script and made it go horribly awry. Confusing expectations, re-shaping our understanding of the Biblical story and generally making a mess, Jesus enters the world. Christmas may be about comfort and joy, but Advent is about waiting, wondering and being not-at-ease. It is a time to confront our (oft-too-small) images of God and watch them get transformed and blown up a little. If the reward at the end of the journey is a day to celebrate our union with Christ, I pay the price gladly. May your script go horribly awry as we prepare for Christmas joy.
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