Immanuel: God with Us; God AS Us. (An Advent(-ure))

 

(The Nativity - a photograph by @natalielennan)

The grace and the impatience to wait

 

In our secret yearnings

    we wait for your coming,

    and in our grinding despair

    we doubt that you will.

And in this privileged place

    we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we

    and by those who despair more deeply than do we.

Look upon your church and its pastors

    in this season of hope

    which runs so quickly to fatigue

    and this season of yearning

    which becomes so easily quarrelsome.

Give us the grace and the impatience

    to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,

    to the edges of our fingertips.

We do not want our several worlds to end.

Come in your power,

    and come in your weakness

    in any case,

    and make all things new.

Amen.

(1994 - From Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth – Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, 2003)

 

In times of war and devastation; a time when Christmas has been cancelled in besieged and occupied Bethlehem; nights are far from silent – or ‘holy’ - in Gaza; when Bohemian King Wenceslas is just a statue, and when Israeli shepherd-settlers used sheep as weapons of occupation in Palestine, our impressions and interpretations of “Advent” might be rather distorted.

(Palestinian firefighters work to extinguish a fire in a house after an Israeli attack amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters])

There are millions of people to whom “Christmas” – especially as interpreted, celebrated, and consumed in the West – is meaningless.  Why? Mainly, because the advent (the “coming”) of Emmanuel – God with us - is meaningless to most Christians. At least, insofar as it impacts upon their daily lives, economy, lifestyles, and preoccupations.

In his Daily Meditations for 24^th December 2019, Richard Rohr wrote:

Remember, when we speak of Advent or preparing for Christmas, we’re not just talking about waiting for the little baby Jesus to be born. That already happened 2,000 years ago. In fact, we’re welcoming the Universal Christ, the Cosmic Christ, the Christ that is forever being born in the human soul and into history.

And believe me, we do have to make room, because right now there is no room in the inn for such a mystery. We see things pretty much in their materiality, but we don’t see the light shining through. We don’t see the incarnate spirit that is hidden inside of everything material.  

In too many ways – and certainly for a world totally indifferent (if not actually hostile) to the message of God becoming human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, around 2000 years ago – the promise this extraordinary birth, in the section of a house reserved for animals proposes, has been totally obscured (if not entirely obliterated) by Capitalism, Consumerism, and, above all, Christianism.

1700 years of delusion have deceived the Church – and so deprived the world – through a “gospel” that is no gospel at all – starting from the very Nativity narrative, onwards! Key among erroneous claims is the one that presents the birth of Christ Jesus as being the herald of a way out of this mess (for the “elect,” believing, very few!) and our passports to “heaven”.

 Fortunately, this is not true, at all! And this baby - who effects our emotions but leaves us essentially unmoved – would grow up to preach, party, teach, heal, and liberate, and, finally, die in crucifixion agony to save the world from sin (“missing the point” of our union with God) and to reconcile that whole world (anthropological, mineralogical, biological, and zoological) to Themselves.

And be resurrected on the third day.

And to “ascend” to the heavenly dimension to take his seat on the Throne of the Father as King.

(Sunrise over the Earth by Tito Onz)

And this King is returning! He is returning to earth. He is not going to take us anywhere! He will finally fulfil his own passionate prayer (that he recommended to us) and bring the kingdom of Heaven down to unite with Earth - as demonstrated metaphorically by the ‘descent’ of the New Jerusalem from heaven to earth.

NT (Tom) Wright lays out the Advent message like this:

The early Christian writers were setting forth an eschatology that had been inaugurated, but not finally consummated; they were celebrating (Paul is quite explicit on this point in 1 Cor. 15:20-28) something that has already happened, but at the same time something that still has to happen in the future…But the eschatology in question was not just the personal or “spiritual” eschatology of so much Western thought (“going to heaven” in the future, but with a taste of “heaven,” of “eternal life,” already in the present), but the social, cultural, political, and even cosmic eschatology of Matthew, Paul, Revelation, and of course – perhaps above all – the fourth gospel [John]. (How God Became King – Tom Wright, SPCK 2012, pp 162-163 My emphasis.)

Religion fails us (and, especially, Christianism) by insisting on our separation from God, and by insisting that there is delay in living in the kingdom of God. Advent, and Christmas both proclaim the presence of God as (always) with us. More astonishing (and, indeed, scandalous!) than this, though, is that the vulnerable arrival of God among us, in the form of a new-born baby boy, heralds the presence of God as us. As Paul put it so poetically, prophetically, and passionately, (Philippians 2: 3-11, NLT) we are to unite ourselves in the same mind and spirit of Emmanuel:

            “Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate? 2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

3 Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. 4 Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too.

5 You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

6 Though he was God,
    he did not think of equality with God
    as something to cling to.
7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
    he took the humble position of a slave
    and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
8     he humbled himself in obedience to God
    and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

9 Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honour
    and gave him the name above all other names,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Christ was born as us; Christ lived as us (the ultimate human being); Christ died as us; Christ was resurrected as us; Christ will return in, with, as and through us.

The great Advent cry goes up: “Maranatha! Even so, come King Jesus!”

Grace and peace, fellow Wayfarers.