Long Journey Home

“And the Word came to be flesh and manifested his dwelling into us.”  John 1:14

It seems only appropriate that the events surrounding the birth of the Christ would be surrounded by violence.

Our lives often seemed consumed by violence to the point of being nearly impossible to avoid.  It’s everywhere.  It’s being done unto as and often by us towards others.  So, to read the parables of the birth of Christ seems like any other typical day.  Maybe that’s the point.

If you know anything of my own story you know how I described my own journey of leaving ministry as an act of saving my own soul from destruction.  It literally felt as if I was in this perpetual act of violence against myself, being all, I had known, living a life not mine to live anymore.  I had surrounded myself by my own acts of violence towards myself, leaving in my path depression, emptiness, and a cavernous hole which seemed insurmountable.  I had no place to go but down, to the depths of my own being, to the very soul being birthed within me, “the soul felt its worth”.

It’s only appropriate that the story which has captivated imaginations for two millennia has pointed us to this very place within ourselves through the culmination of the birth of the Christ consciousness.  It seems only appropriate the glue which holds together the masculine and the feminine of the characters of Joseph and Mary is the Christ manifested in this dwelling, holding the two together as one, bringing together all which divides.

All choices presented to the two test their commitment to the Christ, along with every character who comes in contact.  After conducting a little contact tracing, all points back to the birth of the Christ consciousness and the birth of the path towards your salvation.  There is no returning to a life once lived upon this encounter, an encounter which redirects our lives from the inside out.

Change, though, anticipates something from all of them and us.  All of the characters, like ourselves, must make a journey to the outskirts of our own soul.  It’s a journey which empties us of all we know.  We leave behind us an abyss-like hole just dying to be filled by all that surrounds us, fearing when taken all away, nothing remains but “I am” as “chains shall He break”. 

So they arrive primed for something different.  Mary and Joseph, shepherds, Magi from the East, all journey to the outskirts only to find them smack dab in the center of their being while beginning to see their lives through a different lens.  Life has a way of doing that to us, choices which test all that we have known, pushing us off cliffs, scrambling to find our way back to safety.

Yet, there is no safety in this journey they point us towards, that the Christ points us towards.  There’s huge risk for each of them and for us upon the encounter.  Magi are told not to return to the “peace” of Herod, a false sense of peace at that; rather, told to go by a different way.  The journey primed them and the encounter changed them forever.  Mary and Joseph as well must flee the looming violence.  Yes, they go to the outskirts but they take with them direction and purpose.  The way each respond to the events is key.  Rather than returning to the life they knew, they return changed.

Something happens in both the journey and the encounter.  It’s not one or the other.  Something happens through both.  The journey primes and empties; the encounter changes the course of their lives.

We are all conditioned to go outwards in search of something, in search of ourselves, as if finding our place in the world.  It’s the journey towards lostness, more often than not because it’s only half the journey.  When we journey outward with nothing, so we believe, believing something beyond us will fill a void of not knowing who I am, we only drive ourselves further into a violent world.  It becomes about changing the world and serving all.  All are noble causes. 

However, we do it from a place of searching rather than being.  We become convinced that something out there will have the answers even though we’re simply running from our own embodiment of the Christ consciousness.  It’s not to say we don’t need to do it.  It’s in leaving that a summons home comes louder and with greater clarity, drawing us back to our own poverty, our emptiness, a crib lying barren awaiting our own birth of the Christ consciousness.

We can circle the globe over and over, and many times we will.  It will always bring us back to the point where we left which becomes the point of return.  It’s the soul catching a glimpse of its worth, waiting to hold space for all parts of us which have wandered away from our core.  What’s at stake in this journey?  The salvation of your soul and a life of fulfillment.  We can search high and low, and we will, but what we’re looking for we already have.  The journey will prime you; the encounter will change you.  Upon it, there’s a point of no return.  Like the “wise” magi, the encounter not only opens us to tremendous letting go and dying, it reveals a threshold to cross into a new way of life, a new path, and the birth of the Christ consciousness within us always led “by the light of faith serenely beaming”.

Our Gift to the World

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – –Howard Thurman

I have always found a hint of sadness when it comes to Christmas.  Even sitting here writing this blog, I can feel it within me, as if it exposes a longing yet fulfilled.  I don’t know if anyone else experiences it, but I have found it nearly most years.  Don’t get me wrong.  It’s great being around the kids on Christmas and the days leading up to it.  There is an excitement quite easy to tap into.  It’s contagious! 

There is, though, this sadness which accompanies such wonder and awe. 

There is a sense of profound connection and yet separation, all at the same time.   

There is a sense of anticipation and yet fear, seemingly bound together in a moment of time.

I don’t think we’ve experienced it quite like we have in 2020.  It’s hard to avoid the complexity of a human life as we continue the unanticipated drama of a global pandemic, touching all corners of the earth.  After a time of full gestation, it finally made it to Antarctica this week; one more notch in the belt for a rather unpredictable year.

However, maybe it’s a good reminder to us all we cannot outrun hurt and struggle.  Many believe themselves to be invincible and above the absurdity of a sickened human family, creating alternate realities for themselves in order to avoid pain.  How do you convince someone they need a doctor when they don’t even want to believe they are sick?  It’s not an easy undertaking.  Yet, it’s the reality in which we have dealt ourselves and one in need of transformation and redemption, even if it believes and doubts otherwise.

I believe, now more than ever, we “need a little Christmas; right this very minute”.  Christianity has all but put all of its eggs in its Easter basket.  One day we may find ourselves grateful Easter was essentially “cancelled” earlier this year and now we stand on the threshold of an incarnational moment, even given a clear reminder of the first through the alignment of the heavens this week leading up to Christmas as planets waltzed together in the darkened, night skies.

Isn’t it, after all, an incarnational moment we need more than anything?  The drama and saga of Easter is a natural conclusion to a story which begins with greater scandal, a God becoming flesh, acknowledging our value and worth.  Christianity has allowed itself to become overly dogmatic and corporate to the point it feels as if it’s been cut off from the body, from the very people which encompasses it.  It’s become “cut off” from its own incarnational moment of a God becoming flesh.  In other words, the head has decapitated itself from the body.

Some would argue, it always has been. 

It alone feeds the sadness and longing of a people, like shepherds who “quake at the sight”, for a God who’s “law is love and His Gospel is Peace”.  As much as there may be a place for dogma, theory, and creed, it can become a “stumbling stone” to an encounter and mystical moment with the God enfleshed.  It feeds the head, not a body of people who are hurting, a pandemic of anxiety constantly breathing down the neck as if the world sits atop us. 

God speaks.  Dwells among us.  We choose to reject it, and often in the name of religion.

My guess is God always is saddened by the events of our time.  No, not simply a pandemic plaguing the people, but the injustice, poverty, abuse of power, war and violence enfleshed more than love and peace.  Christmas, in all its wonder, manages to put all of it into perspective and pull us to the center of our humanity.  It is, undoubtably, our humanity we most wrestle with in this world.  It’s not only the humanity of the other; it’s our own we wrestle with and try to make sense of on a daily basis. 

It is, in most humble of fashion, all we really have.

This God who becomes flesh continues to desire to be embodied in and through us.  It is, the divine, our true self, soul, the Christ, no matter how you define it, a God who desires us to become fully human and recognize it is as lifelong journey.  This birthing and becoming is not a nine-month gestation, but one spanning from our first breath to our own natural conclusion.  We fight it, resist it, but ultimately, we’re invited to fall into it and embrace it for what it is, in all its wonder and sadness, fear and love, connection and separation.  It’s who we are in our fullness and when you “fall, on your knees” in humility, you once again unite the heavens and earth and Christmas becomes the present moment, once again incarnated in the world.

When we finally become grounded in our own humanity, so much more takes care of itself.  It allows us to see the value in all of humanity and no longer a held belief to “decrease the surplus population”, disposing of anyone who doesn’t contribute or produce in an economic way.  We begin to recognize the poverty of our own lives and the need for very little, an intentionality which leads to life and the fullness of this life.  Christmas didn’t just happen; it happens.  Some two centuries later, the courageous one who steps fully into their humanity continues to cause scandal, not conforming to the ways of the world, but rather, come into their own.

There truly is a sadness, mixed in with the wonder and awe of the moment.  It’s a sadness when we face reality as it is, a world easily distracted from the real, caught up in the head, cut off from the body, a world in need of hope. 

No, not a sense of optimism, but hope, coursing through the veins of our humanity, reminding us of what matters most.  As long as we find ourselves breathing, in a time when it can be quite difficult for many, we are being birthed and becoming the longing which pulls us into Christmas.

It’s not only about a child, but rather you and me.  The child simply points the way to what can be if we surrender ourselves to a life well lived and to love being born, when the “soul felt its worth” and a “weary world rejoices”!

Merry Christmas!

A Weary World Rejoices

Isaiah 9: 1-6, Luke 2: 1-14

A weary world rejoices…it is the night of our dear Savior’s birth

They are the words of the classic Christmas hymn, O Holy Night, which we celebrate this evening and there’s no denying that a weary world it so often seems…

The two great stories that identify us as Christians, tonight, of course, the incarnation of our God, God breaking in and taking on human flesh, and then the death and resurrection that we celebrate at Easter have many similarities to their surroundings as they unfold. If you reflect upon both there is great upheaval and chaos that is going on all around these events. Yet, all those who are so greatly connected to them don’t seem bothered by the fact. There of course is corruption by the political and religious authorities of the time, who all along plot the death of Jesus. There’s fear beyond belief. There’s yet another boot tramped in battle and another cloak rolled in blood as Isaiah tells us this evening. It is a weary world that Jesus encounters from the very beginning. All of it sets the scene for these two great events that define us.

But they also happen in darkness. It’s almost as if God can only seem to do something with people in darkness, when they are most vulnerable. And if that’s true, and it is true, then imaging the great things God is trying to do at this very moment in a world that continues to stand weary, and yet, on this night, manages to rejoice the birth of a Savior. But it doesn’t seem to destroy the darkness. It’s still there. The most vulnerable still are impacted the most by ongoing war and violence of a world plagued by fear. Who can get out of their minds, and maybe we’re not supposed to, the images of the children running for their lives out of Aleppo. Or as we lie down at night, others continue to remain very vulnerable on these very streets of this city, murder and death, night after night. It is a weary world and a weary world that welcomes the birth of the Savior and begins to make space for a God breaking through the weariness of the world.

But it’s us as well who experience such weariness in our own lives. It’s not just beyond us in outlying areas. It’s us when we are most vulnerable as well, as we lie down in the darkness of the night and we can no longer outrun our weariness and weighs upon our hearts and souls. As the day silences it only seems as if the mind begins to race, thinking of what hurts and worries us at this moment, a dying parent, a sick child, an unemployed spouse, a lost soul, all of this arises in the darkness of the night, when we too are most vulnerable for something, for someone, a God breaks through and begins to bring light to a weary load, no longer needing to figure it out on our own but a God who comes to ease and to point us in a new direction in life. It is the night, a night that lies weary.

It is the story of people Israel whom Isaiah speaks to today. They too know weariness and are searching for something and someone. Long before Jesus even enters the scene, Isaiah knows in his very being this Christ. It’s the only explanation for such words of hope to a people who have wandered in darkness and experience boot tramped in battle and cloak rolled in blood. They know ongoing war and violence. They know famine and poverty. And yet, when a new king ascends the throne, this great hymn is sung as if the past is the past and we begin anew. We no longer need to walk in the darkness and become victims of our own vulnerability, for a child is given us and a new leader will rule the earth. Once again, God desperately tries to break into the weariness of the lives of Israel, who so often try to go it alone. And over and over again, leads to further war and violence, famine and poverty. And once again, it is the most vulnerable that are forgotten, the faces of Aleppo that are now ingrained in our minds and hearts. That’s the irony of the story, it is in the most vulnerable places that God breaks in and it’s the place we will try to outrun and avoid. It is so often the place we fear the most.

Somehow, that fear takes hold. There is Herod, as well, who fears that another king has been born. In his own insecurities, someone is going to try to steal his power away from him, which, of course, isn’t power or peace at all, it’s fear that rules the land and Herod’s heart. But what Herod didn’t know because he was so encapsulated by himself, is that this king was different. This king wasn’t looking to ascend to his throne or somehow knock him off. This King wasn’t about ascending at all. This King was one who was descending into the depths of the earth, into the depths of our very being, to the most vulnerable place, our own poverty, our own weariness in order to give us life. Herod had nothing to fear and yet did and there was a price, a heavy price, that would be paid by the most vulnerable of his time.

And so chaos ensued. Darkness covered the earth and never seemed to lift. Yet, in the midst of it all in this couple, Mary and Joseph. Mary gives birth to the Savior as we see in this manger scene and now will have to confront the fear of Herod and their own fear. But they have nothing to fear. Mary doesn’t only give birth to the Savior into the world. Mary allows the incarnation to birth within her. Joseph allows this incarnation to be birthed within him. The shepherds, the most despised of their day, traitors, thieves, robbers, as they were, hear the message of the angels and their souls felt their worth. They too allowed the incarnation to be birthed in them and their lives are forever changed. In the midst of the chaos and darkness, a weary world rejoices for it is in those very moments that God desires to break into our lives, to meet us in our very humanity. Sure we like an Almighty God who ascends to the throne, but first, and most importantly, descends into the weariness of our lives. This is a vulnerable God, a scandalous God, that desires to love the places where we find ourselves most weary and to birth new life, to break into and through our own weariness. It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth and a weary world rejoices.

It is easy for us to get caught up in the nostalgia and sentimentality of the season, and maybe that’s easy for some of us to do. It’s an opportunity to block out the weariness and emptiness of our own lives, the poverty of the soul that desires worth. Yet, it’s not the peace this night provides or desire of us. Because as we gather, chaos still happens. Darkness is still the reality for many. War and violence haven’t stopped simply for Christmas. No, the world remains weary and will be weary, just as our lives very much can be even at a night when we rejoice. The message tonight is of hope, of a God who desires to love so much that is willing to do the unthinkable, a God who’s willing to descend from on high and meet us where we are, to birth us once again, so that we may be the bearers of light to the darkness, to the war-driven streets of Aleppo and Baltimore, and even to our most vulnerable places, where we feel most weary this day, for today we rejoice that our Savior has been born, breaking into our world and lives, and points us to a still more perfect, fulfilling way of life. Merry Christmas!