Scandal.
What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out…
John [was] sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in…
The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light.
~John 1:4-9 msg
Advent, week 4
Just two days ago we honored the winter solstice—the darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere—and when we look around ourselves at the world right now, it feels dark indeed. Catastrophically violent wars, the escalation of global warming, the ever-present threat of nuclear war, harshly oppressive governmental regimes, immigration and refugee crises… We all feel this darkness that overshadows our world.
It wasn’t so different 2,000 years ago when a Child was born to blaze in the darkness.
How do we hold such a paradox: the blazing Light and the ominous darkness? It’s tempting to either close our eyes to the suffering and sing blindly of the Light… or alternately, let our souls get sucked into a dank depression over the future. Jesus shows us the Third Way—the way to simply shine.
What does it really mean to shine? Does it mean to try to convert everyone in our path? Does it mean to just smile a lot? Again, Jesus shows us the Way by being who he was, unvarnished, undefended, unafraid. He was the most honest person ever, the most confident and the most vulnerable. He cared for others in costly ways, yet knew when to withdraw for renewal. He didn’t over-sell the gospel; sometimes it was invitation, other times it was challenge, but always it spoke to people’s true heart and allowed them to respond as they chose.
The shining of Jesus alone would have been dramatic, but it would not have been enough. The Light would have flared… and then it would have gone out. Instead, he had to do something scandalous and implant his Light inside of humans. That changed everything.
In certain times and places, the Christian church has readily embraced the radical with-ness that Emmanuel came to deliver, but it’s been rare. More often, the church has declared a radical otherness, an unapproachable distance between the nature of God and the nature of humans. God is too holy to abide our sinfulness, we were told, but Jesus showed otherwise. He drew impossibly close—close to physical matter, to earthly relationship, and to the human condition. Indeed, he could not have made himself more intimate than he did.
When humans like Nebuchadnezzar or the Roman emperors attempted to claim divinity, their subjects knew better…although they played along in order to keep their heads. But when Jesus actually deposited the Holy Spirit in his ragtag followers, the world responded differently. They recognized the spirit of Jesus in them and knew that heaven was indeed penetrating earth, both personally and cosmically. And we’re still trying to accept the scandalous implications of the comprehensive nature of the incarnation. His and ours.
I quoted Athanasius in Week One: Christ “was made [human] that we might be made God." Another early church leader, Saint Irenaeus (130 - 202), seconded the motion by declaring that “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ... did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that he might bring us to be even what he is.” Can you accept this degree of union with God?
growing the soul
What would it mean for you to receive the Life-Light of Jesus’ incarnation into your very being this Advent?
serving the world
How might the Life-Light shine out from your faith community this Advent? I’m not talking about a cantata or a live nativity… I’m talking about an impartation of hope to our world?
takeaway
Shine.