Our Methodist and Anglican sisters in shared faith have hung the green and trimmed this Christmas tree to remind us of how God appears in unlikely times and places to bring grace into our lives. Duane Ulleland reminds us that “A Bethlehem stable and Calvary's cross during the harsh Roman occupation were not places anyone expected to catch a glimpse of God's grace and love. And yet it is precisely in those places that the mystery and the beauty of God's love have been revealed to us.”
“Many of us experience a ‘winter of the soul,’ a time of spiritual and emotional barrenness, when God seems hidden behind clouds of gloom. In those times, we can remember God's promise never to fail us or forsake us. The cross of Christ and the empty tomb are the assurance that God's love is always alive and is there for us to find.”
There is an element of surprise in every story. In every human experience you can expect some kind of seizure, a taking, a capture that reaches into an unexpected rapture, astonished awaking of plundering gain or loss. Take it however you may – this renaissance - this quickening – this attack without warning – this “taking unawares” is what we know deep in our hearts to be real in our daily lives! It is a reality beyond our controlling nature. We are astonished. We have something that we don’t expect. All our personal purposes and plans are washed away – in a moment in a twinkling of an eye.
All our smallest assumptions look like arrogant presumptions when we allow ourselves to be completely surprised. “Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat” starts to blend and harmonize with “Bye-bye Miss American Pie.”
The past is history. The future is a mystery. That makes each present moment a “present” from God. The present is a gift of parting from the yesterdays. Our challenge is to refrain from ignoring our incoming future mysteries and to instead “awaken” to their precious cargo instead of treating them as mere tepid predictable breaths of boring stale air. Each moment is a new day of the Lord that has the potential of giving you and me a new healing birth for our pouting lips and discouraged hearts.
“Arise! Come! For thy day is come.” The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light. Raging silence seduces our rebellious impatience for He comes – the Lord strong and mighty in the battle for our hearts. He conquers and we obey.
What price our commonly proud victories cannot pay? We cannot receive unearned awards without crucifying our dying selves to unexpected grace and love from an unknown God with a knowable presence in the present “present” – the unwrapped gift of God’s loving assurance that “God is love!”
Our Heavenly Father’s story tells you and me of His Son descending from unimaginable glory to our humble condition - full of sin and evil devises. He does this to pay His creatures a visit that He does not owe. He comes to a dying world that will only go. How just is this merciful ruler of hearts and minds. He takes away our expectant agenda of personal gain and avarice.
Jesus offers each of us a changed life away from the nagging sense of hopeless guilt - all tattered and torn like the ragged swaddling clothes on the Christ child’s small body. Christ could not be bound in that crib or on the cross or in the tomb very long. And He comes to change each of our faltering selves into new Easter creature beings. Your binding encasement of sin and death is exchanged for loose fitting robes of radiant glory, when you truly allow Him to wash away your guilt and sin in His blood of the worthy Lamb of God.
Jim Reinhardt told Tom Bridges to teach me a surprisingly strange advent song for changed lives that Tom’s jail inmates sing this time of the year. Let’s learn it, too:
“I’ll tell you the best thing I ever did do, I’ll tell you the best thing I ever did do, I’ll tell you the best thing I ever did do – When I took off the old robe and put on the new.” - “The old robe was dirty, all tattered and torn. The new robe was spotless, had never been worn. I’ll tell you the best thing I ever did do – When I took off the old robe and I put on the new.”
Dear Heavenly Father – you are such a surprising God to me and all those who wait on You. You bespangle the stars and bespeckle our hearts with your purifying glory and love. We are surprised. We are astonished at who You are. Lord, please help each one of us to get closer to Your coming to us in Jesus Christ! Help us to never leave You, since we know that “You will never leave us alone.” “You promised never to leave us, never to leave us alone. – No, never alone – No, never alone – You promised never to leave us never to leave us alone.”
Thank You for these seasons of many surprising and unexpected second chances of Your everlasting forgiveness and grace. Thank you for Your reminder of Your unstoppable love at the Lord’s Table when we partake of Your gift through Your Son and our Lord Jesus Christ – in and for His surprising and captivating name from humble beginnings, Amen.
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