One of my weekly reads is FAITHMATTERS written by a colleague, The Rev. Dr. James A. Harnish (Jim), senior pastor of the historical, downtown Tampa church, Hyde Park UMC. If you ever find yourself in Tampa on a Sunday why not give yourself a blessing and go hear him break the bread of life. Besides being the long time pastor of this great church Jim is also a prolific author. I have found that Dr. Harnish’s insight into the spiritual journey and a deeper relationship with God always helpful, relevant and, for my own spiritual growth, timely. This past week he wrote his congregation a reflection of what really takes place in the event we call Christmas and I wanted to share it with the readers of my daily blog.
The Dawn from on High
Our scripture reading this Sunday is the beautiful story of Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-24, 57-80). It concludes with Zechariah singing:
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
I had Zechariah’s words in mind when I read Merton:
“It is not we who choose to awaken ourselves, but God Who chooses to awaken us … Our discovery of God is, in a way, God’s discovery of us. We cannot go to Heaven to find Him … He comes down from Heaven and finds us.”
The Christmas gospel is the shocking, unbelievable, radically reorienting story of the way God comes to be with us in Jesus Christ. We didn’t think this up. We would never have gone searching for a God who would do something like this. We can no more “find God” than we can cause the sun to rise. God comes down to find us. The incarnation is the intrusive story of the God who comes to us like dawn breaking into the darkness of our world in order to lead our feet into the ways of peace.
We can, however, miss the dawn if we aren’t awake to see it.
Awake When the Sun Rises
We spent Thanksgiving at the lakeside house in Polk County where Marsha and I will retire some day. Other than playing with the grandchildren, there’s nothing better than watching the sun rise over Eagle Lake. It’s absolutely spectacular. But I can easily miss it by being busy reading my e-mail or simply sleeping in. The sun will rise. I can’t cause or control it. But I have to choose whether I will be awake to experience it.
The Christmas story is as simple (and as difficult) as that. God comes to be with us in Jesus. We can’t cause or control it any more than the Grinch could stop it. But we can miss the whole thing unless we practice the spiritual disciplines that enable us to be awake to experience it. The purpose of Advent is to prepare us to be awake when the dawn rises.
Quote for today: Life is a constant Advent season: we are continually waiting to become, to discover, to complete, to fulfill. Hope, struggle, fear, expectation and fulfillment are all part of our Advent experience … The world is not as just, not as loving, not as whole as we know it can and should be. But the coming of Christ and his presence among us—as one of us—give us reason to live in hope: that light will shatter the darkness, that we can be liberated from our fears and prejudices, that we are never alone or abandoned ... May this Advent season be a time for bringing hope, transformation and fulfillment into the Advent of our lives. ~ “Life Is an Advent Season,” CONNECTIONS, 11-28-93
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