Arise!

“You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,” - psalm 30:11

Since I am a preacher's wife, rarely is there a Sunday when I skip church.  Not because I'm so incredibly spiritual, but because...well... where else would I go? ...(and some of my reasons and thoughts are found in the Saturday's post titled "I Went To Church Today")  Over the years I've listened to various preachers, but most of the time it's been my husband. And believe it or not, even though we may have discussed the sermon ahead of time during the week, I often find something new, something fresh that the Holy Spirit might want to cultivate in me after the sermon is heard on Sunday.  Last Sunday was no exception.  Only this time the message - and my consequent "ah-ha!" moment - came from our new youth pastor.  Pastor Dan picked the passage in John 11 where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead - Not your typical after-Christmas “sermon package” but timely to say the least.

I’ve read that passages a few times and over the years I’ve noticed things in the story.  Things like, Jesus raising someone from the dead (Yeah, that's kind of a big deal.)  Or how Mary and Martha were so very grief-stricken and how Jesus cried too.  I’ve wondered why Jesus seemed in no hurry to get to Lazarus.  But this time as we read that passage in church I noticed something new.  Jesus called Lazarus forth out of the tomb and said, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” 

I guess it would seem an obvious instruction, considering Lazarus had been dead for 4 days and now he wasn't.  He was alive and grave clothes were not only smelly, they were inappropriate for someone living.  The bandages kept his hands and feet bound and covered his face.  He could not move and he couldn't see, nor could he eat or speak with these bandages.

Covered eyes, bound hands and feet are appropriate for the grave.  Tombs are remarkably silent and the dead require no nourishment. And that’s where the connection was made.  The grave…the clothes…the feast-less silence.  In a moment of honest, personal disclosure, I had to admit this muted soul of mine felt dead and was feasting no longer on Christ.  I had grown accustom to the "grave".  Sipping on Christ's life as if it was a limited resource.  Loss, disappointment, confusion, and a journey of surrender had led to a personal grave site.  Frankly, for a season that tomb was necessary, I needed it while my little life became entrusted to his, while my soul was learning to set down the boxing gloves, stop running, and fast from lesser loves.   These are the things we will learn for a lifetime.  But the solemn nature of the grave can become too familiar, and we forget how to live. 

This Christmas, as I set the babe in the little manger scene on our piano, God was birthing something new in me.  Its glimmers had been showing up here and there but not quite discernible.  As pastor Dan read the passage, and the phrase resonated inside,”take off the grave clothes and let [her] go.”, something clarified. The sermon muffled while I surrendered to my thoughts.  “Am I still wearing ‘spiritual grave clothes’”?  I wondered.  “Have I received God’s gift of life but somehow the bandages have remained?”

What good is the gift of HIS life if it remains clothed in the tomb?  The words of Jesus echoed in my thoughts, bouncing off the stone walls of my heart, traveling deep within - to the dead places. Like an alarm they sounded, “Wake up! Come forth!” I could almost hear God audibly speaking, “Stop living among the dead. Arise!  Let the bandages fall.  The days of mourning are being set aside.  Step into my glorious promise – my light-life – and live!”

The exhortation fell like a spring rain, washing away the muddy winter. And in that moment, within the silent forgotten places of me, my soul was shedding grave clothes.  The weight of sorrow was falling off.  Hands that had forgotten how to reach were reaching again, daring to ask God for his good pleasure and favor.  Feet that had long planted themselves within the dirge, danced …just a bit.  And eyes that were accustom to tones of grey saw the faint whisper of color off in the distance.

 So I am returning to songs of joy for worship (sometimes).  When asked how it's going, I am lifting my head, ready to share the promise rather that the pain.  There was a season to share the pain, and sometimes that story is still important, but grief is not an unending pit.  It has a bottom.  Christ is there and He shares the grave with us for a moment.  Then He calls us forth to new life, new stories, where our sorrow is not forgotten - just redeemed.

It would be dishonest to say, just like that, my soul awakened and came fully alive - that there are no signs of grave clothes anywhere.  That simply is not true.  We are all in process, moving from death to life, and “Saturday” takes time...but perhaps this story rings true and you find yourself in the dirge,  stuck, weighed down with the clothing of the tomb and a new you, the alive-in-Christ-you, is being invited to come forth, take off the grave clothes,... and live.  

Stoking the Fire

"The fire on the altar must be kept burning; it must not go out. Every morning the priest is to add firewood and arrange the burnt offering on the fire and burn the fat of the fellowship offerings on it. The fire must be kept burning on the altar continuously; it must not go out."    Leviticus 6: 12-13

A friend of mine shared this passage through something she recently wrote.  It’s not really about Christmas at first glance.  It’s about the Temple rituals God established early on with his people.   The rituals were rather specific and unless one takes a close contextual look, they can seem pretty random as well.  None the less, they were for His people – a people waiting on God.  A wandering people who were hungry and thirsty (Ps 107).

I guess that’s where the connection comes.  In the waiting. In the preparation and in the hunger and thirst…in the advent.

I don’t know about you but I find myself a little burnt out and soul-thirsty in the flurry of activity this time of year.  By the time I get up in the morning and walk down the hall to the kitchen for a cup of tea, I have a “to-do” list a mile long running through my head!  It’s hard to pause even for a moment, and sometimes I'm tired before the day begins.

But this passage in Leviticus stops me up short.  This specific instruction was for the priest.   Every morning add firewood... arrange the offering on the fire….keep the fire lit...don't let the fire go out.  The fire had to stay lit.  which meant stoking it - arranging the wood.  The temple rituals were intended to offer God’s people a picture of God’s ongoing redemptive work and point them in the direction of Christ.  In this particular instance it is the fellowship- or PEACE - offering that is being burnt.

The funny thing about rituals or traditions is that when we encounter them they seem to be able to cut through the noise of daily activity and redirect our thoughts, which will often redirect our heart.  While my pace might make it difficult to pause, the ritual (or routine) of pausing is necessary.  In it, Christ, the great high priest, can come and stoke his inward fire in me.  Things that have fallen out of order can be rearranged and set right internally.  I guess it's just easier to keep the main thing the main thing when I pause and silence myself before God; which makes a person more ready for the flurry...more able to encounter it and respond well.  

And there again, my mind wanders.  This time to the parable of the ten virgins and I recall the one whose oil ran out.  She hurried off to refuel but it was too late.   And I wonder, am I that girl?  Do I join the group and move along with the crowd, having little regard of the needed fuel for the journey?  Or Do I return to the place of quiet sacrifice, lay down what seems most dear in the moment - albeit time, finances, relationships, desires - and become present with Christ, allowing him to reorder my inward world through the fellowship of His presence in the word.

 Lord, I want to live in such a way to encounter the living Christ?  Oh help me stop and be still before you.  Quicken my mind to even think of it! And by your grace, give me the decisive strength to do it.  Let me find you in the pause and encounter your peace.

Christmas Chaos

"But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. The night is about over, dawn is about to break. Be up and awake to what God is doing! God is putting the finishing touches on the salvation work he began when we first believed..." Romans 13:11

“Why do we strive for perfection when we could be watching for the hiddenness of Heaven?” That was part of a longer thought my daughter shared with me a few nights ago.  While she did not intend for it to relate to Advent, it sure did for me.

It all started 22 years ago.  It was my first Christmas season as a married woman.   Among the seasonal activities were iced sugar cookies, beautiful wrapping paper, fancy bows made of satin, and of course a Christmas picture; which included our dog because we wanted the portoral of a joyful family and we did not yet have children to exploit.  So there we sat with our cocker spaniel, in front of our whimsically decorated tree – Christmas 1992.

The Iced sugar cookies morphed over the years, but none the less, making a plate of Christmas sweetness to share with a few of our friends had become a “tradition”.   The box of Christmas wrap and bows in our attic still betray my addiction to pretty things.  And for 19 years I kept up the Christmas card tradition.  A midst screaming fits, baby spit-up, knocks on the head, a frustrated husband, and the occasional fake smile; because dog-on-it!...We were going to get that picture - placed creatively on a handmade card - and tell the world Merry-stinking-Christmas if it killed us!

I also began a collection of angel ornaments the first year my husband and I were married, and there's been more than one nativity set displayed throughout the house as well.  But a few years ago I noticed they were getting lost in the chaos and seemed almost mocked against the back-drop of such seasonal flurry.  It’s sad really, what started with hopes to do Christmas "just right" turned into something so very wrong.   That's why three years ago I stopped it all.

We needed to bring CHRISTmas into focus.   It was a clumsy process and frankly, not very strategic, but maybe God had a strategy.  As I look back, I think the last few years have turned into a fast from the holiday so we could encounter the Advent... In December of 2012,  I don’t think I baked a single cookie; and (perish the thought!) I bought BAGGED bows too!  Since sending cards became such a distraction, they haven't been sent since 2011.  I was worried that friends would be offended or that we would stop receiving their cards, but those concerns rising up were a purging of what had become polluted in my focus for the season.   So as fears came up I tried (sometimes not very successfully) to confess them to Christ and surrender the outcome to Him. 

Today, here I sit with a tree in the living room – no ornaments yet, just lights.  The boxes are still in the attic and the house is less than perfect.  There’s a role of Pillsbury cookie dough in my refrigerator, and well, you get the point.  But there’s also a little more room to watch, and be hopeful; to anticipate, remember, and breathe!  - "Advent".

Why DO we strive for perfection during this season?  Perhaps it is because we long for something better.  Maybe in it, we're reaching for something more than our current reality holds, and the silver and gold that dress the season are the shadows of God's abundance meant for His children.  Our perfection is but a shadow of what is most real.   Heaven hides beyond the extraordinary.  His Majesty – the Christ- arrived through remarkably imperfect circumstances.  His flesh formed in the womb of an unwed woman, his crib was a trough set in a bed of dung-straw.  Amidst the less-than-lovely, "More" came.   HOPE in the flesh drew its first breath not among the gilded but near the messy and broken.

This year, I’m not sure what I’m going to do as far as traditions go.  I might break the fast and consider “preparing the way for the Lord” In whatever comes up, I want to be "alert and awake to what God is doing."  Maybe as I hang the garland that holds the cards I will give thought to preparing for the Christ-child.  Maybe if goodies get baked I will ponder the sweetness of hope brought forth in a babe. Maybe as I wrap the gifts, I will consider the treasure of Christ, held within each of us.   And tonight as my husband lights the tree, I will try to remember God's Kingdom, birthed in the flesh, now coming through us– His children of light.    -  Whatever it is, I want to let go of perfection and keep a good watch for the hiddenness of Heaven.

Full

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this blog page.  Advent seemed a good time to begin again.  One of the reasons I took a break was because of my own cynicism.  After all, this blog is called “Saturdays” and if you are familiar with it at all, you know that “Saturdays” is a reference to the day of “wait” that occurred between Christ’s Crucifixion and Sunday’s resurrection and how that wait-day plays out symbolically in our own lives from time to time.  I guess part of me just became tired of the wait that “Saturday” was bringing.  Now, here we are at the beginning of Advent – another wait.  Wait, upon wait, upon wait!  As if life itself is just one long Saturday straining toward…something.   But what?

For the United States, Advent begins just after Thanksgiving where we share a tradition of feasting with our friends and family, giving thanks for God’s provision and blessings over the past year.  Guests come hungry and leave full.  Overly full! I remember hearing my grandmother saying to us, "Be careful not to eat too many treats, it will ruin your appetite."  One year I chose not to heed her advice and I stuffed myself on all the little things long before the turkey was ever served.  I had forgotten all about the dinner and my belly was so full I no longer had the appetite to feast!  Even dessert sounded less appealing by the end of the day.  So there I sat at the table, half-heartedly sharing a meal, the real meal, with the rest.  So why do I bring this up?  Because when we are hungry we will eat just about anything.  When we are full we won’t.  Studies have shown that a starving person will even choose to eat something toxic in order to satisfy themselves.  Hunger drives us.

I wonder if hunger drove those who waited so long ago for the Messiah.  I wonder how many stuffed themselves on oppressive laws (beyond what God had established), sensationalism, Self-aggrandizement - pride, and distractions.  Their souls were filled with “toxins” and they no longer had an appetite for a living Christ.  God in a diaper made little sense to them because their bellies had become full on lesser loves as they forgot what they were waiting for.    But for those who waited for the feast, who longed and hungered for the promise – they found Him.  Christ showed up and satisfied their hunger with good things.  He brought the real meal. (Luke 1:53)   

In my recent soul-hunger I forgot how to feast, and instead nibbled away at lesser loves, toxic substitutes and found myself suspiciously full, unsatisfied and cynical. Like I did as a child at Thanksgiving, I became distracted on my way to the table losing sight of the real meal - Christ coming near and sharing his presence.

Maybe that's why a seemingly smallish, diaper-wearing God was beginning to bug me too.  Maybe in the wait, my appetite changed and did not match what he had to offer.   Maybe I was having a hard time letting God be God and accepting the fact that I am not.   In any case,  as I reorient, I am noticing how “empty” I am and  I want to welcome this impoverished heart and introduce her to Christ again…and I see HOPE.  This really is a long Saturday straining toward something.  It is straining toward Emmanuel – God with us; He is worth the wait!  Only in His presence can we taste and see that he is indeed good and we become… full.

So as we enter this season of Advent what are you hungering for and how are you feeding yourself?

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, 

for they will be filled.  - Matt 5:6