What do you want for
Christmas? I want a puppy, but I know
that’s not going to happen.
Realistically, I’ll be glad to get some good books, a trip to visit
family, and a decent bottle of scotch from the duty free on the way back. And I’m sure all of us have some simple
things we want to get, but maybe we could each think of something we’d want to
be rid of too. For some of us… some just
want to be sober for Christmas, to get through the holidays without smoking or
to be free of another addiction. Some of
us want to be free of guilt when they take an extra Christmas cookie or of
shame when they even contemplate seeing their body in a mirror. Some of us want to be free of crippling
social anxiety, or of a temper that erupts at the worst moments. For others of us, what we want to be free
from might be much subtler: a laziness that thwarts our best intentions, an
envy that prevents us from being truly happy for someone else, a need to always
be right, clumsiness. Whatever it is, we
want to be free.
We will
be. God is bringing liberation. Our redemption is at hand. The Son of Man is coming with clouds and
glory, for us, to bring redemption, freedom from all that enslaves. To bring redemption is so characteristic of
God’s action that that’s how Zechariah praises him after the birth of his son
John the Baptist near the start of Luke’s Gospel: “Blessed be the Lord, the God
of Israel, for he has come to his people and set them free.” Redemption is the beginning and the end of
God’s action, and so Luke book-ends his gospel with talk of it. After the resurrection, the two forlorn souls
walking to Emmaus will mourn the one they were hoping would bring redemption to
Israel before they encounter their liberator and the liberator of the
world. He came to set prisoners free and
he’s coming. And that’s what Christmas
is all about, right?
Well,
kind of. Because Christmas always seems
so nice, fluffy, cute, comforting, such a perfect time for puppies, with the
shepherds and the angels and all the lights.
Well, it’s not. Shepherds smell,
angels wrestle us to the ground, and the sun, moon and stars will be part of the
chaotic barrage of signs promised.
Today’s gospel doesn’t promise nice, doesn’t sound fluffy and clashes
with any sense of the ‘cute.’ And that’s
right, because freedom isn’t cute; it’s hard.
Chains can be comfortable – ask the Israelites marching out of Egypt
without bread to eat. “Couldn’t you have
left us in Egypt to die where we had plenty of food to eat?”
In his
letter to the Thessalonians, Paul prays that their hearts will be strengthened
so as to be found blameless in holiness when the Lord Jesus comes. Consider how much we expect of our
hearts! In Paul’s letters we read of how
many things hearts do: hearts love, they grieve, they plan, they lust, they
suffer, they doubt and they believe. We
need strengthened hearts to receive the gift of redemption, something only God
can give so I pray the same today. May
God strengthen our hearts that they not grow weary. May God raise us to stand erect with heads
held high.
Here’s a
picture of what it looks like when God answers that prayer, that we see in the
gospel. Picture a woman bent over,
unable to stand because she had been crippled by a spirit. Hear Jesus call to
her, tell her of the freedom he is granting and lay his hand on her. She rises and gives glory to God. “Rises and gives glory to God” – are those
two actions… or one? The glory of God is
a human being fully alive – the glory of God is you, living fully in freedom in
Christ.
That’s
the Advent posture, waiting with strong hearts and heads held high, alert to
the world and prayerfully connected to God, the God whose hand-print we still
feel on our heads, pulling us up. Because
to think we can stand under our own strength is to enslave ourselves to
something new – to a myth of independence, of self-sufficiency that will
collapse like so much sand when the powers of the heavens are shaken. No, all that can pull us back to our full
stature is that hand, that loving hand … pierced by a nail … counting the hairs
on our head and coming, coming to take us home.
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