Bear With Me
This is the season of Advent, when we celebrate the coming of Jesus Christ our Lord. His coming is, well, to put it one way odd. The God of the universe didn’t come with trumpets sounding and him leering over the horizon. He didn’t come as a fully developed adult with some self-created gold in his pockets. No, as the song goes the “fullness of God in helpless babe.” And isn’t it striking that Jesus also didn’t place himself in a wealthy or powerful family? He barely puts himself in a stable family. He chooses the unwed pair of Mary and Joseph. The Son of God allows himself to be subjected to the frustrations of infancy and a tenuous family of no repute. Jesus, according to the prophecy of Isaiah 53 didn’t wrap his divinity in majesty and beauty. Sidenote, it is always interesting to me that whenever Jesus is portrayed in art or film he always looks like a super-model. Jesus comes lowly, plainly, and vulnerably. There is a distinct lack of presumption, pomp, and gravitas. Paul even describes Jesus in Philippians 2 as someone who “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped[1]”. This is the God of the universe the second person of the Trinity and he doesn’t grasp for the equality that is rightfully his? Jesus sets the example, a difficult example to be sure. An example we are call you live out in this world and in our church. Jesus is both the example and the way we ought to live, but he is more than that, he is Savior and Lord. Jesus has already paid the price and as Pastor Terry has preached, we only need to “appropriate” it to ourselves. This would be a good place to stop and meditate. I’m not sure what more needs to be said about advent.
I’m a pastor though and well three hundred words isn’t quite enough for a newsletter article. Jesus after emptying himself and being born into utter humility and vulnerability grows up and starts a ministry. He starts this ministry with twelve men. What I find fascinating is that Jesus doesn’t gather a group of homogenous ideologues. He doesn’t gather a group of twelve Pharisees or twelve Sadducees or twelve Essenes. He doesn’t gather a group of twelve Zealots either. What he does do is gather fishermen, tax collectors, Zealots, a thief/betrayer and later a Pharisee. This is hardly a cohesive group to begin the world’s most radically successful spiritual revolutions. But I’m sitting here in Iowa as a believer. I’m in a part of the world that Peter didn’t know existed. So, it worked, and it worked because Jesus didn’t come to operate in worldly categories. Jesus didn’t come to bring people together because of his wealth, strength, or beauty. Jesus also didn’t come seeking to find useful ideologies to manipulate so that he could accumulate wealth, strength, or beauty. No, Jesus came and created his own category of cohesion. His twelve disciples had different politics, finances, vocations, and some of them were vocal about disagreeing with Jesus (which never ended well). His disciples were unfocused at times. They would get preoccupied with bickering about status and maneuvering for positions is an earthly administration. They should not have worked. They should not have been able to bear with one another and change the world, but they did. They changed the world not because they had everything in common, but because they had the most important thing in common. See Jesus called his disciples to follow himself. He created for them a new category of not just ideas, but of being. They were able to bear with one another because they were so captivated by Jesus and his mission.
[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Php 2:6.
It is not as if they all became convinced about Jesus and sang kumbaya until their deaths. They didn’t always agree, for example: Acts 6, Acts 15, Galatians 2:11, 2 Peter 3:15-16, and others. But despite the disagreement, friction, and conflict they bore with one another because of Christ. They chose to put Christ on the thrones of their hearts and when they did their faith spread like wildfire. Just like New Testament Christians our church is not without its own disagreements and friction. Sometimes we feel strongly. Sometimes we all say things that are hard for the rest of us to understand. But my prayer this Advent is that like the New Testament Church we put Christ on the thrones of our hearts and “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. 16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. 17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:12-17)