Are you really the one?

We held a ‘Blue Christmas’ service at our church on Thursday night in partnership with our two local Anglican and two local Uniting churches. We name it Blue Christmas for those for whom Christmas will not be so great this year. Maybe there is an empty chair at the table for Christmas lunch that would normally have seated a loved one you have shared many Christmas’ with. Maybe there is no tree or presents this Christmas because mum & or dad suddenly find themselves unemployed. Our service was held with these people in mind.
It’s times like this that bring memories of expectations you once had flooding back, and the questions you long to be answered begin building up. Expectations like, ‘I thought it would always be this way’, ‘we still planned to do so much together’.’ They are shattered by the unexpected and sometimes the misunderstood assumptions of what seems to be according to the realities of the world we understand and know.
In Matthew 11:2-11 John asks the question of Jesus on all our lips, ‘Are you really the one, or should I expect someone else?’ The question comes as a deep personal question of doubt under circumstances where life has taken a turn for the ‘not so great’. While many commentator believe John’s question is for the benefit of his disciples learning and choose to leave John as the all knowing prophet, I disagree and here’s why.
Jesus’ response to John’s disciples is: ‘Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.’ (Matt 11:4-5 NIV) So I guess that settles it, it’s all good news and Jesus is the guy we’ve been waiting for. Or is it really as simple as that for everyone? John’s changed circumstance is that he is in prison which is why he sent his disciples to ask the question of Jesus. Jesus’ response lacks one critical thing that John is waiting to hear. What I discovered (with the help of a colleague) is much of Jesus’ response comes direct from the book of Isaiah, the prophet who speaks the promises all of Israel are waiting for. You’ll see Isaiah 61:1-2 quoted nearly word for word in Luke 4:18-19, but what’s missing in Jesus’ response in Matthew is the line, ‘proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners’.
John is still captive and will continue to be held captive. ‘Is this the guy Isaiah was talking about, or should we expect someone else?’ Often tragedy strikes us when it’s actually supposed to be a joyful time and we are stuck with a hit in the guts and a crisis of faith. So what do we do with that, when we know the good news is come yet we are still held captive? The only hope we have is that we awake to a new day with a new reality in which the one who bears good news has come and we long even more to share and experience it with one another.

Shalom
Mark Riessen

Is there any joy in the Christmas insanity?

So what do we make of this silly season we call the lead up to Christmas? Our TV’s radios and junkmail are yelling at us, ‘buy, buy, buy!’ and we groan one more time as we frantically try and fit in another meeting and get our last scraps of work done before the office closes for the Christmas break, and we lament the calendar that tells us we will no longer see our home except to lay our heads on our pillows at night because we have yet another gathering to attend.

Does this kind of thing give you much joy at all! I find it interesting that the majority of people I talk to don’t find any joy in these activities at all, in fact they can’t wait until it’s all over. So why on earth do we subject ourselves to such grueling and painful rituals? Because it’s tradition? Because that’s what is expected of us culturally? I suspect we’ve lost the meaning of tradition to an extent and in fact we no longer even acknowledge the traditions that were supposed to bring us life, hope and joy in the Christmas season. The traditions we subject ourselves to and desperately try to keep up with today have been around less than 100 years.

Let me draw your attention to another tradition. These weeks leading into Christmas is called advent. The fist Sunday of advent (last Sunday) is traditionally the beginning of the church year. It is also the beginning of the 40 days leading up to the feast of Epiphany, the day of celebration when new believers were baptized. There are a little over 4 weeks in the advent season when believers are called to a time of praying and fasting. It is actually a time to slow down and prepare for the coming of Christ. Very countercultural to the 21st century, maybe shopping centre advertising wasn’t so aggressive 1600 years ago.

For me advent is a time of slowing down long enough to recognize that actually, Christ is among us. It is only in the slowing down that we can acknowledge this and truly sense the hope, joy, peace and love we celebrate for the Christmas season. Next time to bump past someone in the shopping centres in your frantic Christmas rush, remember this pondering from the late Archbishop Oscar Romero:

‘Advent should admonish us to discover in each brother and sister that we greet, in each friend whose hand we shake, in each beggar who asks for bread, in each worker who wants to use the right to join a union, in each peasant who looks for work in the coffee groves, the face of Christ. Then it would not be possible to rob them, to cheat them, to deny them their rights. They are Christ, and whatever is done to them, Christ will take as done to him. This is what Advent is: Christ living among us.’

Shalom
Mark Riessen