Jesus Is Here/Jesus Is Coming

       I have a good Methodist friend who once complained to me while discussing theology, "Lutherans are so frustrating.  When someone asks you if A is true or B is true, you say yes.  You have to have it both ways."

       She is right in the sense that much of Lutheran theology finds us trying to hold two truths in tension: we are saints, completely forgiven and washed clean; and we are also sinners, still imperfect and falling short all throughout our lives.  Saint and Sinner.  Now and not yet.

       Advent and Christmas are full of this now/not yet tension; we celebrate the birth of Jesus who has already come and we wait for Jesus the Christ to come again.  Jesus is born human, a tiny newborn like any new baby and Mary labors and gives birth like any mother and yet this Jesus is also God, completely divine, and comes to Mary unlike any birth before or since.  

       The deeper my faith gets, the more I realize that it is filled with the tension of these paradoxes; the now/not yets, the yes to seeming contradictions.  It is not that God's gift of faith is imperfect but rather that I cannot grasp the entirety of the mystery.   Sometimes I think that the deeper my faith grows, the less I know or perhaps it is that I am able to let go of needing to feel like I have the answers.  

       I think that the very beginning of a child's faith and the deep faith of a lifetime of faithfulness bring us to the same place:  God loves us and sent Jesus, the Savior to save us.  We are loved and forgiven.  The gift has been given.  I cannot pretend to understand how God has accomplished this, or the whys; all I can do is rest in faith and trust.  Sometimes I think we can spend a whole life-time of faithful searching, study, and prayer just to work ourselves back to the sure faith of a child: "Jesus loves me, this I know".  (Of course, Jesus said something about this, read Mark 10:15.  "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.")
        My experiences as a mother have perhaps helped me live a little easier with all the paradoxes of now/not yet.  For me, pregnancy was living out an ultimate paradox complicated by several miscarriages.  The early months it can be very hard to really feel and changes, unless "morning sickness" is part of the experience.
       But then as the pregnancy progresses, the existence of the baby becomes more and more real.   The urge to share that with my husband meant that he had to learn patience as he put his hand on my belly, waiting to feel the baby kick.  Later on, I've had such experiences as people watching me as the baby had hiccups and you could see my belly bob up and down or watch a foot or elbow move from side to side.  Then finally with birth, the child is here.
       The time of now/not yet can be very precarious and so our waiting is filled with fears and impatience as well as joy.
       The same is true of faith.  We wait eagerly and we wait with hope, but the time of waiting also leaves us time to doubt, to ask questions, and to make mistakes.  That is why God's grace is the only thing that makes faith last.  By ourselves, the paradoxes, the questions, and the waiting would wear our faith away but God gives us the gift of faith and stays with us through it all, loving and caring for us.
       With the birth of Jesus, God-with-us, we declare to the world that the promise has been fulfilled.  Salvation has come!  Alleluia!  Read Romans 8:19-15.

Waiting in Hope

       The summer my second son was born, my mom came to stay with me to help after the baby was born.  She arrived on my official due date.  Unfortunately, my son wasn't born until three weeks later.  All of this was complicated by the facts that we were living in student housing with no air conditioning and we were having record-setting July temperatures!
       Every morning (it seemed that way to me anyway) when I came out of the bedroom, Mom would say, "You're still here".  She was disappointed to still be waiting and I was growing ever more uncomfortable and disappointed myself.
       It seemed like that birth was never going to happen.  I tried everything: bumpy rides over the railroad tracks, washing the kitchen floor, baking pies and bread, going for long walks, and what ever else came to mind.  All that happened was that I got tired.  And grumpy.
       I was reminded of my own stories of waiting as I was contemplating the stories of Mary and Elizabeth this week.  Elizabeth had waited for years on end to have a child until any real hope of pregnancy was gone.  She was too old, but yet she conceived.  And Mary was so young and a virgin.  And yet their stories converge as they meet and the Holy Spirit reveals just what is happening to them both.  It seems that even John and Jesus meet as John leaps in his mother's womb upon hearing Mary.   Their next recorded meeting is 30 years later as Jesus comes to be baptized by John at the beginning of his ministry.
       Mary's words at their meeting recall the history and generations upon generations of those who have been waiting for the coming of the Savior.  There is that sense of heaviness, of long hard waiting that is finally released.
       We are still in the waiting of Advent.  It isn’t Christmas yet.  It is probably the most radical thing the church does throughout the year, taking the whole time of Advent to wait for Christmas while the rest of the world runs pell-mell into Christmas. 

       But in church, we still have Advent, the time to repent, to prepare for the coming of Jesus, time to be still and take time to think and pray, to take our faith seriously.

       Advent takes a long time, and a lot of waiting, especially this year.  Advent is defined as the four Sundays before Christmas.  And with Christmas Eve not happening until Saturday night, Advent this year is the longest it can get.  There are four full weeks of Advent this year.  We wait and we wait.  And perhaps we get a little grumpy and out of sorts for the waiting.  But we wait with hope.

       We are not waiting for presents and parties but for the Savior of the world to come.  He comes out of God's love.  For God so loved the world, that Jesus has come and is among us.  This is not just about the past but is also about our present and our future.  Because of Christ, we are forgiven, and restored to God. 

       Our hope in Christ is real and strong.  Even death is defeated by this hope.  The Christ we wait for came and destroyed the power of sin and death.  This Christ is with us through the power of the Holy Spirit and will come again.  We are still here, waiting, but God is also waiting with us.  Jesus is coming!  Read Mary's words called the Magnificat, Luke 1:39-55.