It’s Tuesday morning, December 6, as I write. I am in Junction, TX as what we call “The Peer Retreat.” A group of us has been meeting together for forty years. Most of us went to Perkins School of Theology together, and over these forty years, we have celebrated the highs of ministry and struggled over the challenges.
As I sit on the porch, I look down a long ravine and over the low hills to I-20, a distance of about three miles. In the distance, I can see cars and semi-trucks rolling by. They appear to be slowly creeping along, even though I know most are going about 70 mph. In the distance, even the semis appear quite tiny. Over the terrain, silence engulfs the scene as if a transparent, invisible quilt is spread over us. Reading my devotional, I imagine I see Mary and Joseph walking this way. Having seen the hills of the Holy Land and travelled from Nazareth to Bethlehem, it is not hard to imagine the holy couple walking by. The terrain is quite similar.
It is here I pause in my devotional time and let the mystery we call Advent soak in. Here is Christ at a distance. God is on the move. Step by steady step, the Savior comes. Earlier I had read the first three verses of Psalm 57:
Have mercy on me, God; have mercy on me because I have taken refuge in you. I take refuge in the shadow of your wings until destruction passes by. 2 I call out to God Most High— to God, who comes through for me. 3 He sends orders from heaven and saves me, rebukes the one who tramples me. Selah God sends his loyal love and faithfulness. (Psalm 57:1-3, CEB)I instinctively pause as I read and think about our situation, what scholars like to call our “context.” War still rages in the Middle East. I have prayed regularly since the invasion of Iraq for the safety of the troops and their return home. I have prayed regularly for the people of those countries as well; that they may live in peace. As we slowly put things back together after a contentious election here in the United States, I pray for the healing of our nation. Our church is in the midst of a potentially schismatic debate over same-gender marriage and issues relating to who might be ordained. Families are under stress in a myriad of ways – jobs, relationships, finances, external and internal commitments, illness… the list could on. I glance again across the ravine and once again imagine I see Mary and Joseph at a distance, a far distance, walking this way. I hear again the words I have but moments earlier read aloud. Have mercy on me, God; have mercy on me because I have taken refuge in you. I take refuge in the shadow of your wings until destruction passes by” (Psalm 57:1). Luther argued that there was no greater miracle than the Incarnation – God with us in the person and work of Jesus as the Christ. It is preposterous to think that the Almighty Supreme Divine Creator of the entire universe – the galaxies beyond number, the billions and billions of stars, the trillions of planets – should come to us in the person of a fragile baby! Yet, this is precisely the Christian claim that bids us spend Advent in such ardent preparation. We too hold to the truth and tradition of Christ’s coming. “Therefore, stay alert! You don’t know what day the Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42). “Since we belong to the day, let’s stay sober, wearing faithfulness and love as a piece of armor that protects our body and the hope of salvation as a helmet. … So continue encouraging each other and building each other up, just like you are doing already” (1Thessalonians 5: 8, 11).
