Advent II

Advent Season

Part II: In His Presence until He comes

By Dan McDonald

 

            Advent is a season when we remember that we are living in the yet and not yet time of the Gospel’s fulfillment. We do well to realize that we are waiting for a more perfect Gospel kingdom yet to come, but to remember also that we rejoice in many blessings already having been introduced into our lives through Christ’s entrance into humanity and his promise to be with us even to the end of the Age.

            Christ promised his disciples at the Last Supper that it would be to their advantage for him to disappear from their lives and send the Holy Spirit. Christ remains with us through the Holy Spirit. Every way in which Christ is shown to be with us to the end of the age, is connected to the Holy Spirit being sent as our comforter, teacher, and helper. He points with divine power to Christ, and explains the ramifications of Christ’s life and ministry.

            The first great work the Holy Spirit does in bringing us into the presence of Christ was to enable the Apostles to proclaim the Word of Christ that we might be convicted of sin, of Christ’s righteousness, and of all things pertaining to the Gospel. The Apostles waited in Jerusalem for the gift of the Holy Spirit before they began proclaiming Christ to the World. The Spirit through the preaching of Christ did two things simultaneously. He began calling us to follow Christ within the context of a living Church. He began to oversee the collection of the teachings of the Apostles that we have in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. The New Testament is almost completely the Apostles teaching Christians in the Church. We especially learn of Christ through the Spirit’s guidance of us within the context of the Church by the teaching of the Holy Scriptures given by the Spirit through the Apostles. As men and women yearning to know Christ, life in the Church and in the Scriptures is one of the best preparations for our finding ourselves in the presence of Christ. Certainly the news reminds us that churches are imperfect, sometimes horribly so. But of first importance is to find a church humbly following Christ in living church communities where the Scriptures are sought to be understood. We remember how in John’s Revelation the Spirit spoke to the churches of the seven candlesticks.

            The sacraments are also shown to proclaim Christ’s presence. In the preaching of John the Baptist, or as he is also known “John the Forerunner” the message of the Kingdom is proclaimed with the command to repent and be baptized. In the Great Commission Jesus speaks to his disciples of how they were to proclaim Christ to the nations, make disciples of the nations, and baptize them in Christ teaching all the things he taught them. The Church, through her ministries, presents to us the ongoing life and memory of Christ. Christ is with us in the faithfulness of Apostolic teaching to the time he comes again. There is mystery in the workings of Christian baptism. There is mystery in hearing the Gospel and being opened to the life set forth in the preaching of the word and expressed in our baptisms into Christ. We understand that the Spirit opens the ears of the deaf that we might hear the Gospel. We understand that through the Word comes life, and that by water and the word we are given life in Christ. We cannot fully explain the mystery though the varied teachers in the Church have sought to explain the mystery whether through Catholic and Eastern Orthodox perspectives, or the myriad Protestant interpretations including Calvinism, Wesleyan, and many other perspectives. We recognize that in hearing the Word with repentance and in baptism within Christ we confess a mystery involving our hearing the Word by pure mercy combined with a living faith that is truly an essential human response to the heard word. In both repentance and baptism we understand a call that has first priority in our lives, and yet we recognize that this beautiful work of obedience to the Gospel comes to us as Christ comes to us in the lost-ness of our sins and comes to set us free when he says, “Come and follow me.” This declared Peter is for you and your children. Thus is the Gospel to be proclaimed until the end of the age.

            At the Last Supper, Christ showed us the importance of the Eucharist. He gave bread and wine to his disciples, and described the bread and wine as his body and blood. Often the Church has sought to better understand how exactly the bread and wine are or become the body and blood of Christ. But for now, let us agree that in giving His disciples the bread and wine as his body and blood, He has made the gifts given to us in communion the certainty that we are being given Him, in accord with his death for our sins to be our life eternal. Every communion supper can be appreciated as the remembrance of Christ’s gifts in the presence of his disciples, and also the gift of the foretaste we are even now given of the banquet supper in the promised days of eternity.

            I would like to include in this writing one other way Christ and the Spirit speaks to us. Jesus tells us that He will be with the poor and needy, especially those dependent upon Christ for living mercies. We are especially to take notice of those whom we know in the household of the faith, who are needy, but Jesus is surely reaching out to a world in need. The needs are many. Christ is often coming to us in the needy, whatever the need whether it is poverty, need of friendship, need of being seen in the midst of an impersonal world. Those suffering are often represented by Christ. In fact, in Philippians we are reminded that part of our calling might well be to fill out the sufferings of Christ. The life of Christ instead of always being a life of abundance is often a life of suffering in which the sufferings of Christ are set forth through the symbolic but real suffering of Christians. Our suffering points to Christ’s sufferings and brings us closer to the sufferings of our neighbors that Christ might be seen as all in all.

            If Christ is indeed with us in our needs and sufferings, He must surely also be with us in the gifts he gives to the Churches that we might be able us to encourage, strengthen, and support one another. Christ is wonderfully with us in the one who suffers, but also he is with us in the one who has been given a gift to speak faithfully to another, to encourage, or to persuade someone of the beauties of God’s kingdom, to express the word of salvation to another. In all these things Christ through the Spirit, in his Church, by the Word, comes to us in both our weakness and strength that Christ might be formed in us. He is with us to the end of the Age. In that great day, we shall see him and shall be like him, because he is with us to the end of the age.

Advent Season part one

Advent Season

Part I: What is the Advent Season?

By Dan McDonald

 

            The twin focal points of Advent season observance is Christ’s coming in the birth and life of Jesus Christ; and in His promised return on the anticipated Great Day.

            The Christian calendar year begins with the Season of Advent. I sort of think of this beginning of a new Christian calendar, as our stepping back into an old year. The Christian perspective of redemption is both personal and community oriented. We are told that in the Great Day we will be saved together with those who have fallen asleep. The living and those asleep will be raised together to meet Christ. We are saved with the entire community of those in Christ.

            During Advent season we begin to learn to appreciate the work Christ is doing in saving us, by stepping back into redemption’s plan as if Christ had not yet been born in Bethlehem. At Advent we look forward to Christ’s arrival in the Incarnation, which we celebrate in Christmas. We look also forward to the Great Day, when we shall be transformed becoming like him as we see Him. We born later than our forefathers and foremothers in the calendar of redemption discover we have things to learn as we look forward to the coming of Christ with those who lived life in the hopes yet unfulfilled of promises and prophecies. We now live with Christ’s birth in Bethlehem as history though we have hardly begun to fathom all the ramifications of his life upon earth. In Advent we remember the communal history of God’s people waiting for his arrival.

            The Scriptures speak to us often regarding Christian history as communal memory. Following Israel’s exodus from Egypt, God commanded the people to remember the Passover. In Judaism, all of Israel including the unborn generations of Jewish men and women were to remember that they were at the Passover. They were delivered even if individually they had no memory, but communally all were there at the Passover. In Advent we remember once more that all of us were lost in our sins, and yet God had addressed mankind regarding the good news that the woman would give birth to the seed, who would overcome the Serpent. As generations passed, more promises were given of the one in whom redemption would be won for God’s people. At last the angel spoke and declared, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins.”

            The truth is that we are Advent people. We live in the hope that is based on the certainty of our expectation. He who came into the world, and died for our sins, will come again and deliver us from sin and death. Every tear shall be wiped from our eyes, and the former things will be no more.

            He has come into our world and has begun saving us from our sins. He will come again and complete that work in the twinkling of an eye on behalf of all the generations of God’s people who have hoped in Him who is our Redeemer, Lord, and Savior. In Advent we look at the future from the perspective of those who long ago waited for the Great Day of Redemption, and in the fullness of time they shall rejoice alongside of us when the trumpet is blown and our Redeemer returns to bring to completion the work of salvation.

            We often feel the weight of lament during Advent. We continue to struggle with our remaining sins. We continue to mourn the passing of loved ones. We continue to see a world in turmoil with imperfection of rulers, with greed and arrogance in high places, with failures within us and all around us. The Apostle recognized that if this present life were all we could hope for, we would be men and women most miserable. This is the reality of the Advent season in which we live. But we have a hope that will not perish, cannot be taken by thieves, rust, decay, or death. We are presently able to be described as sheep for the slaughter, but we are also rightly described as more than conquerors. We are in the not yet and the soon to be season of Advent.

            I want to write once more on the Advent Season, because even if we face trials, temptations, and tribulations while in the Advent Season, our indestructible hope is fortified with many encouragements from this day until the Great Day. The struggles that go with Advent living are not denials of how Christ has encouraged us by telling us he would be with us to the end of the age. I hope in a few days to write on how he reveals himself to be with us in these trying days, even to the end of the Age. Until the Great Day let us pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And also let us pray, “Come quickly Lord Jesus.”

 

Meanderings November 10, 2019

Meandering thoughts November 10, 2019

By Dan McDonald

 

            I’ve been working long hours the past couple of weeks. I’ve had passing thoughts I thought might be interesting if developed and written out, but most fell by the wayside as the days progressed. A 72 hour work week can be tiring even if the work is only moderately demanding.

            My first meandering thought collected in recent days might be helpful for many of us writers. The difficulty in writing is seldom that we don't have something to write about. Our difficulty is finding one thing to write about, and then developing and streamlining it so others can enjoy reading it. The old analogy concerning fire is a good one. If fire is allowed to roam free in your house, it will destroy everything. But if it is contained beneath a pan or within a heating unit, we can be well fed and kept warm. The difficulty with writing is finding a topic to develop and a way of focusing thoughts on a subject so that the finished writing will bring light and warmth to the reader along with feeding the reader's soul and imagination.

            In recent days, Bishop Walter Banek made his visit to our church. At one point he commented on the importance of beauty in worship. Beauty is more important than we sometimes give it credit in a world seeking pragmatic solutions. I have learned from people who studied Hebrew that the word in Genesis expressing how God saw his creation and called it "good" could also be translated as God saw that it was "beautiful." Beauty is written into the world in which we live. As I have thought about the place of beauty in the creation it is gradually giving me a new mission to my writing. Truth and goodness should be intertwined with a vision of beauty.

            I am gradually realizing that as we minimize the importance of beauty in our writings on issues, we are left with increasing divisions and alienations in our human issues, whether they be political, theological, or even if we are talking of the old boomer and the younger generations cultural perspectives. Beauty is the category, which more than goodness and truth, is used to issue a sense of attractiveness to the reader. It is one thing to show something to be morally good, and also something to show it to be true in a world where differing perspectives make differing claims about what is true. All too seldom we present little reason to see in what we advocate a sense of beauty.

            The prophets didn't make that error. They spoke of goodness and called us to repentance. They spoke of truth as light to guide us. They also spoke of beauty. They looked forward to a changed world where lions and lambs enjoy one another's company; and where both young men and maidens prophesy and speak truth. The prophet's message was never complete without a vision of beauty for the coming world being promised to us as we repented from our sins and as we thought guided by God's truth. We see this in Jesus' teachings as he promises rest to the weary, a burden that is light, or a place where there are many dwelling places where those who are blessed might live in harmony. This is a horrible omission to the way we try to convince one another of truth and goodness. We often argue with others as mortal enemies, when we should offer a vision of beauty designed to invite others into what we see as a good life. Can you imagine how different our debates would be if we were all seeking to win others with a vision of beauty flowing out of our concepts and beliefs and good ways of life? So to myself and to others, remember beauty, remember the tie that binds, enlightens, and shapes us to live really well and not to just live correctly or pragmatically.

            I think I will conclude here. Remember beauty. Remember not just to debate, but to try to enlighten, encourage, and invite others to a vision of beauty for a soul needing rest, and for those journeying as aliens and strangers needing hospitality as they seek their way home. No wonder Dostoyevsky said "Beauty will save the world."

Observing Columbus Day

Observing Columbus Day

Written by Dan McDonald

            Columbus Day is now controversial in America. Some think it remains an important part of the story of our nation, while others wish for a name change to “Indigenous People’s Day.” I am not sure how much wisdom I can shed on the subject, but will try to express myself while hoping the best for our shared future.

            I think our memories of Columbus should be complex enough to view his celebrated place in our history as controversial. On the positive side, he was a man of conviction willing take on a risk filled venture to prove that the world was round, and one could reach the Far East by traveling west from the Western lands of the European continent. He was brave enough to risk his life for his convictions. The academic world of the day probably generally believed in a round earth, but there was some doubt upon the matter. So for being a man willing to test his convictions with a daring expedition, give Columbus that much credit.

            The truth about Christopher Columbus is much more complex. He proved to be a man, who yearned for extravagant titles and extreme authority over the inhabitants of the lands he discovered. The same Spanish government which conducted the Inquisition came to regard Columbus to be a corrupt and excessively brutal governor over the areas where he had been allowed to become a governor. He remarked in his discoveries of the people living on the Caribbean islands that they would make good servants or slaves because of their friendliness to Columbus and his crew. Is this the sort of person we wish to describe as a hero, one who finds the friendliness of a people a good trait as they will be easier to subject to servants or slavery?

            Columbus was undoubtedly a man of his times. His Europe was emerging from its simpler times with a sense of an emerging culture that was mandated for an exceptional work in human history. There was a sense that their advances in science, and their embrace of Christianity made it proper to believe that their place in the world was unique and they were meant to govern that world. The reality is that what Columbus represented would be represented with more or less nuance by many among the Europeans reaching the newly discovered hemisphere.

            It should be noted that history is full of horrendous results from the boundaries of differing cultures. In our world Kashmir can be a violent place where Islam and Hinduism meet. Relationships between Christians and Muslims between Islam in North Africa and Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa can be brutal. Recent events show the likelihood of brutality to be set off along the borderlines of Kurd, Turk, Syrian, and Christian in Syria. When I was younger the boundary lines between Communist and Capitalist led to wars in East Asia, parts of Africa, and Latin America. We might think nothing in history had ever taken place like the conflict between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples. But unfortunately this is a horribly recurring theme in human history.

            The reality is that no one wishing for good simply wants to let the bad events of our history to move forward unchanged. We know that the Indigenous people were suppressed into servitude in their own hemisphere. We know that as white Americans filled the continent in the United States, the territories of the indigenous people were reduced and forced to be lived out on small and generally inferior lands and soils. We know that in addition to the suppression of the Indigenous people, there were vast numbers of Africans brought via the Atlantic Passage to slavery and numerous instances of degradation. The history of the Americas is like that of what a Puritan once said of family trees. A family tree can be a glorious thing if enough branches are cut off when one is boasting of his family. Our national accomplishments occurred alongside shameful acts, as is true among all the nations and families of human history.

            My hope on this Columbus Day is to see the need for an extension of the hope our Constitution’s preamble expresses. It was a hope, in its writing pretty much limited to the Europeans who had come to the Americas. The hope was for a more perfect union. That is the hope we should now yearn to be increasingly realized for the numerous men and women who were here when the Europeans came to the Americas, or for all the varied cultures of the varied places from which the varied people of the Americas came. Our goal should be the flourishing of all men and women in our lands of North and South America. We should find it deeply disappointing if one group of our peoples flounder rather than flourish. We can recognize that many things were gotten wrong since Columbus came. But the reality is that Columbus came and now whatever blood line flows through our veins we need to yearn to see all men and women flourish who are the descendants of these varied tribes, nations, and tongues that have come to call the Americas home.

 

When I'm Sixty-four

Will I still matter when I am Sixty-Four?

By Dan McDonald

 

          Michelle Van Loon wrote an article that inspired this response. Her work entitled, “Your Peak Life Now: How to Face Career Decline with Grace and Faith” focused on how careers often peak around age fifty. A peaked or declining career can be frustrating. This blog focuses on the nearing retirement part of life which is mentioned also in Van Loon's article. I recommend Van Loon's article, which emphasizes an Ecclesiastes perspective, which can be read here.

            I am now 63 years old. I can remember when my father, around the age of 63 declared he was going to retire. I was around 23 then, and could not quite understand why he would retire when in only a couple of more years his benefits would be much better than at the younger age. His reply was fairly simple, saying “I am tired.” Now that I am at 63 I understand the feeling. We can call this time of life the “I am tired” years.

            My Dad's retirement years are now a model for retirement I hope to make use of in approaching my retirement years. He carried within his life the sort of work ethic which characterized many whose working careers began during the Great Depression. They faced a world where finding work was a challenge. The importance of finding and doing work came to be written in big letters in their evolving DNA as workers. Retirement, for my Dad, could never mean the end of work. It could only mean changing what sort of work he did that seemed appropriate to the challenges which came with his entering life's sunset years.

            Retirement meant he left the production welding his factory work. It meant cutting back from his years of working the farms of numerous farm owners. It meant cutting back to a less than full sized farm, where he raised a few head of beef cattle and a fairly large garden, and did some welding jobs for neighbors who had broken farm implements.

            I saw my Dad make important changes during his retirement years. His new place in life offered him opportunities as well cutting back on the amount of time he had once devoted to his work. My Dad, in earlier years had a work bench that was disorganized. A small corner was devoted to being a work space which could be enlarged by shoving around piles of disorganized tools and materials. Once he was retired he began to organize everything. Maybe he simply hadn't had the time to keep things organized. As a retiree, his work bench got cleared off and there began to places for tools, materials, and his work area became thoroughly organized. Maybe he was able to do this because instead of being owned by his work in life, he could begin to work with time to do his work in a more planned method.

            His growth in being organized soon began to make an impact on my parents' home. My Mom was the sort of housewife who loved to spend hours in the kitchen. We certainly ate well in our home. When it came to keeping a house clean and organized, my Mom was much more tested in those aspects of life. My Dad, practicing his growing skills of organizing and straightening soon began to bring those practices to the house. Their relationship had experienced ups and downs, but as my Dad began sharing more of the household duties, their life began to be more of a partnership, and in my estimation their treatment of one another blossomed to greater depths as they cared for one another in those sunset years when life has special reflections within an environment of increasing levels of pain and suffering. They saw one another in the vulnerabilities of older age, and became somewhat more appreciative of each other's challenges.

            As I am now 63, I am finding my Dad’s approach to his retirement years a helpful pattern for me to imitate. I look forward to a different work pace, new emphases, and goals more fitting my “I am tired” years. This is true to the life realism recognized by the writer of Ecclesiastes, which Michelle Van Loon's article so well addressed.

            Rather than telling you all the things I want to do in my sunset years, I will encourage you to wonder when the time comes when you reach the tired years, what sort of approach will you employ to bring joy and purpose to your experiencing of the sunset years?

            I enjoyed listening to the Beatles when I was young. Now I am wondering what life will be for me in a few months when I turn sixty-four. How will I live when I am sixty-four and more years old? We adjust to varied phases in life. We learn to acquire skills and plans to match the varied phases of our lives. Whether one is twenty-four, forty-four, or sixty-four we face the opportunities for new experiences and the challenges we face in our varied life phases. The Book of Ecclesiastes offers wisdom beneath the challenges of life's phases. There is something grand and also difficult at every turn in life's flow. Life offers something wonderful at 64, though maybe it will come with more aches and pains and weariness than we knew at 44 and definitely more than most of us knew at 24.

Fifty Day Season of Encouragements

A Fifty Day Season of Encouragements

A 14^th century Greek icon of Christ’s Resurrection

            Long work hours coincided with my observation of this year’s Lenten season. My additional lifetime poor housekeeping habit joined in to create numerous moments of frustration, looking for something that should have been resting in its place, but was instead where I last placed it. By the end of Lent I discovered that sometimes housekeeping can be one of our more important spiritual obligations, especially if poor housekeeping means looking for things creates frustration and keeps you from other tasks in life. Poor habits that have formed over a lifetime can be difficult to overcome. Struggling with them can necessitate a source of abundant encouragement. This year I have especially discovered that Eastertide, which follows Lent, is an excellent source of encouragements.

            “Eastertide” is a fifty day period beginning on Easter Sunday, concluding on Pentecost Sunday, and including Christ’s ascension on the fortieth day following Easter. Whether you follow the Christian calendar or not, following the Biblical chronology between Christ’s resurrection and the Holy Spirit’s descending upon the Church at Pentecost offers us many encouragements.

 

            1. EASTER SUNDAY

            We can imagine the struggle and sufferings that were felt by Jesus’ followers when he was crucified and laid in the tomb. Some had hoped he was the Messiah. In the early morning on the Sunday following his execution, a group of women who had followed him, took spices with them in hopes of honoring his body in the tomb. They were surprised when the stone was moved away and the tomb was empty. Perhaps the gardener could say what happened. Then they discovered he was not a gardener, but the Rabbi and spiritual master they had followed. He was alive. He had been very dead on Friday. But now he was alive. It was a confusing utterly joyous moment. In time they might think of their thoughts of him as a gardener being a beautiful metaphor for how in him a dead human body can be planted in the ground and perfect body that will live eternally will be brought forth in the great day of the Lord's harvest. Perhaps no music played on that day but ever since choirs have sung marking the occasion “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed. Alleluia.” This is our first great encouragement of Eastertide.

            2. FORTY DAYS OF LINGERING

            Following his resurrection, Jesus spent forty days on earth, sometimes described as his days of lingering. A central feature of these days is how Jesus visited his disciples who had stumbled, fled, and failed Jesus in his time of arrest, trial, and execution by crucifixion. He visited them all; Simon Peter, the other disciples, and finally Thomas alongside with all the disciples. Like Joseph who had been sold into slavery by his brothers, Jesus told his disciples how though they had failed him, that this was arranged by God so that through him they could be delivered from the powers of sin and death. Isn’t it encouraging as we struggle with our flaws and failures to know how for forty days Jesus lingered and one of his highest priorities was encouraging his disciples who had stumbled when he was in his most precarious hour. Consider how this should encourage us to follow him through all the situations we find ourselves facing in life, including our own weaknesses that betray us and those around us.

            3. HE ASCENDED INTO THE HEAVENS

            On the fortieth day following Easter, Jesus ascended into heaven. (Acts 1:1-11). He was enthroned above every power and principality. He had overcome sin and death and now serves through all the ages as our great high priest interceding on our behalf.

            There is a great and beautiful mystery regarding Jesus’ ascension and his being seated on the throne of grace, bearing the name “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.” In the incarnation Jesus was born fully God and fully man. He had descended to earth to join in his body the fullness of Deity and the fullness of humanity. In the ascension he returns to heaven continuing to live his life in fullness of humanity as well as fullness of Deity. He has overcome sin and death. His intercession of spoken prayers would be as powerful if he remained silent and simply sat in fullness of his humanity with all present knowing that for those following him, the day would come and they would see him and be like him. His perfected humanity seated in the heavens above is our inheritance in Christ that shall be ours in the great day for which we await. This is the encouragement of the day of Ascension so spoken by St. John who declares “When we see him, we shall be like him.” He has ascended forever uniting God and redeemed humanity in the unity of his being on our behalf.

            4. THE GIVING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON PENTECOST (THE FIFTIETH DAY)

            The journey of Eastertide reaches a foundational conclusion with Pentecost Sunday. The Spirit of God descends upon the Church. The sign of tongues falls upon the disciples as they preach the Gospel to men and women gathered from many nations for the Pentecost. On one level it reverses the curse at Babel when the nations were divided by different languages and could no longer understand one another. It is also an undeniable encouragement to the disciples of how God in his grace would be with them as they proclaimed the Gospel to all nations, tribes, and tongues of our diverse humanity. The Gospel has a vision for all people, ethnicities, and colors. In God's kingdom we are brethren and neighbors. Instead of dividing people with varied tongues, the Spirit of God will enable the joyous uniting of each into His Church. There is also a beautiful symmetry regarding the beginning of Christ’s incarnation and the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. In the incarnation the Holy Spirit visited Mary and overshadowed her and enabled her to conceive and give birth to Jesus, the Son of God. Christ filled the virgin's womb as each portion of his human body took shape in Mary's womb. As the Holy Spirit empowered Christ to be formed in Mary's womb, he is now commissioned to bring forth the character and image of Christ in our humanity as we follow Christ. Christ's humanity is the image we are to bear, and Christ's image is the what the Holy Spirit in the incarnation and in our transformations seeks to bring forth out of our humanities. The mercies of God are new every morning and the depths of the mystery of our transformations from corruptible man to eternal bearers of the image of God in Jesus Christ are as full of mystery and grandeur as the ineffable glory of the depths of the Living God.