I wanted to share this on my blog as I think it smartly integrates good theology with a creative presentation.

Generally, when I have heard this verse I have understood it as a call to prepare oneself for the coming Kingdom, with the implication being that you better heed this warning while there is still a chance, otherwise the Kingdom will come when you least expect it, and it will not go well for you. On this day, instead of a word of warning I heard a word of hope. What I heard this verse saying is that because the Kingdom is coming one can for the first time genuinely repent. Why? Because the coming Kingdom means that God is coming in gracious power to set people free from bondage to sin, idolatry, worldly pseudo-hopes, and religiosity. The coming Kingdom means that God is laying an axe to the root of our alienation and providing a reconciliation through which God’s righteous reign will finally be able to rule the hearts of humanity.

I wonder if the guy who posted this message had any idea how hopeful his message would be.

For the Master is gracious and receives the last even as the first;
He gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour,
just as to him who has labored from the first.
He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first;
to the one He gives, and to the other He is gracious.
He both honors the work and praises the intention.
Enter all of you, therefore, into the joy of our Lord,
and, whether first or last, receive your reward.

O rich and poor, one with another, dance for joy!
O you ascetics and you negligent, celebrate the day!
You that have fasted and you that have disregarded the fast,
rejoice today!
The table is rich-laden: feast royally, all of you!
The calf is fatted: let no one go forth hungry!

Let all partake of the feast of faith.
Let all receive the riches of goodness.
Let no one lament their poverty,
for the universal kingdom has been revealed.
Let no one mourn their transgressions,
for pardon has dawned from the grave.
Let no one fear death,
for the Saviour’s death has set us free.

He that was taken by death has annihilated it!
He descended into Hades and took Hades captive!
He embittered it when it tasted His flesh!
And anticipating this, Isaiah exclaimed:
“Hades was embittered
when it encountered Thee in the lower regions”.
It was embittered, for it was abolished!
It was embittered, for it was mocked!
It was embittered, for it was purged!
It was embittered, for it was despoiled!
It was embittered, for it was bound in chains!

It took a body and came upon God!
It took earth and encountered Ηeaven!
It took what it saw,
but crumbled before what can not be seen!

O death, where is thy sting?
O Hades, where is thy victory?

Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!
For Christ, being raised from the dead,
has become the first-fruits of them that have slept.

To Him be glory and might unto the ages of ages.

Amen.

In light of all this, the path toward strengthening our love is related to honestly acknowledging our sinfulness in the light of God’s goodness, most clearly seen in the sin-bearing suffering of Jesus. Paul once wrote, “where sin increased, grace increased all the more,” and so it is that through the course of our life when, upon various occasions, we see how deeply sin has marked us, it is then that we can come to a fuller understanding of how deeply God graciously covers us. When it becomes clear to us that despite our sinfulness, God has offered his Son, so that we might unconditionally receive his blessing, we become like the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with oil and cleansed them with her tears. As Jesus said, “he who has been forgiven little loves little,” and likewise, he who has been forgiven much loves much.

*******

I have repeatedly been impressed by the idea of being clothed in Christ. Most recently I was watching an episode of “White Collar,” a new show on the USA network, in which a very intelligent and good-looking criminal mastermind, who is on probation, acts as a consultant for the FBI to help solve high-end crimes. In a scene from this episode, the consultant, Neal Cafferty, is at a party deftly mingling with models, New York fashionistas and socialites, and everyone is rich, beautiful, powerful, or all three. Of course, this show is fiction, but I think it accurately reflects a part of our society that is presented as a standard for the good life. But, even if you don’t buy into this picture, the world offers a variety of options to clothe ourselves.

Whether it be money, intelligence, beauty, talent, or a variety power, these things are used to cover what I’ll refer to as primal poverty, the poverty we are born into as fallen creatures in a fallen world. Essentially, primal poverty is the fact that we are born empty of God’s Spirit, the Spirit whose presence was to be an intimate and integral part of being human. It is this poverty that explains the blight of the human condition.

Being creatures made in God’s image, this poverty should function like a “splinter in our mind” telling us all is not well with ourselves and the world, and yet the world is structured to keep us from acknowledging it. Instead, the world offers the ways mentioned above as a means to mask our nakedness and medicate our existential dis-ease. The world offers a kind of clothing, but one that can never get at the core problem.

The tragedy of all this is that God desires to freely clothe all of us with the only covering that gets at the tap root of our existence. I have not done any biblical exegesis on Paul’s concept of clothing, but my guess is that when he talks about clothing ourselves in Christ, he is not talking about putting on something that is external and merely covers what is unsightly. Rather clothing has to do with a deep relationship, where the one who is clothed is given every means and resource to develop and flourish. To be clothed in Christ is to be covered and deeply permeated with his Spirit soaked life, a life that brings genuine beauty, true riches, and eternal power.

The hard thing about being clothed in Christ, however, is that through the world’s eyes it will look like the emperor’s new clothes, because it requires us to strip ourselves of worldly coverings in order to wear it.

I can hear the responses of those in Mary’s community, “I cannot believe that trollop, bringing such shame to her family and to Joseph, her betrothed.” Moreover, if Mary ever did share what was happening, I can imagine the incredulity of any who listened, “Suurrre Mary, an angel of the Lord visited you, God himself impregnated you. Who the hell do you think we are? Pagans! We don’t worship that disgusting seducer of women: Zeus. You have blasphemed our holy, eternal God by ascribing such unbecoming and human behavior to him. C’mon Mary, admit it. You were raped, or you were carried away in a moment passion, but please don’t insult us with your disgusting fantasy of divine intervention.”

After 2,000 years of Christian history, Mary’s story seems commonplace, and thus it is easy for us who profess faith to imagine that had we lived back then we would have had the discernment to recognize the hand of God. Likewise, I think it’s easy for us to think we have some kind of inside knowledge regarding God’s present actions in the world. I am quite sure, however, that God’s actions remain scandalous, and not only to the world, but also to us who believe.

During the remainder of this Christmas season it is this scandal that I want to meditate upon, for I sense that it is critical to genuine faith and spiritual maturity. I have no doubt that the world has deeply influenced my rational instincts and sensibilities, for like the world, I love power. My sense of well-being is deeply connected to the various ways the world expresses power: reason, law, order, religion, government, technology, civilization, decorum, and decency. The world loves these good things, but it does so on its own bright and shiny terms, and thus, they have become idols that function to cover the disorder at the depths of the human condition. By contrast, Mary’s story is that God has chosen the weak things to undermine the strong, and the foolish things to confound the wise, for what is weaker than a baby and more foolish than a virgin birth.

If you were to talk to anyone in my social circle, I am moderately confident they would characterize me as intelligent and moral, for these are things that I strive to be, and have developed throughout my life. As much as I sincerely appreciate these things, however, I also know how much I value them as a means of personal affirmation or self-worth. Like the world, I use them as a cover for the disorder and brokenness at the depths of my being, a depth so deep that it remains beyond anything in my power to lay a hold of, and this is the source of the scandal.

Mary’s story unmasks the false hope of power, whatever form it takes, and I think our response to Mary’s story reveals how deeply we are invested in the power structures of the world. The world rejects Mary’s story as an obvious offence to reason. This is to be expected. Beyond this, however, I think we who are religious also reject Mary’s story, but we do so in a more subtle fashion. We accept that this event happened, for after all, if the Christian God exists it is not unreasonable to think that he who created all from nothing can also conceive a child without the agency of a father. In fact, from a Christian worldview, this can be seen as an act of power. In this way, our affirmation of the story is something akin to the world’s love of power. Our rejection of Mary’s story does not happen along these lines. Instead, our rejection arises from the depths of intimacy and messiness it implies.

God got inside Mary. In overshadowing her with his Holy Spirit, he utilized her body, her biology, her very DNA to accomplish his purpose in the world. Certainly in the tradition and scriptures of the Jews, God was seen as active in human affairs, as a being who drew near to his people, but one who did so in such a way that his majesty and power were clear. What happened to Mary, however, was an involvement of another kind. Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world through the panting, sweating, and bleeding of a young woman, who labored in a stable in some backwater town of a marginalized culture. As he emerged from the womb, he was messy with vernix, amniotic fluid and blood, and he had to be wiped clean before he was wrapped in the swaddling clothes so often seen in the pristine manger scenes.

The point is, in the radical act of incarnation, God intimately entered into the messy affair of the human condition. According to the Church’s reflection on the meaning of Christ’s life, through birth, baptism, and finally crucifixion, God, through Jesus Christ, assumed our sinful, broken and rebellious nature, so that from the inside he could overcome it. This may not sound so bad as a grand, metaphysical act of God, and in some measure it isn’t. The scandal comes when the meaning is personally applied, when we discover the incarnation in the intimate details of our own brokenness, rebellion, and sin.

As I mentioned, what I want to contemplate for the remainder of this Christmas season is that God wants to meet me precisely at the point where I want to turn from him. In order to grow spiritually, in order to be real, in order to live by faith, I must learn to not say with Peter, “Get away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.” Instead, I must learn to embrace, or better yet, let him embrace me in those areas where I am mostly deeply shamed: in my own lust, anger, laziness, and fear. The scandal of Mary’s story is that God has drawn so very near. In the weakness of a baby, and in the frailty of death on a cross, God has met me not in my higher self, not in my striving after righteousness, but in the very messy details of my broken existence.