I have been reading through N.T. Wright’s book, Justification, which was written in part as a response to John Piper’s book, The Future of Justification: a Response to N.T. Wright. And so, Wright’s book is a response to a response, which expresses the controversial nature of Wright’s concept of justification. Perhaps the depth of this controversy can be seen in the metaphor that Wright uses to begin his book, a metaphor that equates his understanding of justification with a kind of intellectual Copernican revolution.

Essentially, Wright is saying that the doctrine of justification does not arise out of the question “How can a sinner stand before a righteous and holy God?” but rather out of the question “How will God be faithful to his covenant with Abraham, by which all the nations of the world will be blessed.” The point for Wright is that justification is not about the existential crises of the individual, but rather about God’s actions to restore the entire cosmos and all of humanity to their original integrity and beauty.

In constructing his understanding of justification one of the key issues Wright addresses is a mischaracterization of Judaism as a religion based upon works righteousness. Wright asserts that much of the historical documents of Paul’s era make it clear that the Jews understood themselves to be God’s people on the basis of grace, a grace most particularly seen in the covenant established with their forefather Abraham. Within this covenant, the Law was commonly understood to be a means of maintaining faithful membership, as well as a means by which Israel was distinguished and separated from the rest of the gentile nations.  Thus the Law was not held to be the means by which a faithful Jew sought to make his or herself righteous before God.

Another critical issue Wright addresses is the idea of exile as it was understood during Paul’s time. According to Wright many Jews believed they were in a state of partial exile, insofar as they had returned to their homeland, but they continued to be under foreign domination. Along with this, it was commonly believed that a complete end to their exile would not happen until the Messiah came to usher in God’s Kingdom by which God’s people would be delivered from and vindicated before all the nations. It is from this idea of vindication, particularly with its eschatological connotations, that Wright develops his understanding of justification.

Paul, according to Wright, had come to see that what Israel had expected for herself at the end of the age: vindication, had happened in the person of Jesus the Messiah, and that this vindication was particularly seen in Jesus’ resurrection. For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus signified the coming of the end, the coming of the Kingdom in which the restoration of creation and the justification of God’s people is now available in the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. The implication of Jesus’ resurrection also necessitated for Paul the need to redraw the lines of covenant membership. Instead of this line being drawn along the ethnic markers of Judaism, it was now to be drawn along the lines of all those who confess that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. And so, justification, according to Paul, according to Wright, is about inclusion in God’s covenant with Abraham, a covenant that was established prior to the giving of the Law, and a covenant that Abraham entered into by faith, and who thereby became the father of all who believe.

Please take note that my presentation of the essentials of Wright’s book does not due justice to the cogency with which he develops and supports his understanding of the doctrine of justification. Moreover, I have not touched upon the ways his book has been a blessing to me, and the ways I find myself resisting him on some points. In short, this book merits much more than I have given it in this post, and for this reason I plan on returning to it in future posts. For now, however, in light of the Christmas season, I will just say the following.

One result of reading this book is that I have never, in my life, ever felt so connected to the history of Israel. I now see myself as one who has, to use Paul’s term, been grafted into the story of God’s passionate love for his people Israel. I feel much more connected to the lives of the patriarchs and prophets, and the significance of proclaiming that Israel’s God is God indeed. Most importantly it has become very meaningful for me to proclaim that Jesus is the Messiah, the living embodiment of God’s righteousness, the living embodiment of God’s faithfulness to his covenant with our father Abraham, through whom all the nations of the world will be blessed.

In thinking about God’s covenant with Abraham as the context for understanding the significance of the birth of Mary’s baby, I am reminded of the words of an old man named Simeon. When Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple, in accordance with the custom of the Law, Simeon, prompted by the Holy Spirit, took the baby into his arms and praised God by saying:

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.

What I particularly like about “Ash Wednesday” is Eliot’s uncanny ability to use the energy of language to place a reader on the thresshold of transcendence, while at the same time thoroughly analyzing and describing the spiritual struggle of broken human existence. The poem itself is an expression of beauty emerging from the ashes of falleness, and in this manner it is very incarnational. I could go on, as in fact I did, for during that semester I ended up writing a 25 page paper about this poem, but for this Ash Wednesday, I will let the man speak for himself and post the poem in its entirety below. Before I do so, however, I would like to preface his poem with these words from the Ash Wednesday service from the Book of Common Prayer:

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

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Ash Wednesday

I.
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II.
Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III.
At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs’s fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

but speak the word only.

IV.
Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary’s colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

V.
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

VI.
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

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.

It is truly right and good, always and everywhere, with our
whole heart and mind and voice, to praise you, the invisible,
almighty, and eternal God, and your only-begotten Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who
at the feast of the Passover paid for us the debt of Adam’s sin,
and by his blood delivered your faithful people.

This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children
of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the
Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered
from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness
of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell,
and rose victorious from the grave.

How wonderful and beyond our knowing, O God, is your
mercy and loving-kindness to us, that to redeem a slave, you
gave a Son.

How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and
sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy
to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings
peace and concord.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined
and man is reconciled to God.

Holy Father, accept our evening sacrifice, the offering of this
candle in your honor. May it shine continually to drive away
all darkness. May Christ, the Morning Star who knows no
setting, find it ever burning–he who gives his light to all
creation, and who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the
crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and
rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the
coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of
life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

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I imagine that in some way Jesus’ dying words about being thirsty is a reality that is still present in the world, present in all those who have need, in all those who thirst physically and spiritually. The Scriptures declare that “God made him who had no sin to become sin for us.” In this radical act of God identifying with fallen humanity, in those moments when Jesus hung on the Cross bearing our sins, it would not be far fetched to say that he tasted the collective thirst that blights all of us who live in want for God’s presence in our lives.

Given the death of the Lord of Glory that is commemorated on Good Friday it is certainly understandable why dubbing it “good” seems such a misnomer. And yet, when I consider that through the cross Jesus has identified with my deepest need, that he is somehow present to me even in sin, I am prompted to declare that Friday is indeed good, for God is with us even as we thirst for him.

It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”

Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”

“No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”

Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

“Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”

Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

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I don’t imagine it’s easy for anyone to really get their head around the idea of having Jesus wash your feet. I have heard from several sources that foot washing was considered so menial that not even the slaves of the first century Mediterranean culture were expected to perform this task. And, yet Jesus, the eternal Son of God, the Lord of all creation stripped down into what was perhaps the first century equivalent of boxers and an A-shirt, and washed the grime from each of the disciples’ feet.

This past Thursday, as I faced the mild social discomfort of having our interim pastor wash my feet as part of the Maunday Thursday celebration, I caught a glimpse of the discomfort I would have faced having Jesus wash my feet. In this, I truly identify with Peter’s response, “you shall never wash my feet.” Sure, on the surface Peter’s response seems appropriate, for how disruptive of the social order, and how unbecoming it is to have a dignitary stoop to such a low task. Moreover, what kind of egoist would willingly receive such a service from any human. And yet, I sense there is veiled pride at work in both Peter’s and my protestations.

I’m not sure how, but symbolically I liken this act of washing feet with vulnerability. The image that comes to mind is an incontinent, old invalid who lives in a nursing home and who has to have a nurse periodically wash his bum because he messes himself. Very simply, this is a damn embarrassing image, and if any of us were subject to such a situation we would no doubt feel a good measure of shame, and we would feel vulnerable to those who attended us. In similar manner, if we had the eyes to see what our little moral lapses looked like in the spiritual realm perhaps we would see a lot of shitty bums and dirty feet. Yes, I know this is a crude thought, but what we have to realize is that compared to the standard of God’s brilliant, burning, and holy love even the small ways that we are petty and egoistic is ugly.

I think that my resistance to having other people wash my feet, and particularly having Jesus wash me feet, comes from knowing that in some fashion this act which subverts social protocol, undermines decorum, and disturbs the order of things functions as a sign that points to the radical need of my soul, and quite literally, who in hell wants to own up to such a need.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.

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The above words begin the Ash Wednesday service which itself begins the season of Lent. Beyond a sense of roots (of being involved in an activity that Christians going back hundreds of years have practiced) what I particularly like about this season is the idea that “all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.”� Lent is a channel of grace because it calls us as a community to place our relatively short lives in the context of eternity, to discern any way that we have gone astray, and to enter more fully into the mystery of Christ by disciplining our passions through fasting.

Recently, it has become clearer to me that sacrifice and fasting (both forms of giving up something) are really a matter of investing in God’s Kingdom. Jesus told us to lay up treasures for ourselves in heaven, and creatively responding to this idea, noted missionary, Jim Elliot, said, “he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” When we give up something for Lent what I imagine happens is that we are actually transferring something of current value into something of eternal value, and though this transference may not be a tit-for-tat reality, I do think there is a correlation between what we give up here and what we will receive in the coming age. One place where I see this� happening is in how we are preparing ourselves to participate in the fullness of God’s Kingdom. When we sacrifice and fast in a discerning manner we are increasing our capacity for heavenly citizenship, which is to say that we are increasing our ability to engage and enjoy the realities of God’s Kingdom. This preparation is the heart of Lent, and it is this vision that inspires me to undertake the blessed fasts that this season calls us to.

So, how are you laying up treasures and preparing yourselves to engage in God’s Kingdom?

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).

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Christmas is over and Epiphany has come. Traditionally, the first day of Epiphany is called “Three Kings Day”, as this season is a celebration of Jesus’ revelation to the gentiles, a revelation aptly seen in the visitation of the Magi. Two other events from the life of Jesus are also celebrated during this season, his baptism and transfiguration. In his baptism the voice of God proclaimed “this is my beloved Son”, and in transfiguration his face shone like the Sun, and in both of these events the hidden identity of Jesus was manifested for a few blessed witnesses.

In reflecting on this season, I’d say that Epiphany is more than just a celebration of previous manifestations, but also of the manifestations that continue to happen in the life of the Church. The blessing that was available to few, is now available for all, as in this present age the Holy Spirit communicates the full life of Christ to all who believe. As in the life of Jesus, this communication is a hidden reality that is not seen, but accepted by faith. Also, as in the life of Christ this hidden reality will manifest itself in the life of those who live by faith.

So, ultimately, what I most want to celebrate during this season is the fact that who I have been, and who I currently am need not determine who I will become, for by faith my becoming is more a matter of who Jesus is than who I am. As Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, “God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” This hope of glory is essentially about God graciously being with us and in us through Christ, and that the glory of Christ will eventually be revealed in your life, in my life, in our lives, just as it was in his.

Though it feels a bit odd to celebrate Christmas while others are packing up their Christmas decor, it is overall a good experience. The first thing that comes to mind is that I still have lots of time to meet with others and celebrate Christmas with them. As the song says, there are twelve days of Christmas, which means twelve more days of gift-giving, sharing meals with friends and family, and most importantly time set aside to contemplate the mystery of God becoming one of us. Actually, this last thing really takes a lifetime, but it is good amidst the push and pull of our schedules to have time devoted to the things we proclaim are important. So, don’t let the new year distract you from what really matters, and continue to take time to consider God as a weak, dependent, little baby, and thereby lay hold of the unexpected, uncanny, and unfathomable grace of God.