Advent Questions for Anglicans

by Nathalie Judson

I speak as a simple child of God, in a voice seldom heard since it is so small and so quiet as to be almost inaudible. In a way, I am like John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord."  This is the Advent season, the time of preparation for the big holiday. Christmas is coming, so we hurriedly rush through our endless to-do lists -- learning the music, shopping for presents, ordering food for the family feast, sending out greeting cards and party invitations, hiring horn players and professional singers, reserving mounds of flowers and cases of wine, arranging every detail of the celebration. And by filling our mortal time with fastidious attention to the outer preparations, we leave little time for the immortal, too distracted by preparations for our own way to attend to the coming of the priceless gift of The Way, The Truth and The Life given to us in Jesus. 

Consider the possibility that the Second Coming of Jesus is now. . . Will we be so locked in mortal combat over differences of opinion about sexual righteousness that we fail to greet him as he comes to us in the quiet holy stillness?

Yet to say instead, "Jesus is coming!" could reorient us to make diligent interior preparations, to clean our hearts and make space for his birth within us, to see Christ's nativity in Bethlehem as a foretaste of a promise as yet unfilled. Consider the possibility that the Second Coming of Jesus is now. Will we be rushing frantically to the store to purchase oil for our flickering spiritual lamps when the bridegroom comes? Will we be so locked in mortal combat over differences of opinion about sexual righteousness that we fail to greet him as he comes to us in the quiet holy stillness? Will we be lobbing insults and threats at those of God's children we have made into our enemies because they have failed to meet our performance criteria for churchly respectability? Or will our hearts be clean, free from the vanities of presumption and competition, humbled by the realization that we can never be worthy of the grace we are invited to receive? 

Or perhaps Jesus comes continuously and gives himself to us as we are able to receive him, each offering of himself an invitation to see him more clearly. In the vast rhythmic resonance of the beating of God's heart, we are called. Thump. Thanksgiving. The trees fling their exaltation of joyous dancing leaves into the clear tingling crispness of enraptured blue heavens. The apples and pumpkins ripen into delectable gifts from God, filling our senses with their generosity. We know wonder and gratitude as we notice how abundant is God's blessing.

Seeing it all as gift, we give our appreciation life by giving ourselves to others and thanking God together. As we look at the outpoured goodness around us, we let go of our habits of hoarding, complaining, demanding, acquiring, judging, rejecting, and this releasing makes room for Christmas when God gives himself to us in the person of Jesus. We are preparing the way of the Lord as we clear out our hearts of all that prevents love. 

Advent embraces us, wraps us in the hushed reverence of stillness, draws us to a quiet reflection that seeps down deep into our souls.

Gradually grace soaks into our hearts between the pulsing beats of God's giving. Advent embraces us, wraps us in the hushed reverence of stillness, draws us to a quiet reflection that seeps down deep into our souls. Look! A tiny twinkling star balanced in the deep midnight blue, like a peephole into glory beyond. We are suspended in awe, struck dumb as the three disciples at Jesus' transfiguration. With a long soft sigh like the sound of wings, God fills us through the tiny peephole of our transfixed wonderment at the inconceivable beauty of the heavens. The inflow of grace expands our hearts out to the vast eternal singing glory of all creation, and we are made ready for Jesus. We have prepared the way of the Lord within us by allowing ourselves to be filled with the love of God, opened ourselves to the truth by seeing and knowing this love in the gifts we are given, and entered into life by letting love heal all that is deadening in our hearts. Jesus is coming! Prepare the way of the Lord.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. . . Lovely words, but what do they have to do with us? How are they relevant to social justice or righteousness or the theological integrity of the Anglican Communion? The simple answer: You cannot give what you don't have. Without love, actions and words and even faith are not filled with Jesus, are only vain reflections of who you wish you were, or who you want others to believe you are, or who you think you have to be in order to receive your due reward in heaven. Unless we empty ourselves of ourselves, we have no room within to receive Jesus. Without Jesus, all that we do and say and give has no substance or value, is like a mist that vanishes before the approaching sun. Our opinions, our achievements, our collections of worldly things, our power to govern, our knowledge, is all empty. 

With Jesus within, we see the gift of Christ everywhere. All people, all of nature, all perceptions, all that is beautiful and all that is ordinary. And what we once took for granted is known to be what God has created in, by, through, and for himself. And all for love's sake. It is impossible then, inconceivable, to insult and threaten and reject another because of a difference of opinion, custom, gender, religious path, sexuality, race, class, membership, status, credentials, fame, respectability, citizenship, wealth, prestige. Our fractious warfare will cease, our callous disregard for the earth will end, our pretentious superiority will be pierced and deflated away to nothing. Our struggles for justice will be over because we will have replaced our conceptions of righteousness with the grace of mercy, seeing in each other not enemies, but our own reflections. We are all one in Christ, the blessed recipients of his peace that passes all understanding. Prepare the Way of the Lord!

 

Nathalie Judson considers herself to be "by the usual standards, a nobody; without academic credentials or a collar, without a post or position in the Episcopal Church, without acclaim or authority in the Anglican Communion, and without a personal stake in church politics." She may be reached by email at njudson@earthlink.net