Anne Weems writes of Advent:
Some of us walk into Advent, tethered to our unresolved yesterdays
the pain still stabbing, the hurt still throbbing.
It’s not that we don’t know better,
it’s just that we can’t stand up anymore by ourselves.
On the way to Bethlehem, will you give us a hand?
Today we stand at the transition point between Church seasons. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany have ended and we’ve celebrated the birth of Jesus, and begun to mark the growth and maturity he embodied, and now we begin our long, slow journey towards the inevitable events in Jerusalem. But before we begin that final leg of our journey, we stand the mountain top and encounter the Transfiguration – the moment in time when the divine aspect of Jesus is revealed for his disciples.
So, in some respects today is an “in between” moment as one Church season ends and another is about to begin, while in other respects, it is the kick off for our Lenten Journey into the season of preparation that stretches for 40 days between now and Easter.
In Church circles, we often regard the Lenten Journey as the journey into the dark corners of our world and our lives. It is a time of preparation – historically in the Church Lent was the time when those wishing to join the church made final preparation for the big step of Baptism and reception as full members. Today some observe Lenten sacrifices by ‘giving up something for Lent.’
Often we will give up chocolate, or coffee, or something that is un-necessary to our day to day life and well being. I’ve known of some who are so committed to the idea of giving something up for Lent that they would give up something like ‘paprika’ or ‘cloves’ … either way though the legacy of preparation lingers. And Lent remains a season where we confront and wrestle with some of the tough issues in life.
I like the reading from Ann Weems and think it’s as apt for Lent as it is for Advent. In the season of Advent, we come preparing for the arrival of the Christ child. We speak liturgically of darkness and being in the darkness while we wait for the coming of the light.
The season of winter, for us is a time of cold, dark and lonely nights … winter stretches before us and we shudder literally and figuratively at the prospect of a cold dark lonely season. So, the notion of Christ entering our world and the accompanying theology of light, life and love helps dispel the darkness and bring hope.
But in the Lenten Season, we struggle with a similar dichotomy. We want the light and airy feel of spring, but sometimes life isn’t offering this … we struggle to move from the darkness into the light … Ultimately, Lent is about wrestling seriously and intentionally with the reality that tells us life isn’t always easy … Lent is about owning the fullness of life, and standing in places where sometimes God feels more absent than present.
It was interesting to me that as I began thinking about this sermon, I had two encounters with the struggle people sometimes have with finding God and the Holy in life. The first was a documentary on CBC radio that highlighted Clergy who had lost their faith in God, and who had to struggle, not only with that burden, but with the added burden of no longer being able to define themselves in traditional and comfortable ways – how does a non-believing clergy continue to do their job and fullfil their role as minister when they no longer fully believe what it is they preach?
The second encounter was a letter in the most recent issue of The United Church Observer that says succinctly – “ Christianity is dying because the ‘God of the gap’s is rapidly being supplanted by human knowledge. The big questions – where do we come from? Where are we going? – don’t need a supernatural, fictional agent to answer them. The United Church would be better off trying to teach people truth rather than a Bronze age myth.”
As I read those words I couldn’t help but reflect on my journey in recent days, and how lost I would be if my experience of God and the Holy had remained at a Sunday School level of faith.
I remember as a teen sitting in on a Sunday School youth class where the teacher was explaining that everything that happens in the world happens because God wants it to, and it is simply part of God’s plan for us – she went on to explain that EVERYTHING that happens happens because God loves us … I scoffed at it then … I scoff at it now. I would be hard pressed to say that earthquakes, tsunamis, wars, plagues, poverty, and unexpected deaths or accidents happen because God loves us, and is wanting to show us that love … That’s NOT the kind of God I can believe in.
AND, that’s the kind of God that leads to crises of faith that cause clergy to stop believing at all … and it’s THAT kind of God that causes people to dismiss the Church as a bearer of Bronze Age Myths.
Instead, I reflected on the experiences of the Holy that I have had in the last two months as I’ve struggled through some deep dark times in my life … experiences of the presence of God that I can not scientifically say was “God”, but that profoundly touched and affected me.
And, that may well be the very experience of the Holy that the disciples wrestled with as they came down from the mountain top and tried to understand and explain what it was they had experienced that day … The Transfiguration has all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster event … lights, action, dramatic appearances, ghostly visions, heavenly voices … it could make a great scene in a movie. Yet, here it is in our Scriptures preserved across the millennia, as an encounter with the Divine.
So, what are we to make of the Transfiguration as we begin our Lenten Journey? How do we claim a place on the mountain top along side the other disciples, where we too can experience fully the presence of the Divine, and this encounter with the Holy?
Often, we want our encounters with the Holy to be big and flashy, with the voices and lights and breath-taking happenings like this … and when we don’t get them, we begin to doubt the very existence of God. When we don’t have the flashy encounters we might even say there is no God, and turn to a jaded cynicism instead.
Yet, there is every Scriptural indication that we will more frequently encounter God in quiet and unexpected moments rather than earth shattering moment … over and over in the Scriptures there are descriptions of meeting God in quiet, unassuming places … and I think that is the point of the Transfiguration story. Even in the flashy moments with lights, and divine visitors and a voice from heaven, what is important is what we carry forward from that moment.
How do we share these encounters with others?
How do we talk about our experiences with God?
What do we say about our faith and these moments when we know we’ve stood in the very presence of God?
And, that’s where I like the reading I began with from Ann Weems. In recent days, I’ve discovered that God is sometimes encountered in those moments when we least expect to find God … when we fall to our knees exhausted and utterly spent, and suddenly something happens that reminds us that we are NOT alone.
Our creed in the United Church affirms our place in the cosmos as a child of God … it begins with a vivid reminder of our place in the world:
(The New Creed - Voices United)
The challenge we face in a skeptical world, is to hold to our faith, and to believe in spite of the evidence that God is with us … the challenge we face is to boldly journey into the dark corners of our world and our lives, and to trust that even if we don’t feel God’s presence – God is there every step and every moment, and when we least expect it – sometimes when we’ve fallen to our knees and can’t find the energy to get back up … in that moment, fortunately, God breaks through in the most unexpected of ways … In the last few weeks, I’ve had more than my fair share of stumbles along the way, yet each time, I’ve had a hand offered in faith that has not only helped to regain my feet, but to continue my journey … And perhaps, that alone is the strongest evidence that we are truly not alone.
May it be so, thanks be to God. Let us pray …
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