Advent: Light From The Ancient Past

 Advent preparation leads me not only to review my own journey, but once again to review the “Light from the Ancient Past”— the Old Testament.  I’m not referring to the boring genealogies found there, or the tribal laws of an ancient people as found in Leviticus, nor to those select passages that reportedly foretell the coming of a Messiah.  What I meditate on are the writings of Isaiah (and other prophets like Amos, Hosea and Jeremiah).  In rhapsodic language, Isaiah “speaks tenderly“ to a despairing people of a God who will release them from their bondage and restore the shattered foundations of their world.  Isaiah speaks of a God who provides comfort, pardon, hope, and purpose in the midst of historical tragedy—a time not unlike our own.

The prophet suggests that history has a divine purpose from beginning to end, and that this God of history will make all things new—not just for a few “chosen” people,  but for all humankind.  However, the “chosen” are called to a mighty purpose.  It is their task to be a servant of God—in a history not measured by a calendar, but by God’s activity, God’s purpose.

“I, the Lord, have called you with righteous purpose, and taken you by the hand; I have formed you, and appointed you to be a light to all peoples, a beacon for the nations (Isaiah 42:6).”

Advent is “kairos” time—kairos is an ancient Greek word meaning the right or opportune moment.  Advent is such a moment—a time in which we open ourselves up to God’s activity and purpose in the context of our present situation. It is a time in which all things can be made new—in me, in you, and this shattered world.  Openness to the possibilities is the essence of Advent.

Advent Season

“For everything its season, and for every activity under heaven its time”. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Advent comes—a sacred season.  

Advent comes—a unique time

 when the Child born in Bethlehem can be born anew in us

Advent is a time of promise…

“Comfort, comfort my people; —it is the voice of God…”

A time of preparation…

“Prepare a road for the Lord through the wilderness, clear a highway across the desert for our God.” 

A time of new beginnings…

“Thus shall the glory of the Lord be revealed, and all mankind shall see it…”.”He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free…The tide of time shall never his covenant remove; his name shall stand forever; that name to us is love.” 

Advent is a time of expectancy…

“Come, thou long-expected Jesus…born to set thy people free…”

A time of happenings…

“I cannot see the life of Jesus as other than God trying to disclose his love for us and his attempt, at any price, to show us that the cosmos is grounded in love.  All hate, all sin, all discord, all clefts, all ignorance, all confusion will finally give way to love.”  (Douglas Steere)

Advent is a time of waiting…

“O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear.”

A time of transition…

“Blessed be the God of Israel, who comes to set us free, who visits and redeems us, and grants us liberty.  The prophets spoke of mercy, of freedom and release; God shall fulfill the promise to bring our people peace.”

Advent is a time for “new things” and a time of openness…

“…and now I declare new things; before they break from the bud I announce them to you.”  (Isaiah 42:9)

A time of new songs and new dreams….

“Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the hardness of life, despite all the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels”.  (Howard Thurman)

A time of searching and for finding…

“Redeemer, come, with us abide; our hearts to thee we open wide; let us thy inner presence feel; thy grace and love in us reveal.”

                                                  Christmas is waiting to be born:

                                                    In you, in me, in all humankind.

 

No Kings Day

Last Friday Speaker Mike Johnson “slammed the No Kings protest march…describing the planned protest as the ‘hate America rally’ that would draw ‘the pro-Hamas wing’ and ‘the Antifa people’.”

I will be protesting this Saturday (exercising my constitutional right to do so).  I do not hate America; I love America (with all its blemishes, its divisions, and its failures). I am not “pro-Hamas”; I am not “Antifa people”.  I do not hate; I try to love, believing that Love is at the heart of things.  I am a patriot having served 36 years in the Air Force (active and reserve) and thirty of those years as an Air Force chaplain.  I am a retired United Methodist pastor.  I am almost 83 years of age; living in the autumnal stage of life’s journey.  I am a widower, a father, grandfather, and great grandfather. 

I am a Christian—“A Christian is a person who confesses that, amidst the manifold and confusing voices heard in the world, there is one Voice which supremely wins his/her full assent, uniting all his/her powers, intellectual and emotional, into a single pattern of self-giving.  That Voice is Jesus Christ.” (D. Elton Trueblood).

That Voice calls me to protest what is happening here in these United States and what is happening in many other places around the world.  That Voice calls me to love my neighbor, to stand up for the stranger, to care for the downtrodden, to support the rights of all people (regardless of the color of their skin, their religious beliefs, their gender, etc.).  That Voice calls me to see through deceit, cruelty, and power grabs, and to seek justice, truth and love. As Martin Luther said in 1521:  “Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me, God.”

The Posse Comitatus Act

 18 U.S.C. 1385:  The Posse Comitatus Act is just one sentence:  “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Crops, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than two years, or both.”  

The Act was passed in 1878 at the end of the Reconstruction period.  The shameful reason for the law was to ensure that the federal military would not be used to intervene in the establishment of Jim Crow in the former Confederacy. However, the rationale was, before the passage of the Posse Comitatus, and remains, a core American value, that the military should not be allowed to interfere in the affairs of civilian government.

The word “except” in the Act creates some loopholes, but it goes on to say…(except)” in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress…” It does not give a president a “blank check”.  It requires Constitutional authorization or Act of Congress.  There are no constitutional exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act.  To my knowledge, there has not been an Act of Congress justifying Los Angeles, Portland, or any other US city.

What Time Is It?

 Charles Dickens’ introductory sentence in The Tale of Two Cities keeps bubbling around in my brain.  Bob Dylan’s 1964 song, “The Times They Are A-Changing” keeps reverberating in my head.  Despicable news, flooding the media each and every day, swirls in and rankles my inner spirit.  

Is our time the best of times, or is it the worst?  Is today an age of wisdom, or of absolute foolishness?  Is it the epoch of belief, or is it the epoch of incredulity?  Is it a season of light, or a season of darkness?   Is it the spring of hope, or is it the winter of despair? 

How do we know?  How can we tell?  If we know nothing about what has gone on before our time, how can we grasp or begin to understand what is happening now?

How does one do that?  Read books, don’t ban  them.  Read. Read. Read.   Think. Think. Think.  Here are a few you might want to try:  The Night Trilogy (Night, Dawn, Day), Elie Wiesel; Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (I used an Audio App to help me with this one); Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck; The Little Liar, Mitch Albom; Democracy Awakening, Heather Cox Richardson.  Know what has gone on in the past to understand what is going on now. 

Part III: Empty Chairs, Empty Tables....

 I returned home from a trip last weekend.  The trip had been planned and scheduled a year ago.  Whenever we returned home from such a travel event there would be a big poster hanging in the kitchen window:  “Welcome Home, Dad and Mom” or in these last four years, “Welcome Home, Dad” or “Welcome Home, Dad and Uncle John,” signed “Love, Rachel.”  There would be milk and goodies in the fridge, bread in the cupboard, and normally enough food to last a week! 

There was no sign in the window welcoming me home last weekend, no milk or goodies in the fridge, no bread in the cupboard,  Three months have passed since we lost Rachel.  What I missed wasn’t the milk or the bread.  I missed Rachel!  Always will!  There is no way to fill the empty chair, that empty table, this empty place in me.

Today my son Paul and my daughter (in-law) Helen came to visit.  We had a wonderful outdoor lunch at a special place along the C & D canal where we often went in years past for special family celebrations. Thank you, Paul and Helen, for helping me live into our shared “new reality.”  Love you both very much.  Life tumbles in, but living goes on.

Part Two: Empty Chairs, Empty Tables

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross introduced the “five stages of grief” in her book On Death and Dying in 1969.  The five stages are:

Denial:  “This can’t be happening to me.”

Anger:  “Why is this happening?  Who is to blame?

Bargaining:  “Make this not happen, and in return I will….”

Depression:  “I’m too sad to do anything.”

Acceptance:  “I’m at peace with what happened.”

Not everyone goes through these stages. Kuber-Ross said, “They were never meant to help tuck messy emotions into neat packages.”  They are simply responses to loss that many people have experienced.  Our grieving is always individual.

The loss of a loved one affects each of us in different ways. The important thing to remember is that almost anything you experience in the early stages of grief is normal—including feeling like you’re living a bad dream, or going crazy, or questioning your faith or spiritual beliefs.

The most universal symptom of grief is sadness.  Feelings of emptiness, despair, an abundance of tears, and feeling emotionally unstable, are typical.  Grief also involves physical problems—fatigue, lack of appetite, weight loss, etc.  All of these reactions are natural.  We will heal in time….

But, in the meantime, there is GRIEF.  There is an empty chair in my Garden Room.  Another chair at the dining room table is empty now.  Every photo of my daughter Rachel reminds me of what was and is no more.  That’s what everyone who has lost a loved one is handling within.  Our task is to be aware of that person’s loss, to respect it, and share in it if we can.