"Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence"

Advent is usually a time where we await the first coming of Jesus, the long-awaited Rescuer, to his people to deliver them from darkness. But this ancient hymn (which I rediscovered on an Alex Mejias album) leaves the option open to us that the Advent season is as much now about awaiting Jesus' final bodily return to this earth.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

--"Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence," from the (Greek) Liturgy of St. James (4th century)

Oh, that we would sing more hymns like this in our churches today! I cannot help but feel the magnitude, the gravity, the splendor of Jesus when we sing of his reign and of his return in glory, his eternal kingdom.

Old Advent Posts

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Apparently this maxim applies to my blogging, too. Maybe I just haven't had the time to think though Adventy stuff. Either way, you can check out my previous posts here, since I don't get around to posting much new material anymore. (However, I have spent a long time figuring out how Jesus as the Son of God means he fulfills the roles of David and Israel, and why this is good news. But apparently I can't copy-and-paste text from Word into Blogger.)

Advent Resolutions

Chapters 24 and 25 of the Gospel of Matthew teach us about the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ and how to prepare for it. As such, throughout the ages these chapters have found themselves as frequent texts for Advent homilies. One parable Jesus employed was that of ten virgins who waited through the night for the bridegroom to come and to leave for the wedding feast (25:1-13). Five were adequately prepared for his coming, with plenty of oil for their lamps. The others, however, were not so wise, and did not bring enough oil. Consequently, when the wedding party arrived, they had to leave to buy more oil and were left to wait behind in the dark. The end result was that the foolish women were shut out from the feast. Jesus' concluding admonition is that we must, like the wise young women, "keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour [of my arrival]."

As I've been studying the Gospel of John, I'm reminded that Christmas isn't exactly always good news. For many, the arrival of the Word-made-flesh revealed their hearts as hateful toward God and his light (see, e.g., John 3:17-21). In fact, Jesus told the whole city of Jerusalem that their doom had been sealed precisely because God had visited them, but they had not recognized him nor received him (Luke 19:44). Elsewhere in the Psalms (2, 72, 110) and Prophets (Isaiah 9) we are reminded that when the Messiah comes, he will destroy all that is opposed to him and life under God's holy reign.

Jesus may, like the bridegroom of his parable, be "a long time in coming," but we need to be prepared for him. So in this vein I wish to repost something I had read and posted about a few years back--our need for "advent resolutions," if you will, rather than New Year's resolutions. (This was written by Michael Jacob, a Roman Catholic theologian.)

. . . what Christians do (or should be doing!) during Advent and leading up to Christmas is a foreshadowing of what they will do during the days of their lives that lead up to the Second Coming; what non-Christians refuse to do during Advent, and put off until after Christmas, is precisely a foreshadowing of what they will experience at the Second Coming.

We Christians are to prepare for the Coming of Christ before He actually comes -- and that Coming is symbolized and recalled at Christmas. Non-Christians miss this season of preparation, and then scramble for six days after the 25th to make their resolutions. By then, however, it's too late -- Christmas has come and gone. Our Lord has already made His visitation to the earth, and he has found them unprepared. This is precisely what will take place at the Second Coming, when those who have put off for their entire lives the necessary preparations will suddenly be scrambling to put their affairs in order. Unfortunately, by then it will have been too late, and there will be no time for repentance. The Second Coming will be less forgiving than the Incarnation. There will be no four-week warning period before the Second Coming, like we get during Advent. There will be no six-day period of grace after the Second Coming during which to make resolutions and self-examination, like the secular world does from Dec. 26 until Jan. 1.

What might such "Advent resolutions" look like? Here are a few Scriptures to mull over.

1) Find ways to actively serve others in love, especially fellow Christians. (Matthew 24:13; 25:31-46; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13; Hebrews 10:24; 1 Peter 1:13, 22).

2) Pray that Christ would be your All, your sole joy and hope, rather than any vacation, year-end bonus, or Christmas gift. (1 Timothy 6:6-10, 17-19; Hebrews 9:28; 1 Peter 1:3-21)

3) Ask God to reveal unrighteousness in your life and show you ways to repent and to walk in obedience to his will. (Titus 2:11-14; 2 Peter 3:11-13; 1 John 2:28-29)

4) Give generously of your time, money, and abilities, living out your hope that investing in an eternal future is more important than your Roth IRA. (After all, the kingdom of God will never need a federal bailout.) (Matthew 25:14-30; 1 Timothy 6:17-19)

Veni veni Emanuel!

Christmas is supposed to be a time of peace, tranquility, and joy. And judging by the number of ads on the TV, radio, and newspaper, Christmas--ahem, the Holidays--are already here. But Advent is a time of having to wait in darkness for peace and light to come. In Advent, as the days get shorter and the night lengthens toward the solstice, we are still waiting for our consolation (Luke 2:25) and looking forward to our redemption (2:38). "O come, O come, Emmanuel" is our song; "Joy to the world! The Lord is come!" yet awaits the future. Of course, in our place in history the Christ has come, bringing God's nascent kingdom with him. But the fullness of his peace- and righteousness-dealing awaits a day yet to arrive.

This week I have acutely felt this tension. My wife has been quite ill and had lost her voice; the housing search has proven largely unfruitful and still up in the air; the reality of tough, long, lackluster days at school wears on me; and if we don't move in the next week we may be unable to go back up north to our respective family homes for Christmas. It's not that life feels totally out of control, but there are enough nagging challenges, disappointments, and loose ends to feel rattled and insecure. I feel like I'm growing older and more aware of others' lives. Weird.

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee. (C. Wesley)

On Saturday night as Olivia and I sat in our darkened living room with no lights on, save for a lone candle and the Christmas tree, I pondered all these things. In the midst of the weight, I strangely felt little worry or panic. I wondered instead--even felt sure of--all the ways we would see God's gracious deliverance, goodness, and faithfulness through it all, his bereket. The refrain of God's Word is "Do not fear, only believe" (Mark 5:36). As my pastor reminded us this weekend, life is never out of control; it's simply out of our control. I know that in the end God always comes through--in his own time and on his own agenda and terms, revealing himself to us along the way, so that we might thank and praise him (Psalm 30:11-12). "Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning" (30:5).

So right now, Lord Jesus, we long for you to come and bring your Throne and the Regeneration. It's hard to know we may have to wait how many years?--fifty? sixty? seventy? Yet even now may this hope of your sovereign power and love be our strength and give us peace as we wait for you.

The LORD sits enthroned over the flood;
the LORD is enthroned as King forever.
The LORD gives strength to his people;
the LORD blesses his people with peace.
(Psalm 29:10-11)

Veni veni Emanuel!

Heirs by grace

Now that I'm wrapping up several months of study in the Pentateuch, I was looking foward to spending some time again reading the Psalms. Well, lo and behold, the first psalm I read this morning, 105, was essentially a retelling of the Pentateuch's story. One interpretive feature of many psalms is that the meat of their content in the middle is framed by "bookends" that provide the main theme. In the case of Psalm 105, a retelling of Israel's deliverance from Egypt and entry into Canaan, the bookends are about God's righteousness in upholding his covenant with Abraham.

7 He is the LORD our God;
his judgments are in all the earth.
8 He remembers his covenant forever,
the word he commanded, for a thousand generations,
9 the covenant he made with Abraham,
the oath he swore to Isaac.
10 He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree,
to Israel as an everlasting covenant:
11 "To you I will give the land of Canaan
as the portion you will inherit." (vv. 7-11)

42 For he remembered his holy promise
given to his servant Abraham.
43 He brought out his people with rejoicing,
his chosen ones with shouts of joy;
44 he gave them the lands of the nations,
and they fell heir to what others had toiled for-
45 that they might keep his precepts
and observe his laws.
Praise the LORD. (vv. 42-45)

We learn here that God's treaty with Abraham is a promise sworn "forever" by God (v. 8) and is an "everlasting covenant" (berith olam, v. 10). But wait a second--wasn't it fulfilled already? Didn't Israel inherit the land? Well, not quite.

Centuries later the priest Zechariah (whose name means "the LORD remembers") extolled the Lord's righteousness at the Messiah's advent (Luke 1:67-79): With the coming of the Messiah has God now remembered "the oath he swore to our father Abraham." What had God done? He had raised up the true Davidic king, Jesus Christ. Psalm 105 points us ahead to the One who would "fulfill all righteousness" on our behalf. Jesus, Abraham's true Seed (Galatians 3:15-22), has now by his own faith and righteousness inherited the true "promised land," the kingdom of heaven. He earned it by his own merit and righteousness, doing his Father's will even unto death. And by another covenant (diatheke) what he earned he now freely gives us by grace (Hebrews 9:15-17). Through no toil or merit of our own, we've "fallen heir to what others [or Another] had toiled for" (Psalm 105:44). We share in Christ the Son's own everlasting inheritance by open-handed faith.*

National Israel may have been given provisional access to a small plot of hotly-contested land. But now we see that in the Messiah God's promise to Abraham means so much more. His descendants--the Israel of faith--are nothing short of all peoples, tongues, and tribes**; his land is nothing short of the entire earth now, and "the new heavens and the new earth" in the age to come.

Not only do I think it's cool to see foreshadows of the gospel in the Old Testament. What is much, much better is our tenaciously faithful and furiously loving Father; our self-emptying Savior who suffered that we might become sons; and the Spirit who breathes the life of faith into us by which we grasp hold of Christ and life in his kingdom.
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*See Romans 8:14-17; Galatians 3:26. Being "adopted as sons" in Roman times involved conferring a right to an inheritance.
**According to the Bible, Israel is no longer a plot of land or limited to Jewish people; the entire global church is Israel. "If you belong to Christ, you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29; cf 6:16 and Romans 4).

Advent: God Drawing Near

It's almost inescapable: Christmas is celebrated with placid pastoral scenes of a babe cradled in a bed of straw, with his adoring parents around him beaming. (Of course, in many nativity scenes, the holy family are literally beaming with light!) We think it's a time of good cheer and peacefulness, a time of repose, a time to say, "no more worries." And all that it is. But as I've been studying Exodus over the past few months, the picture painted there of God-come-down is entirely different.

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloudover the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the LORD descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, the whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder. Then Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. (Exodus 19:16-19)

When the God of the heavens tore open the heavens and came down to meet with his chosen people, he came as "a consuming fire" (24:17). "Our God comes and will not be silent," attests the psalmist. "A fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages" (Psalm 50:3). God coming to Earth is not a welcome sight for most people. Just ask King David!

In the same sermon from 1928 which I quoted from earlier, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says much the same--that the fearful event of God-among-us should lead Advent to be a time of self-examination.

Perhaps, after all, Advent is a time for self-examination before we open the door [to Christ]. When we stop to consider, the contrast between those early Christians and us is extraordinary. They trembled at the thought of God coming, of the day of the Lord, when Jesus, "Judge eternal, throned in splendor," would shatter the complacency of all the world. But we take the thought of God coming among us so calmly. It is all the more remarkable when we remember that we so often associate the signs of God in the world with human suffering, the cross on Golgotha. Perhaps we have thought so much of God as love eternal and we feel the warm pleasures of Christmas when he comes gently like a child. We have been shielded from the awful nature of Christmas and no longer feel afraid at the coming near of God Almighty. We have selected from the Christmas story only the pleasant bits, forgetting the awesome nature of an event in which the God of the universe, its Creator and Sustainer, draws near to this little planet, and now speaks to us. The coming of God is not only a message of joy, but also fearful news for anyone who has a conscience.

It's difficult for me to keep this in mind, when I've got 27 Christmases of warmth and cheer behind me. But perhaps only when we consider this, pondering it in wonder and awe, will the child who becomes the Prince of Peace really be good news.

Advent: Bonhoeffer on Waiting

Celebrating Advent means learning how to wait. Waiting is an art which our impatient age has forgotten. We want to pluck the fruit before it has had time to ripen. Greedy eyes are soon disappointed when what they saw as luscious fruit is sour to the taste. In disappointment and disgust they throw it away. The fruit, full of promise, rots on the ground. It is rejected without thanks by disappointed hands.

The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfillment of promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking with patient uncertainties until the answers come. They lose the moment when the answers are revealed with dazzling clarity.

Who has not felt the anxieties of waiting for the declaration of friendship or love? The greatest, the deepest, the most tender experiences in all the world demand patient waiting. This waiting is not in emotional turmoil, but gently growing, like the emergence of spring, like God's laws,* like the germinating of a seed.

Not all can wait--certainly not those who are satisfied, contented, and feel that they live in the best of all possible worlds! Those who learn to wait are uneasy about their way of life, but yet have seen a vision of greatness in the world of the future and are patiently expecting its fulfillment. The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manger. God comes. The Lord Jesus comes. Christmas comes. Christians rejoice!

In a few weeks we shall hear that cry of triumph. . . . But, not so quick! It is still in the distance. It calls us to learn to wait and to wait aright.

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from a sermon delivered in Barcelona on Dec. 2, 1928.

Text: Revelation 3:20

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*Presumably Bonhoeffer means the laws that govern the natural order.

To dwell with the contrite and lowly

Over Advent and Christmastide, I had been reading a collection of Advent and Christmas sermons by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I thought I’d pass along some comforting insights of his into the Christmas message, the news that God chose not a mighty king and lord, with clean nails and an Armani suit and perfect teeth, but a lowly baby in a feed trough. As he promises to dwell with and comfort those who weep over their contemptible sin (Isaiah 57:15) and raise up the poor and oppressed (Luke 1:51-53) so did he fulfill those promises at Christmas.

God is not ashamed to be with those of humble state. . . . He loves the lost, the forgotten, the insignificant, the outcasts, the weak, and the broken. Where men say, “lost,” he says “found;” where men say, “condemned,” he says, “redeemed;” where men say, “no,” he says “yes.” Where men look with indifference or superiority, he looks with burning love, such as nowhere else is to be found. Where men say, “contemptible!,” God cries, “blessed.” When we reach a point in our lives at which we are not only ashamed of ourselves, but believe God is ashamed of us too, when we feel so far from God, more than we have ever felt in our lives, then and precisely then, God is nearer to us than he has ever been. It is then that he breaks into our lives. It is then that he lets us know that the feeling of despair is taken away from us, so that we may grasp the wonder of his love, his nearness to us, and his grace. (From a sermon based on Luke 1:46-55; December 17, 1933)

I think this is powerful. Right when we’ve been so humbled and crushed under the burden of our sin, when we think we are the most wretched of all beings and worthy of nothing but eternal contempt—right here is God near to us, is God for us. In love for us he was disfigured and despised and himself bore the full weight of our transgressions (Isaiah 52:13—53:6). How can we run away from him in when our ugliness comes to light? How can we flee his open arms, thinking that we’re not lovely enough to be loved? I wish I had the answer to such doubting questions—because I do flee in disbelief.

And from a sermon on Isaiah 9:6-7:

Precisely in the lowliness and weakness of the child is the beginning of his taking the government of all the world upon him. The head of the house indicates his government over the house by the key which he hands over his shoulder. That shows that he has the authority to open or shut the door, to let people in or to show them out, as he will. And that is also the way that the cross over his shoulder shows his authority as governor. He opens to those whose sins he forgives, and he shuts out the proud. That is the nature of the child’s government, that he receives the humble, the lowly and sinners, bearing their burden, but he rejects and brings to nothing the proud, the high and the mighty, the self-righteous. (Christmas 1940)

Winter solstice

[By] the tender mercy of our God
. . . the sunrise shall dawn upon us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:78-79, ESV margin; cf. RSV)

Today is December 21, the winter solstice. Tonight will mark the longest night of the entire calendar year here in the northern hemisphere--just over fifteen hours here in Michigan, to be exact. Although it was temporarily denounced by the Church as syncretic, I think it's beautifully fitting that the celebration of the Messiah's historical birth has been joined with this solar phenomenon. (The solstice, though actually occurring any time between December 20-23, was marked by December 25 on the old Julian calendar.) Though this is the longest night, from tomorrow onward the daylight hours will know only increase.

Christ comes to us in like fashion. From his coming onward, the night of sin, death, and the world's evils has no choice but to flee before his dawn of his coming. "The darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining" (1 John 2:8). Hence he is worshiped as the Dayspring. Jesus is born quietly into the darkness of night and the tyranny of oppression--Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem because they lived in forced submission to the authority of Rome--but with him comes the light of forgiveness, freedom, peace, victory, and the knowledge of God. We know not all of it yet; but we have seen the rays of light peeking over the horizon, and we live in hope that the full light of day is merely a matter of patient waiting. "He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.' Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" (Revelation 22:20)

Bonhoeffer on waiting

Happy New Year!—the church liturgical year, that is. Every year it begins with the season of Advent. It is not yet Christmas (which is celebrated over the twelve days from December 25 until Epiphany on January 6), for advent means “coming.” The Christkindl (Christ child) isn’t here so soon; peace and goodwill haven’t yet been made incarnate. Like those faithful who had to wait for thousands of years for the Messiah to come his first time, Advent is a season to wait upon the promises of God that light our ways in darkness, flickering candles that point the way to the inbreaking of a greater dawn (Luke 1:78-79).

Like last year, I’m reading through a series of Advent and Christmas sermons by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose writings I’ve found to be extremely formative in some aspects of my life. Here is what he has to say about waiting in a sermon from December 2, 1928. The sermon is based upon Jesus’ words in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

Celebrating Advent means learning to wait. Waiting is an art which our impatient age has forgotten. We want to pluck the fruit before it has had time to ripen. Greedy eyes are soon disappointed when what they saw as luscious fruit is sour to the taste. In disappointment and disgust they throw it away. The fruit, full of promise, rots on the ground. It is rejected without thanks by disappointed hands.

The blessedness of waiting is lost on those who cannot wait, and the fulfillment of promise is never theirs. They want quick answers to the deepest questions of life and miss the value of those times of anxious waiting, seeking with patient uncertainties until the answers come. They lose the moment when they answers are revealed in dazzling clarity.

Who has not felt the anxieties of waiting for the declaration of friendship or love? The greatest, the deepest, the most tender experiences in all the world demand patient waiting. This waiting is not in emotional turmoil, but gently growing, like the emergence of spring, like God’s laws, like the germinating of a seed.

Not all can wait—certainly not those who are satisfied, contented, and feel that they live in the best of all possible worlds! Those who learn to wait are uneasy about their way of life, but yet have seen a vision of greatness in the world of the future and are patiently expecting its fulfillment. The celebration of Advent is possibly only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who can look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manger. God comes. The Lord Jesus comes. Christmas comes. Christians rejoice!

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*Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons, Edwin Robertson, ed., tr., (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2005), 20.