Liminality

At Christmas time it is hard even for doubters and unbelievers to not believe in something, if not everything. Peace on earth, good will towards all people, an innocence that truly exists, love that can inevitably be held, a dream coming true, the mystery of childlike faith, and the potentiality of hope – not even the canned carols piped over the shopping center parking plaza from Thanksgiving on can drown it out entirely. Christmas carries with it hallowedness, holiness, a time in which life grows still like the surface of a river so that when we look down upon it we see not the reflection of time, but the reflection of gracious presence. Frederick Buechner says, For a moment or two, the darkness of disenchantment, cynicism, and doubt draw back, at least a little, and all the usual worldly witcheries lose something of their power to charm. But my cynicism says, “No moment lasts forever.” It is only one day out of a year that the bird of dawning sings to us his tune. Darkne...

This week’s Advent theme is joy. I’ve been at Union Baptist Church over a year and I realized I preached an Advent sermon on joy last year. So, I went to the archives, pulled out my text and read it. Here is how I defined joy in 2008: Joy is a lot like faith; it is a choice. It is having the faith to step into and hold on to the light. Joy is the light that shines when all other lights fail. Eh, not bad. I don’t hate it. I used a lightness and darkness theme throughout the sermon and said joy is, “choosing the light.” I still think this is a good word. It preaches. It puts the responsibility of joy in our hands. But I can’t help but think, “Yeah, God’s light is a light that darkness can’t overcome, but how big is God’s light? Sometimes I feel like I’m in the dark all the time.” So my 2008 definition seems a little weak. It’s comforting to a point, but I think it also overlooks a very real truth for us: When we find ourselves in dark places of the soul, the light ...

Colossians 3:15 tells us to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. There was a time when farmers on the Great Plains would tie a rope from their porch to their barn on the first sign of a blizzard. They all knew the horror stories of friends and loved ones who froze to death after loosing sight of their barn or home and never left their backyard. Parker Palmer says, “Today we still live in blizzard in which people are dying in their backyards. The blizzard hits us with economic injustice, ecological ruin, physical and spiritual violence, and their inevitable outcome, war. It swirls within us as fear and frenzy, greed and deceit, and indifference to the suffering of others.” Truthfully, we all know people who have wandered off into this maddening world and have been separated from their own souls, they lose their moral bearing and sometimes their mortal lives. What these people share in common is they attempt to leave home to find fulfillment but they get caught in...

Our hope is in Christ. Hope that despite the fact that sin and death still rule the world, Jesus somehow conquers them. Hope that in him and through him all of us stand a chance of somehow conquering them too. Hope that at some unforeseeable time and in some unimaginable way Jesus will return with healing in his wings. C.S. Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity says, “We as humans carry a need that can’t be met in this world . . . me must therefore be made for another world." I love this quote because it captures all that Advent and Christianity stands for. Christians’ hope is in a Christ that returns with heaven and healing in his wings. But this is very hard for us because we are not trained to think of heaven as our ultimate resting place. We think of Sunday afternoon naps, the Tennessee Titans winning five games in a row, buying new electronics, watching the sunrise with a blanket and a cup of Joe, or eating ice cream on the beach. But heaven, well that is stra...