Another year, another pageant

Tis the season for bad costuming, wisemen and shepherds, angels running down the isles, straw fights in the stable, and more holiday snack food parties than you can imagine. You can easily find a calendar event for every night in December. There's no shortage of Christmas plays and cheesy scripts. Over time, you get the impression that you've seen it all before. And you have. I have.
And yet, as I sit at the back of a packed, small, country church on a frosty winter night, I realize that there is indeed a magic and a moment in all the overkill of these nativity reproductions. It's the exact moment we find Mary, Joseph & the baby in their makeshift manger, or stable, or cave, or whatever the particular location was. No matter how many times this story is told again and again, even if it be the exact same script and outfits year after year, there's a cautious commotion that erupts when the baby is brought out. From the back row, I watch as heads bob up and down, folks squirm for a better angle, or even stand up at their seat just to get a better glimpse. I too rise to my feet to see just what all the commotion is about. Who is the Christ child this year? Is he real or just a doll? What does he look like? Has he really come? Is this the year? Is this the one? God with us.
Perhaps that's it. Perhaps that's why every year, in churches or drive thru front lawns all over the world this time of year, you find people jockeying for position just to get a glimpse once again of the one they call Emmanuel. Who is it? Could it really be? Is he real?
May we never lose our curiosity of the cradle and the suspense of finding out just who or what awaits us in the manger this year. Merry Christmas!

Already...not yet

I’ve been thinking a lot about this concept of "already, not yet" this Advent season. For some reason, wherever I go, I continue to run into this aspect of already and not yet. The real struggle and essence of “already and not yet” has to do with the kingdom of God. I was reminded of this quite often two weeks ago in Arizona as we toured around the Red Rocks of Sedona.
There’s a chapel built there that juts out as a cross out of a thousand foot red rock wall. It’s a work of art that tourists flock to. I’m standing in the courtyard of the chapel overhearing conversations. One guy runs by catching up to his friend. "Nothing in the gift shop I guess," he asks? His friend replies, “Just a bunch of Christian bullshit.”
If you’re like me, that comment startles you at first. But, then I was saddened by it’s truth. Here’s this beautiful chapel that professes at it’s entry that “Its doors will ever be open to one and all, regardless of creed, that God may come to life in the souls of all men and be a living reality.” And yet, the large sign and stairs to your left as you enter point you down to a gift shop larger than the sanctuary itself, shamelessly selling God in anything from Elvis CD’s to glow in the dark bracelets. The cross juts out triumphantly from this rugged landscape and yet there is a very real reality that it too is far from the kingdom.
Another afternoon, we hiked a towering Red Rock formation. (I’m thankful for a professor I once had who lived through apartheid and taught me that all of us are racist by our fallen nature. We don’t always act it out viciously, but we all learn bias and favor one thing over another). We had reached the summit and climbed on past the trail end to an even more amazing precipice. As we came back down, another hiker had found his way around to this spot too and we told him how incredible it was. So, this young Anglo (I use the term Anglo simply because we had met so many international tourists, I'm not sure if he was American. He just appeared to be Caucasian and speak English) asked us to tell Lizzy and Alice to come around to see this side of the mountain. He had left them sitting back on a rock at the trail end. When we reached the trail again, there were a handful of folks talking, standing around a rock, and two Asian girls sitting there. I said to my brother-in-law, "I don’t think I see a Lizzy or Alice." To which he replied, without hesitation, "I think that’s probably them on the rock." (And it was after all).
Clearly, no harm was intended, but I had simply judged that a name like Lizzy or Alice wouldn’t belong to women of Asian descent or that they wouldn’t be hiking with someone of Anglo descent. It was an unlikely pairing in my mind. (But, then again, so is this theme of Advent in a world celebrating Christmas). My assumption was yet another reminder that while I may be saved by grace, and even called as a pastor, I am not yet the person God intended. The already and not yet was evident all around.