Advent 3B How Can I Keep From Singing? 11 Dec. 11

A Christian tension is present in today’s readings.  We find ourselves in our beloved community, yet we walk only the path that we have each been given individually.  Even Jesus’ life, superlative as it was, is not better for any one of us than our own.

For…

“[John] confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, ‘I am not the Messiah.’” (John 1:20)

This may seem obvious to you.  But believe me; it isn’t always obvious to us followers of Christ and other do-gooders.  For example, let me tell you about a fellow I knew once.  We had to talk him down from the concept that he could be some kind of incarnation of Jesus himself.  We weren’t saying he couldn’t follow Jesus, but just that he couldn’t be Jesus.

As many have pointed out, “The Savior already came, and you aren’t him!”[1]

Because as Christians we are called into this rejoicing type of life outlined in First Thessalonians; a life of “Following on the Way,” which is an ancient way of describing following Christ.  But we aren’t called to be Jesus.  In fact, we do well to take a cue from John the Baptist here and remember we aren’t Jesus, but we are ourselves.  And that’s enough.

This has to do in part with knowing our limits—yes, we will not reach the same sinless state of Christ, but we will be quite good at being ourselves, if we try to listen to what God has in store for us. 

Can we confess that we have failed at being a savior—either for ourselves or someone else?  And can we leave that job up to Jesus?  As we have heard, we do have a Messiah, and “the one who calls [us] is faithful (1 Thess. 5:24a).” 

And we are called, each and every one of us, as was Mary. 
Mary said yes!  And we say yes! And the whole creation groans yes! 

When we remember our need for a savior, our only helpmeet against our own limitations, but also the one who glories in our gifts, the one whose existence has “made us worthy to stand before [God],”[2] in other words, when we remember who Jesus is, we can begin to see who we are a bit too.  Because this all has to do with wholeness—recognizing our gifts and feeling affirmed as our whole selves.

Wholeness—this is a really big concept in First Thessalonians…”May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thess. 5:23).”  Instead of the dualism we often hear coming out of the Greek world, Paul says that we Christians are not complete if we are not sanctified in every bit of our being.  We are not complete if we do not recognize that every part of us is holy, even if it is an area we are still working on.  This means that finding wholeness in all parts of our lives leads to a sense of holiness in every part of our lives. 

Rejoice! When we confess that Jesus is the Savior, (and I am not), we claim who we truly are, with all our brilliant possibility as children of God.  We live into wholeness, and have the ability to accept ourselves and life as they are.   We can approach life with the loving agape Paul encourages in the Thessalonians.  This is not just a love for others, but for us also.[3]

This Following the Way business can be tricky—learning who you are individually I know encompassed the whole decade of the 70s for some folk. J  But I think a real part of this is that in seeing who Jesus is, we, like John the Baptist, can gain amazing clarity on who we are—as individuals, and as a church.

Perhaps you may have heard of the movie, “The Way,” in which Martin Sheen plays a man who goes and walks the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile trek across France and Spain, inspired by his son who dies his first day on the Camino.  Walking the Way of Santiago has obvious symbolic parallels with the Christian life, even down to being called “the Way.”  And during my experience walking the last 70 miles or so of one of the Camino routes, I lived a more profound reality of what it means to follow Jesus and live the Christian life than I had ever before imagined.  So much trust was involved in just following those yellow arrows, for one thing! 
But one part of the film that struck me was that in the beginning, a French Police Officer makes it clear to Sheen’s character that he must walk the Camino for himself, not for someone else.[4] 

We must each walk our own path in Christian life.  We are not the Messiah, but we are ourselves, and if we live our lives full to the bursting of our own possibility, that will be enough.   Our mouths will be filled with song, and we will feel all the energy of Isaiah, ready to proclaim this Good News!
If there is an exception here, one might think of Jesus.  He did walk for all of us.  The Camino de Santiago, like many such routes, is often undertaken as penance.  Jesus carried all of our sins, so that our burdens would be light.  Maybe Jesus took on this role for all of us so that we could each play our own part without losing sight of our own role in our all—too human temptation to try to play the savior.  He already did that.  We get to do our own thing.
And for that, I rejoice!  In my whole being, spirit, and soul and body, I rejoice!  Thank you, Jesus for coming and saving us!  How can we keep from singing?

Thank you Jesus that you will come again, and help us to each do our own part until you come to teach us more about you, more about love.

And with Mary, we say “yes!” to that!

Come, Lord Jesus.  Amen.

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[1] As quoted in The Girlfriends’ Clergy Companion: Surviving and Thriving in Ministry, by Melissa Lynn DeRosia, Marianne J. Grano, Amy Morgan and Amanda Adams Riley (Herndon [VA]: Alban, 2011).

[2] Eucharistic Prayer B in The Book of Common Prayer.

[3] Lee W. Bowman, “Pastoral Perspective: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24,” FOTW Year B, Vol. 1.

[4] The Way, 2011.