i know it's heavy, i know it ain't light...

but how you going to lift it with your arms folded tight?

advent is over

We’re in the Christmas season.

In the church-year that means we’ve moved from expectant waiting to living with the promise. Now, in this fabricated church-year, we live with that hope for which we’ve been waiting. Now, that hope is in our arms, wrapped in swaddling clothes, ready to change everything.

Change everything...

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but little has changed from 12/24 to 12/28.

maybe nothing has

The world doesn’t seem to be bursting with hope. If anything we’re just as, if not more, cynical, pessimistic…

What does that mean?

One could infer it means that Christianity is a farce.

And maybe it is.

What does it mean if all this is simply motions we go through, some sort of opiate to cope, some opiate to ease the pain of capitulation?

What would that mean?

These are questions Christians must consider...

Personally, I think intentionally malevolent people have exploited the religious institution and people’s good intentions to sedate people. I do think Christianity can be a farce.

That isn’t to say Christianity inherently is one. That isn’t to think for a moment that the movement Jesus inaugurated is an opiate at all. If anything it is a movement that bursts the chains of slavery, it is a movement that strives to realize the dignity and worth of all creation.

However, it is also a movement that has been co-opted to deny global warming (as if creation didn’t matter), oppose gay-rights (as if God doesn’t create and prefer diversity), erode public accountability (as if we are not held together in mutual love and care), et cetera, et cetera.

Here we are, the season of Christmas. The waiting is over.

yet I find myself still waiting

Maybe it is all simply going through motions…

Or maybe it is something more radical.

Maybe it means that my waiting should be transformed.

Maybe it means that rather than waiting expectantly I am not called to live:

hope-filled not hopeless,

expecting not cynical,

encouraged not despondent.

Indeed the earth still cries out under injustice. But maybe this delivery has wrought a transformation. Maybe this delivery places something really wonderful in my hands, and maybe that gift changes a lot.

Maybe now, after a season of waiting, I am sent.

Maybe I am sent to share the gift I have in my arms with those people and places that are waiting for justice, mercy and peace. Maybe now the resolve that I am called to care for my neighbor is intensified. And maybe in that sending I will find that for which I wait.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But Maybe; and I guess if this faith is something other than an opiate, something other than a farce, the only conclusion is to fall on the side of maybe.

Maybe this season of Christmas does herald in something new. Maybe this is a time between the now and not yet. Yes it must be affirmed that for many, including myself, the waiting is not over; but maybe it must also be affirmed that this delivery has changed me.

Now tragedy must be seen with eyes of compassion, sorrow, and yes, even hope. Certainly that is risky. Maybe there is no reason to hope anymore.

But maybe there is more reason to hope than ever.

“People tend to think religious talk is different from political talk. You can talk about the king(queen)dom and say it’s just a metaphor. But actually, it’s very real. You have to have deep, deep religious faith to stay in the struggle for a long time.”

~Cornel West.