With You There is Light

Today’s piece represents a return visit to the website ThinkTheology.org which contains a broad assortment of approaches to Biblical, theological and practical study. This one is by Michael Sterns. Click the title below to read at source.

Life Sucks

Philippians 4:11-13 I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Yesterday morning at our church staff meeting, the senior pastor asked all of us how we’re all doing. I answered pretty honestly by saying that I’m doing okay, and he answered back, “You know? Life sucks right now.” It’s funny, in hindsight, because later that afternoon a FedEx came barreling through our parking lot and hit our church building’s awning. “Hit” might be a little euphemistic; the entire building shook when she hit the awning.

All of us in the building went out to see what had happened, and we see the driver panicking, looking at the damage to her vehicle and to the church building.

It was bad.

The funny thing is that we had literally fixed this awning a couple weeks ago because another delivery truck had ran into the awning (and then another hit it in the same day.) As I’m writing this, I can’t help but just laugh at the whole situation. I mean, it definitely sucks, but it’s okay. The company will take care of the damages, and we don’t need to really worry about it.

It’ll be taken care of.

It’s a little annoying, but it’ll be okay.

And I don’t want to sound too spiritual, but I definitely think it was God trying to catch all of our attentions. It’s so easy to stick to the script of the day, to do things as they’re supposed to be done, and it becomes somewhat monotonous. Sometimes God uses sucky things to jolt us, to draw attention to what God’s doing, and to remind us that it’s okay.

I’ve been in a long season of trying to find contentment. And if all of us are honest, we’re all trying to find that sweet spot of contentment. We’re constantly going through ups and downs, highs and lows, mountains and valleys, crests and troughs, and we’re trying to figure out how to be stable. In an attempt to remind myself of this, I’ve gotten this idea tattooed on my body, so that I can see it on a daily basis. Life goes up and down, and it sometimes sucks.

Those of you that have read my little posts may tire of my references to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but he’s a spiritual mentor of sorts. The more I read him, the more I appreciate him. The more I study his life, the more in awe I become. This was not a man that said and wrote pretty things. Bonhoeffer lived out his faith in the real world. The things that he said in the classroom, teaching young students, he then had to live it out as he suffered in prison. In a way, his writing and reading became practice as he lived out his faith, a journey from the head to the heart.

“In me there is darkness,
But with You there is light;
I am lonely, but You do not leave me;
I am feeble in heart, but with You there is help;
I am restless, but with You there is peace.
In me there is bitterness, but with You there is patience;
I do not understand Your ways,
But You know the way for me.”

“Lord Jesus Christ,
You were poor
And in distress, a captive and forsaken as I am.
You know all man’s troubles;
You abide with me
When all men fail me;
You remember and seek me;
It is Your will that I should know You
And turn to You.
Lord, I hear Your call and follow;
Help me.”
~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison.

Bonhoeffer was just like Paul in this regard. Paul wrote a beautiful letter to the church in Philippi, not as an abstract description of being content, but Paul was actually content because he had communion with Christ. Philippians 4:13 is an often quoted verse about our capability to endure hardship and do what needs to be done. But what it actually is saying is that we can only do things through Christ. It’s a lovely little preposition, isn’t it? It qualifies the sentence. And what I love is that this preposition, ἐν, can say more than just “through.” Bill Mounce defines it “spatially: in, inside, at, among, with; logically: by means of, with, because of; of time: during, while.”

It’s more than just a simple preposition.

It speaks to the kind of Savior Jesus is. He is able to do all things, and we are in him. Life is always going to suck, but we serve a Lord that has accomplished all things in life, and death, and he is our rock and salvation. We find contentment in all the messiness and craziness when we remember Christ. When we go through circumstances, maybe it’s God trying to get our attention.

Let life suck. Let it be an opportunity to abide in the loving arms of God.

Advent: A Time for Waiting

This morning our pastor read a quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters from Prison in which he compares the time of waiting for the coming of the Messiah to being in prison and awaiting release.  There are actually two relevant quotations available online, and I want to share both of them:

“A prison cell like this is a good analogy for Advent: one waits, hopes, does this or that—ultimately negligible things—the door is locked and can only be opened from the outside.”

—Lutheran theologian and anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Letters and Papers From Prison (1997) as quoted in the blog, A Boat Against The Current.

and

“Advent is a time of waiting. Our whole life, however, is Advent—that is, a time of waiting for the ultimate, for the time when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, when all people are brothers and sisters and one rejoices in the words of the angels: “On earth peace to those on whom God’s favor rests.” Learn to wait, because he has promised to come. “I stand at the door…” We however call to him: “Yes, come soon, Lord Jesus!”  “

   –Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), A Testament to Freedom: the essential writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Geffrey B. Kelly, F. Burton Nelson, eds., HarperCollins, 1995, p. 186 as quoted in Christian Quotation of the Day.

While exploring however, I found an interesting sermon manuscript in the blog of First Presbyterian Church in Lodi, Wisconsin about how at least one denomination is changing its approach to the observance of Advent…

I know that if a lot of you had your way, we would be singing Christmas carols in worship by now.  That’s the way it used to be.  The carols would start with the first Sunday in Advent so that most of the popular ones had been sung by Christmas Day and we could then move on to the new year and think about something else.  Singing Christmas carols during Advent helped put us “in the mood” for Christmas and all of its trappings – most of which were unrelated to the real meaning of Christmas in the first place.  And I noted this week as I crammed in a little Christmas shopping that in at least half of the stores I entered, the background music wasn’t Christmasy at all.  By the music, you wouldn’t know Christmas was around the corner even though the decorations around you would tell you differently.  My guess is that there are those store managers and owners who have decided to set aside playing Christmas tunes this time of year in order that they would not offend anyone’s sensibilities.  Most of the music played in commercial places is of a secular nature anyway, with little if any allusion to the coming of Christ.

But somewhere in the last 50 years or so, Presbyterians, United Methodists, Lutherans began to take a second look at what the time of Advent means and what kind of music is appropriate for it.  The Roman Catholics have always held to the strong sense of Advent – a time of waiting for the Christ to come.  So, I suppose, in some sense, the so-called main-line churches have given a nod to the Roman Catholic Church, acknowledging that in this instance, they are right to take the position they have.  Advent is a time for waiting, for anticipating with hope the peace, joy and love that will prevail with the coming of the Christ.  Advent is also a double entendre – has  a double meaning:  we anticipate Christmas because we know the Christ child was born 2000 years ago; but we also anticipate during Advent the coming of the Christ for a second time.  And so we wait.  We hold off on our Christmas carols during Advent and we sing songs that reflect our anticipation of that coming.  And to satisfy those of you who prefer the familiar carols, we provide Advent lyrics to the favorite and familiar Christmas tunes.

But we wait.  And often we are impatient about it…

This is about the first one-third of the sermon transcript. I invite you to experience the rest of what the writer has to say.