Exchanged Living

An Advent Responsive Reading for Hope, 2009

(This is a reading I've worked on for Advent this year. I'd love your thoughts, feedback, etc...Also, feel free to use it if you need to; let me know though. I'm curious. Also, with the top section, each of the ideas of Hope, Joy, Peace and Love correspond to different days of Advent- on the day we look at Hope, we'd only read the Hope line, etc...)

Leader:

      Hope: Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
        whose hope is in the LORD his God

      Joy: Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice!

      Peace: Grace to you, and peace from God our Father

      Love: Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us,
        even as we hope in you.


Congregation: For the Word became flesh and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.

Leader: Yes: Jesus Christ, Wonderful Counselor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, the light of the World, has come. This light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Congregation: The Lord is my light and my salvation; of whom should I be afraid? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; whom then should I fear?

Leader: For the LORD your God is living among you.
         He is a mighty savior.
     He will take delight in you with gladness.
         With his love, he will calm all your fears.
         He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

    So wait on the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage, and wait on the Lord. Jesus is coming soon!

Congregation: Amen! Jesus, come quickly!

Thomas Merton's "The Biography"

--Every once in a while, I come across poems that "attach" to me, if that makes sense; maybe you have songs or films or books or poems like that. Ones that stick to your ribs, that read you as you read them.  I've been reading a lot of Merton lately, and this poem has grabbed hold of me. I think you should read it (preferably out loud and paced, taking it in bite by bite like a great steak).

The Biography

O read the verses of the loaded scourges,
And what is written in their terrible remarks:
"The Blood runs down the walls of Cambridge town,
As useless as the waters of the narrow river--
While pub and alley gamble for His vesture."

Although my life is written on Christ's body like a map,
The nails have printed in those open hands
More than the abstract names of sin,
More than the countries and towns,
The name of streets, the numbers of the houses,
The record of the days and nights,
When I have murdered Him in every square and street.

Lance and thorn, and scourge and nail
Have more than made His Flesh my chronicle.
My journeys more than bite his bleeding feet.

Christ, from my cradle, I had known you everywhere,
And even though I sinned, I walked in You, and I knew You were my world:
You were my France and England,
My seas and my America:
You were my life and air, and yet I would not own You.

Oh, when I loved You, even when I hated You,
Loving and yet refusing You in all the glories of Your universe

It was Your living Flesh I tore and trampled, not the air and earth:
Not that You feel us, in created things,
But knowing You, in them, made every sin a sacrilege;
And every act of greed became a desecration,
Spoiled and dishonored You as in Your Eucharist.

And yet with every wound You robbed me of a crime,
And as each blow was paid with Blood,
You paid me also each great sin with greater graces.
For even as I killed You,
You made Yourself a greater thief than any in your company,
Stealing m sins into Your dying life,
Robbing me even of my death.

Where, on what cross my agony will come
I do not ask You:
For it is written and accomplished here,
On every Crucifix, on every altar.
It is my narrative that drowns and is forgotten
In Your five open Jordans
Your voice that cries my: "Consummatum est."

If on Your Cross Your life and death and mine are one,
Love teaches me to read, in You, the rest of a new history.
I trace my days back to another childhood,
Exchanging, as I go,
New York and Cuba for Your Galilee,
And Cambridge for Your Nazareth,
Until I come again to my beginning,
And find a manger, star and straw,
A pair of animals, some simple men,
And thus I learn that I was born,
Not now in France, but Bethlehem.

Johnny Mathis and Advent

Growing up in a Southern Baptist Church in the South can lead to any number of odd effects:

• You automatically (even subconsciously) know at least a little bit of Spanish (not because of exposure to other cultures, but because the song "Via Dolorosa" was sung many times over in the services by women of various talent levels. Thanks for the memories, Sandi Patti.)
• You have a strange affinity for pot luck dinners, and especially for casseroles with crumbly fried onions or Ritz crackers or Corn Flakes on top.
• You know who the Gaither's are. By name and by picture.
• In a blind scent test, you can tell the difference between any other book and a hymnal.
• (enter your own hilarious memory here)

AND--you probably have no idea about things like Advent, because more than likely your church didn't follow the traditions marked historically by the Christian Calendar. I grew up knowing about Easter and Christmas, and I knew Lent was when we ate fish on Fridays, but Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Pentecost, and the like were foreign subjects to me, and I was in the church all the time.  We did our first Advent celebration at Hope last year, and I've found that catching onto the idea of Advent is like gaining insight into communion: you gain the most insight into the practice through the experience of participating in it.

Thinking back on my upbringing, however, there are certain elements of how we practiced celebrating Christmas that were very Advent-driven, but none more than my parents use of the album Merry Christmas by Johnny Mathis. Behold, Johnny! In all his Christmas majesty!

Now, from my understanding, there are many different ways Christmas morning's gift opening can be approached.  Some people woke up as kids and just went tearing into any git with their name on it, regardless of who was awake or around. Some kids woke up their parents to join them in going to see what was under the tree. Not at our house, though. No, there was no sneaking down to even get a peek of what Santa had left behind.

Our house was two-story, and my brothers and I all lived upstairs. On Christmas morning, we were not allowed to come down the stairs until we were invited to by our parents (This kept us from waking them at odd hours, and gave them time to make sure Santa arrived and got everything set up right).

Usually my mom would call us to the top of the stairs to sit, where she or my Dad would greet us with a video camera. This was Christmas ritual: we sat at the top of the stairs, and my mom asked us the same three or four questions:

"What day is it today?" ---> CHRISTMAS!!!

"How old are you today?" ---> (We rattle off our ages. Yes, this still happens today.)

"Are you ready to see what Santa brought you?" ---> YES!!!!!!!!

And then, one of my parents disappears into the living room, where we can't see them. And we wait, like hunting dogs waiting to be released by our master to find a fresh kill, perched on the top step, anticipating the cue from the living room so the paper carnage can begin.

And what was that cue, might you ask? Yes. Johnny, sweet Johnny...

To this day, the opening bars of "Winter Wonderland" excite me. That is the song of Christmas' arrival. I mean, it was the season throughout the holidays, but Johnny's "Winter Wonderland" meant Christmas was here.

We'd fly down the stairs, pushing each other aside if necessary,  to see what Santa had brought us.  And it wasn't a tornado of gift wrap and ribbon from that point, either. To this day, we have an order in which we open certain things, starting with the sewing machine drawers from my grandmother's sewing machine (which is another post coming). But there was something about turning that corner into the living room and seeing a gift (or 20, as mom and dad are big gifters) that had been waiting for you to come and discover it.

In Luke 2, we find that shepherds were welcomed into Christmas by songs and sounds of praise. They announced the birth of the Christ with disruptive joy, and the shepherds respond with a great line:

"Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about..."(v. 15)

I like to imagine the shepherds running towards Bethlehem, just wanting to catch a glimpse of the Christ that has just been announced to them. I mean, this was not a normal occurrence in my understanding of occurrences: angels shining out in the night and speaking to shepherd didn't happen regularly. Can you imagine the questions they had after that? What just happened? The Christ? A baby? Are your ears still ringing with that song? We have to see this...

Ok...I'm getting into sermon mode, and its late...I'll just leave you with this: celebrating Advent can lead us back to this kind of anticipation in our faith--the kind that can't go to sleep because the possibilities of what Christ will bring leaves us looking and listening with impatient joy.  May we become more sleepless as we anticipate the gift of Jesus breaking into our world, bringing hope, salvation, and the Kingdom of God into every peak and valley, peering into each moment with longing and joy, knowing He is coming and we will see it.

An Advent Prayer: Men's and Women's Groups

The Annex Groups (or small group bible studies) of Hope are writing prayers for each of the Advent Services at our church. Here's the prayer that was prayed last week:

Reader: The Lord is God and He has made His light shine upon us. (Psalm 118:27a)

All: Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His love endures forever. (Psalm 118:29)

Reader: Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the man who trusts in Him. (Psalm 32:10)

All: Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. (Isaiah 60:1)

Reader: The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. (John 1:9) 

All: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

Reader:Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men. (Luke 2:14)

As we light this Advent candle of LOVE, let us remember that it is:

        All:  LOVE that includes…not excludes

               LOVE that encourages…not discourages

               LOVE that serves…not demands to be served

               LOVE that is redeeming…not judging             

                 LOVE that is UNCONDITIONAL

                 LOVE THAT IS EVERLASTING AND WILL NOT LET US GO

Reader: Let us remember that this great LOVE is in the person of Jesus Christ. It is the LIGHT of LOVE in the darkness that we continue to seek as did the wise men of old. The LIGHT of LOVE is JESUS, whom we worship in this Advent season.

All: Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift! (2 Corinthians 9:15)

Link it Up

Lots of good links these days...

First, the absurd:

• Fan of Keanu Reeves? Check out this article that explores the full range of his facial expressions in a field guide format.
• Did the Magi have mullets? This article offers a convincing argument as to why the author believes they did...
• Free Decemberween Music Downloads from Homestar Runner!

Next, the provocative:

• My new friend Justin cites two great lyricist on the tension of believing.
• The people at The Rabbit Room have posted some amazing Advent thoughts on the shepherds of the Christmas story... sound familiar, Hope peoples?
• JD, as always, is churning out amazing thoughts on worship. This series is particularly centered on Worship and Mission. That link is to the first post--make sure to read them all... 
• Check out the Hubble Telescope Advent Calendar.

Then, the musical:

• NPR posted their reader's top 25 albums of the year. A great list, with Fleet Foxes at #1, and Bon Iver at #3... who I'm seeing Wednesday night, btw...
• Girl Talk's album Feed The Animals is available at name your price values. It's on that NPR list. I'm currently downloading it, though I can't vouch for it as of yet... (update: this is not "Christian Music" in any sense of the word...but it's fascinating. Over 300 samples going into the album--it's almost a challenge to see if you can name all the songs that go into it.)

And finally, the Rock, Flag and Eagle:

An Advent Prayer: Annex-Married Class

The Annex Groups (or small group bible studies) of Hope are writing prayers for each of the Advent Services at our church. Here's the second of the two prayed this week:

Male – Our God, Our Redeemer, Our Savior, Our Hope…

Female – Strengthen our weakened hands; make steady our feeble feet…

ALL – God the Father, our Source of Hope!

Male – Let us rejoice in the confidence of Your Hope; let us be certain in the uncertainties of today…

Female – Let us hold tightly to the Hope we know, for You can be trusted to keep Your promise…

ALL – God the Father, our Source of Hope!

Male – Let us take hold of the stories of victories that were before us, and let us encourage and be encouraged by the history of Your faithfulness…

Female – Let those who have an anxious heart be reminded to “Fear Not!”, for You are faithful and good…

ALL – God the Father, our Source of Hope!
ALL MALES – May our worries and fears be replaced with Your Word and Your Spirit; May Your Word and Your Spirit be an anchor for our soul…

ALL FEMALES – May the Hope that lives in us be a reminder for generations to come; May that Hope be a fortress for the weak, and a light for those in darkness…

ALL – May God, the Source of Hope, fill us completely with joy and peace, and may He incite us to act in love, because we trust in Him.  May we live with an overflowing of confident Hope through the power of His Spirit.  May we live today with an expectant eye towards tomorrow, and the final fulfillment of Hope…the blessed return of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Reflections on an Exodus-Based Prayer Experience

Today at TFCA, Andrew and I led the Middle/High School students through a prayer experience we crafted around the Exodus, which we've studied for the past several week together. We based each of the stations on one of the events we discussed:

• We began with a "burning bush" experience, where we lit was was, in effect, a candle representing God's ever-presence and call to us to recognize Him in our midst. Students removed their shoes and prayed, echoing back to YHWH's conversation with Moses on holy ground.
• One station was a naming station. Moses' name means "to draw out", and the Exodus story shows us how Moses fulfilled the plan of God in obedience and drew the Israelites out of Egypt and into the land of promise. At this station, we asked students to write their names on large sheets of paper, where other students could then come and write attributes of those students they see as part of how God may use them in the future for his kingdom.
• We had two chain-metaphor stations: one for confession and one for deliverance. The confession chain was a long chain of paper strips (pictured above) where students could confess things that were keeping them in Egypt, so to speak, and out of the experience of God's promise. The deliverance chain was the inverse of that--it was a chain of praise for the ways God has delivered them out of bondage and into His full provision and victory.
• We has a psalm/song station based on Moses and Miriam's songs in Exodus 15. These songs boast in the Lord's might and power, His favor toward His people and His faithfulness to keep His word. We asked students to write their own poem/psalm/song/prayer about the things the Lord has done for them and their families/churches. They then kept their writings in their bible, marking this passage with their own echo of this chapter.
• We had a station of intercession, where we asked students to stand in for those who are suffering and need the Lord, asking for His mercy and deliverance for others. They wrote these names and situations on white boards and prayed for the requests of others as well as the situations they wrote down.
• And finally, we had a "manna station. The manna station consisted of note cards and empty bread loaf bags. Students wrote down verses on the cards that were nourishing to their own walk of faith. They then placed these cards in the bread bags. At the end of the prayer experience, the students drew "manna" out of the bread bags to take with them as encouragement and nourishment for their journey.

We've set up a number of prayer experiences like this before (with varying stations). Todays was shortened a bit, but ended up being a pretty amazing experience from what we saw and heard. At the end of the time, we brought the two chains of deliverance and confession and linked them together with a piece of paper bearing the name of Jesus. We talked about how, much like the Exodus story, our life of faith is the story of the tension between deliverance and the need for it. We live in the already/not yet experience of salvation, and Jesus is not only our Savior and our Hope, but also our process (or our Sanctification). He is the Victor where we've tasted victory, and the only chance of victory where we need it most.

In a lot of ways, this is very Advent-y; this season in which we celebrate that the Messiah has come and yet we grieve and long for the day when He returns and makes all things new. I think its crucial to tap into this kind of tension in our faith because it drives us to both the covenant we're in and the hope we have because of it. Jesus' arrival in the flesh was the culmination of a long history of God's faithfulness being shown in history as He related to Israel. It was the covenant of God that God acted out of towards the Israelites in the Exodus story, to the point where before the writer mentions that God was remembering His covenant with Abraham, Issac and Jacob, he had already set Moses apart to "draw out" the people for His purposes. By the time we reach the New Teatament, we see this pattern of God's faithfulness to His promises as well established in spite of the reckless and often shameless disobedience of His people. He is faithful, and those who stand on His promises have never seen anything but that.

The baby in the manger is the most tangible expression of God's faithfulness to His people in all of history. It's His committment to His word, as He once again steps into history to intervene for His people, and this time in a new way: as one of them. He becomes a frail, helpless child--picture the one who spoke the universe into existance now having to cry for food and drink, a mother and father cleaning up the messes of the one who would clean up theirs, and all the worlds who would believe. The Incarnation gives us our cornerstone to build our faith on. And yet, there is still an equal call for hope in what has not yet come: the promise demands it.

One of my favorite portions of the Exodus story is when the Israelites are next to the Red Sea, fearing their imminant death as the best soldiers of Pharoah charge towards them. Moses makes this awesome speech, one that belongs in an epic like Braveheart or Gladiator:

Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."  (Exodus 14:13-14)

What confidence, eh? There's a part of me that wonders if the griping and complaining ones felt like  idiots after Moses rolled that little speech out. And yet, its not that part of the story that excites me the most; its the verse after it:

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on..." (v. 15)

The first time I read that passage, I didn't get it. "Hmmm...why cry out to God again...oh, yeah. They massive dudes with chariots coming to kill us. Lord, if you're going to deliver us, you better step in and do something---that's why I'm crying out to you."

But Moses didn't get it. God had already steped in: He gave his word.

When God called the children of Isreal out of Egypt, in the call, in the promise, everything they needed to move forward was provided. The motion of moving forward reflect what the writer of Hebrews marks as faith, or the assurance of things hoped for. God wasn't asking them to wait on Him, but rather to believe and hold to His promise and to move forward on it as their (only) hope. Maybe it was at the river side they first felt the tension of already having deliverance and not yet having it.

As we connected the two chains today, I began to think about how the incarnation and subsequent passion of Jesus is the only way this already/not yet tension becomes bearable. As Don Peters and David Clark pointed out in their intro to our (Hope's) Advent celebration, there are actually three comings we celebrate during Advent: the birth, the second coming, and Jesus' arrival in our own lives. Jesus arrived, but through the cross and resurrection, He still shows up. In the tension of already rescued and needed redenption, Jesus comes into our history, our circumstances and arrives, tying the faithfulness of God in our past to our moment, and linking our moment into the hope we have in Him now.

And it is through His arrival now, through the person of the Holy Spirit, that we are continually re-created and renewed. He enables holiness through giving us His very own, and through that we find and hold to the promise all the more; the promise ahead of us that is waiting to be unearthed and displayed.

So as we talk Advent, maybe we should talk more about this tension, and really start to embrace it. May it enable us to meet with Jesus now, as His life reaches back and forward in promise for us, establishing every step between Egypt and the promised land, the new Eden, forever.

An Advent Prayer: Annex-Lexington (or AnLex)

The Annex Groups (or small group bible studies) of Hope are writing prayers for each of the Advent Services at our church. Here's the first of the two prayed this week:

MALE 1:  We praise and thank you, Father, for the hope of Christ’s second coming.

MALE 2:  This is a hope that anticipates—even expects—the function of Your integrity on our behalf.

FEMALE 1:  The apostle John said of his vision, “I saw the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven

FEMALE 2:  He was given authority, glory and sovereign power

FEMALE 1:  All peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him

FEMALE 2:  His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away.  His kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

ALL:   Be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

MALE 1:  But our citizenship is in Heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

ALL:  Be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. 

MALE 2:  For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.  It teaches us to say “no” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is right. 

ALL:  Be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near.

FEMALE 1:  But you, who believe in Christ, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.

MALE 1:  You are all sons of the light and sons of the day.  We do not belong to the night or to the darkness.

FEMALE 2:  So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled since we belong to the day, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

MALE 2:  For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.  He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with Him. 

FEMALE 1:  Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 

MALE 1:  The Lord Jesus Christ said, “I am the first and the last.  I am the living one; I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever!”

ALL:  Be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near, and our hope is in the expectation of this promise!

An Advent Link-It-Up...

We had our first Advent Sunday of this season yesterday, and it was quite awesome in my humble opinion. This year we had asked different small groups in our community to write and lead our congregation through prayers for the Advent season. Yesterday, both sets of prayers blew me away. I'm going to post them this week...

We're encouraging people to read Scripture together through the Advent Season, and we've set up a blog called Advent At Hope where people can read along with us. (these readings are from the Book of Common Prayer, and we're using all of the references except the ones from the Psalter...we're wading into this group-reading pool slowly). If you're interested in following along, link over to it and join in!

I've also found two websites that I'm enjoying reading through the advent season:

Go To Bethlehem and See

The Rabbit Room  

Great insights, great ideas...good ways to get your Advent-mind thinking...

Oh--and hearty congrats to The Lusks and  The Slaughters on their new sons!