Christmas 2020
There is an appointed time for everything, A time for every activity under the heavens:
- Ecclesiastes 3:1
O what a year, Lord. So many of my family, friends, and community have delivered their own observations on the environmental, geopolitical and societal events common to us all, so that I am inspired not to add my 2 cents (you – the reading audience – are welcome).
I will however say that the move my beautiful bride and I made this year, based on our sensing a spiritual call to be more closely connected to family, has impacted me in ways I could never have imagined. You literally provided us within a scant four-month timeframe, a clear and encouraging path. Trusting in that, we uprooted our thirty-year history in Tennessee and rerouted to South Dakota. You, my God, have inspired me, based on these “moving events” to share some personal discoveries You blessed me with regarding two strange topics: Your Rehearsals and Your Mysteries.
For you folks unfamiliar with such things, I’ll be brief, and ask only that you tag along for a moment – this will involve you too.
If you are into such things, you’ll know that Scripture mentions seven festivals which God tells believers that we are to “rehearse” forever. Some of you will dismiss these feasts and festivals as arcane or at best quaint. Others may search for deeper meaning. All of us might ask, “why we are commanded to invest so much time and energy into seemingly antiquated, often misunderstood rehearsed and announced covenants?”
For each of us the answer is different, but the purpose always involves at least one thing―choosing. Choosing either to acknowledge and honor; or choosing to not acknowledge a Spiritual Presence that we can neither see, nor completely fathom. I’ve found in my search of the text that it typically involves another factor – Anxiety or Anticipation of astounding things forthcoming. What we call it by another “A” word―Advent.
I’ve recently been pondering other events which are unrehearsed and unannounced. They present themselves as choices as well. The scribes of the Bible called them “mysteries”. They do not require deeper reflection, but instead, reaction. It’s difficult to see them coming, but when they happen, it’s a big deal―The biggest deals some would argue.
Jesus’ birth was one of those big deals. Though his coming was predicted, there was little warning of his arrival. All that the ancients had to reference at the time was some puzzling…“mysterious” passages in ancient texts; a star; some camel riders; and one more curious thing…Anxiety/Anticipation of astounding things forthcoming. One of the Biblical historical documentarians, a guy named Luke, mentions that in the moment when Jesus was born, King Herod was “anxious”, and with him, all the people of Jerusalem. Herod and the city dwellers somehow knew, though there had been no multi-media release, that something powerful and supremely significant was afoot. Their senses had been spiritually stirred in anticipation of something about to transform the ethereal landscape.
What’s my point? Lord, I’m finding it personally compelling that in both cases―the rehearsed commandments and the mysterious unprepared moments―You are active, working, moving in the moment. So that even when I feel hopeless, manipulated by the plans of humankind, abandoned by those I thought I could depend on; I have discovered that I…we…are participants (willingly or unwillingly) in things unseen; greater things, spiritually powerful and saving things.
For me, our move to South Dakota wasn’t an anticipated or planned thing. It was mostly a mystery until You, my God alerted us to and called us into the proper time and season for our participation. Were we willing? I have to admit it was an uncomfortable beginning. This calling was not part of any foreseen/rehearsed…“religious” observance. It required the blindest of faith. Yet we trusted because of what we had practiced in the past. I guess in a sense, our rehearsals of fellowship with You, made us far more confident of walking into the unknown.
Whether I perceive these times as wonderful or worrisome, I’ve learned that I am not only not in control, but I don’t need to be in control. My worry or my self-made plans matter less and less to me as I trust in Your desire for me. Yup, I am finally learning to decrease as You increase.
That “rebalancing” makes me anxious, in a very wonderful way for the moment, when humanity is brought to its ultimate decision―submission to its Superior relationship. I wonder how anxious in a wonderful or an uncomfortable way my family, friends and community are with such thoughts in Advent times like these?
Blessed Christmas to each and all of you,
Mark C.
