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[Pastor's Note: Very much enjoyed my vacation last weekend. It was the first time I'd taken a Sunday off for something other than a medical emergency or a family visit in nearly 4 years.]
Ah, Advent. My favorite season of the Church Year. The time of preparation for the coming of the Lord. We get a dose of apocalypse (last week), John the Baptist (this week and next), and Mother Mary (final week). We hear the ancient prophecies from Isaiah and other Old Testament writings. We see all the steps that lead up to both Jesus’ birth and his arrival on the scene as an adult.
It’s a bit like watching that cable TV show “How It’s Made,” where they show things like how cars are build or Oreos are baked and so forth. In Advent, we see how all the parts come together for this singular moment in human history, when God incarnated as one of us in order to save us all.
At this point in my ministry, I think I’ve preached a thousand sermons on what this is all about. God seeking to save the world, fulfilling the promises he made to Abraham all those centuries before. But part of me wonders if I’m not missing an important point, something that gets lost in all these grand world-changing gestures by the divine.
As it is for a lot of folks, the holiday season can be a bit hard on me emotionally. My depression flares up mightily and I end up wrestling with my demons more than usual, particularly this year in light of my summer of sickness. So, in an effort to stave off some of that, I was watching some inspiring videos on YouTube this week. One was a TED talk by social researcher Brene Brown about vulnerability and the power of being real with people. It really got me thinking about something.
Human beings, by in large, are terrified of vulnerability. We don’t want to be vulnerable. We don’t want to be flawed. And we hide our vulnerable parts; we hide our flaws. We pretend to be something we are not and it makes us absolutely miserable. We treat this misery often times with addictions of all sorts: drugs, alcohol, gambling, pornography, food, you name it. And it’s the malaise that is infecting our society. Why is politics the way it is? Why are we so divided? Because we can’t dare admit (not even to ourselves) that, just maybe, we might be wrong about something. That would make us vulnerable. And we can’t have that.
But where does this fear come from? Simple. We are afraid that if people see us as we truly are, they will reject us. They won’t love us. They won’t want anything to do with us. I know that’s my fear. It’s part of why I’m so open about some of my oddities, my hobbies and interests. It’s an effort to fight off that fear. But lest you think I’m bragging here, there’s a whole lot I don’t let people see also. Things no one sees. Parts of myself that I do not and probably cannot love.
And if we’re honest, we’d all admit the same.
So what does this have to do with Advent and the coming of Jesus? I want to flip the script a little and highlight a truth that can get lost in the midst of everything else. A truth I think we sometimes try to lose. I want us to think about all this prep, all these prophecies, all this energy that God is spending out, not as something he’s doing to save the world, but as something he’s doing to save you.
Yes, you. The whole you. All your beautiful parts that you love to show the world and all the ugliness and weakness you hide away even from yourself. The parts of yourself of which you’re proud and the parts of which you are ashamed. He’s doing all this for you, and for all of who and what you are. Jesus is coming for you.
Sometimes, when I talk about God’s universal love, that’s what gets lost. Yes, of course, God loves everybody and I am part of everybody and you are part of everybody, but that feels abstract and distant. I want to make it personal this time. Intimate, close. For God so loved you, that he sent his only son. That’s just as true.
You know, it’s the very first thing we learn when we become Christians. The very first lesson of Sunday School for those of us raised in the church. God loves you. So simple. So basic. But as we grow older, we become more aware of those ugly parts of ourselves. We come to realize we’re not perfect and some of us are downright flawed. And we doubt that love, because we regret our mistakes and we are embarrassed and ashamed of our ugly parts. We reason that if people knew the whole truth, they’d never want anything to do with us. And since we know also that God does know all those parts, he too wants nothing to do with us.
Yes, God knows all those things about you, but here’s the thing. He still loved you enough to send his son for you. He always intended to. There was never another option. In fact, I would wager that if you were the only person on Earth who needed Jesus, Jesus would have come anyway. And he would have gone to the cross and risen from the tomb for you and for you alone if that’s what was necessary.
That’s what it means when I say “God loves you.” Because that’s the kind of love it is. It’s not blind to your flaws. It embraces them. There may be parts of yourself that you cannot love. God does.
At Grace, we use a different form of the Confession and Absolution in worship than we do at Canadochly. The words of forgiveness that I speak there begin with the phrase, “God loved us even when we were dead to sin.” That’s a paraphrase of Romans 6, which is arguably one of the greatest chapters in all of the Scriptures. God loves you even with your sin, even with your flaws, even with your shame. He can’t not love you. You are his precious child, worth more to him than anything else. You are worth living for. You are worth dying for.
In spite of all the things you can’t stand about your inner self, God still loves you. And all of this that we celebrate in Advent, the words of John the Baptist about preparing the way, the prophecies that point to the birth of Christ, the song of celebration by John’s father, Zachariah, all of it is because of you. All of it is for you. All of it is so God can be with you forever.
The Scriptures are a great love story; a romance, in a sense. A love story between God and humankind. Or more specifically and perhaps more importantly, a love story between God and you. Amen.
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