ADVENTures Before Christmas, Week 3

Each week of Advent has a number of symbolisms, and the following table will be filled as the weeks progress.

Week	Scene	Attitude	People	Action
1st	Journey on a Donkey	Hope	Isaiah/OT Prophets	Expectation/Prophecy
2nd	Bethlehem	Peace	John the Baptist	Annunciation
3rd	Shepherds	Joy	Magi	Proclamation
4th

In the first week, we looked at suffering/penitence and its relationship to expectation and hope. The second week looked at how the solid promises of God through Christ gave peace even in the midst of trials and suffering. Historically, for reasons given below, the third week of Advent turned a corner into increasing joy and eager anticipation as the Day of Christ drew nearer. For some reason, the third week has an association with the Magi that visited gifts upon the Christ child, likely several weeks or more after Christmas, traditionally on January 6, Epiphany. Thus, today, I want to talk of gifts.

The Cost of Joy

In Bible Study this week, we looked at John 16: 16-24:

“Jesus went on to say, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.’”

“At this, some of his disciples said to one another, ‘What does he mean by saying, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?’ They kept asking, ‘What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what he is saying.’”

“Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, ‘Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.’”

Here, and throughout Scripture, God seems to bind fast together sorrow, grief and suffering inextricably with joy. It seems to be a divine, spiritual version of “no pain, no gain.” This spiritual truth is particularly troubling for the affluent mind.

Joy is not an emotion; it is an attitude, as state of the mind and heart. It is a promised fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), just like another popular fruit of the Spirit:  patience. As most of us know, ‘it is a fearful thing to ask the living God for patience.’ That is one prayer He often joyfully answers…by giving us trials that test and stretch our patience. It is very much like a gym workout, and you know it’s working when you can ‘feel the burn.’ If that is what He does for one Spiritual fruit, it stands to reason that He will do similar for the others.

Groaning in Travail

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”                                                                                                                Romans 8:22

Someone close to me is continually frustrated in his efforts to complete projects. It seems that products designed to accomplish specific tasks are always insufficient for the job. They are made too cheaply, don’t come with the right parts, the instructions are incomplete or nonsensical, fail to last a reasonable length of time—you get the idea.

I have tried to figure out if these things are so bad, why aren’t their more dissatisfied people? Are their needs different than his, so it works for them, but not for his needs? No, because he doesn’t use them (usually) outside their advertised purpose.

Is it a matter of expectation? In other words, are folks just satisfied with mediocrity, and he still has ideals set to a higher standard of performance? Maybe.

Is he just unlucky in the items he chooses to buy, both mechanical and electronic? I doubt it. I don’t know many people who spend more time researching products ahead of time than him.

As I share similar struggles to him at times (I think most of us do.), I try to understand what seems to be the problem.

One thing is likely he expects things to last, and perhaps many people are more comfortable than him with the idea that most things are disposable today.

Another idea is that he has an engineer’s heart and wants/expects things to move/work smoothly to a high degree of perfection, while others just do the best they can and focus on things with a higher priority in their lives.

I’m not issuing value judgments here either way—just trying to look at potential contrasts to see which ones fit best.

Why?

We live in a fallen world. All of us are more affected by various aspects of that fallen state than others, but we each have some key vulnerability(ies). This may be his. But whatever it is for you, me, or him, it is our reminder that there is something better out there, a hope that is calling out to us from the futility of our struggles. Pain, frustration, despair are things that call us to higher possibilities reminding us that this isn’t our true home. C.S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain that “Pain is God’s megaphone, to rouse a deaf world.”

But, as Christians, we would like to think we are roused, so He can put the megaphone away and quit yelling at us. It is like the sleepy high school student, yelling at mom to pipe down with an irritated, “I’m up! I’m up!”

But are we? Will we fall back asleep the moment it’s peaceful and quiet in our contented lives? Or, perhaps God isn’t yelling through a megaphone anymore, and now that we are awake, we see the mess of the world on our own, and we can’t seem to get away from it, because we are still in that world.

Does it really matter which way it is? It is our reality, regardless. So the question is how are we to respond?

Whether it is a continually buggy computer, or a vehicle that makes that horrible rattle that can’t be located, or a boss or colleague that makes work miserable, or a chronic malady hampering our health, we have to deal with it.

I’m not a self-help guru, so I don’t have “three easy steps” or “90 days to a new you.” All I know to do is to talk with the Lord about it, choose what attitude to have (and ask His help to maintain it!), and keep our attention focused on the important things in our lives, not the loudest.

A friend of mine puts it like this:  “Imagine your right hand is Christ and your left is your problems. If you focus on your problems, it is like you hold your left hand in front of your eyes and your right hand at arm’s length, and your problems are big and overwhelming and Christ seems small. If however, you focus on Christ and eternal things, it is like you are holding your right hand in front of your eyes and your left at arm’s length, and now Jesus is revealed to be bigger than your problems, and they, in turn, are cut down to size.”

A little cheesy perhaps, especially to write out, but there is a lot of truth to that.

“For the joy set before Him, Christ endured the cross.” Ok. That is perspective. What problems are in our lives that compare to crucifixion? That is a BIG inconvenience to one’s life (yes, tongue in cheek). Yet, He saw a joy that made that horror endurable. If our microscopic problems are so powerful that our joy is stolen, how pitiful is that joy?

Perhaps we do still need God to use that megaphone after all.

SDG