Good Morning Friends,
This morning I was looking at a painting attributed to Pieter Brueghel, called The Fall of Icarus. And a poem by W. H. Auden related thereto for it describes a moment beyond time relevant for our time and the importance to prepare for the tests of life. Auden writes this about Brueghel’s painting:
“About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.”
And having laid all this out I get back to the task at hand, but perhaps seeing with new insight the significance of a transformed partridge in a pear tree even as I ask: Just How Do We Prepare For Christmas?
Scripture: In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”
Luke 3:1-6 (NRSV)
constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.
Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11 (NRSV)
When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.
Philemon 1:4-6, 8-11 (NRSV)
Message: Did you know that when they are in stock, which they are not this time of year, you can buy a partridge for about $50, but that getting them to perch in a pear tree is a really difficult task. They tend not to take flight to perch in trees which is perhaps why they are included in the Brueghel painting. Not everything in our instinct is of benefit for our souls. So too for churches and parishioners, it is difficult to avoid the commercialization of Christmas. But perhaps we should not make it out to be such a bad thing if we seek the presence of Christ in the experience. The thing is that Advent is to help us focus on the spiritual preparation for Christmas and the coming of our Lord in the flesh to dwell with us more than the buying of presents, attending parties, singing carols, and decorating the home. It is more about leveling out the rough edges of our lives than a solstice party. So, maybe this year we will spend more time reading scripture and contemplating the advent wreath’s unending circle of hope, peace, joy, and love of Christ as we light candles. For such preparation is witness that the light of the world is with us attending in an elevated aesthetic focused on the healing of our brokenness and the brokenness of others beyond time. But then again maybe we should not put too much faith in wax. Icarus’ fate as Christ’s in the first coming is a fall to earth and brokenness that many consider failure. But if it is considered failure, it is the most important failure of all history. So too in preparing for Christmas, we must attend to all those broken events beyond time for they are likely more important than we realize. Even the failures that might one day be redeemed when Christ returns.
And So, today the love candle will be lit and our scripture from the Gospel reading and from Paul’s letter to the Philippians and Philemon sets the stage and echoes one of the most famous passages in scripture in John 3:16. For the goal in our preparation is to share the love of Christ the more and by so doing Glorify and honor God the father. So, in preparation during this advent season, I want you all to know that God loves you. I want you to know that God wants to give you of the very best and to set you free. I also want to encourage you not to hold on too tightly to those things we think we need and in so doing sacrifice the things we really need each day. “For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.” That is what we should be clinging on to this season, and that’s where our hearts should be… fully realizing the love of a father that cannot be adequately described… only experienced.
Pray we share in the present experience of the ancient expectation of the Messiah’s first coming even as we share in the longing for the Savior’s second coming. Pray our ardent desire is faithfully renewed in a way that makes us ready to meet Jesus each and every day. Pray we realize that God’ love is to move us while the love of God remains forever unmoved because it is out of time. Pray we prepare this Advent to receive Christ as though He were coming for the first time. Pray we make this Christmas a celebration of the birth of Our Savior in us and the great gift of faith we have received. Pray we realize that by striving to live in the presence of Christ during Advent, we will receive the best present of all. Pray this season we attend to the moments of importance in the events of life. Pray we fly high and land smoothly.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 