...not a shield...a shipmate

When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside;

bear me through the swelling current, land me safe on Canaan’s side:

songs of praises, songs of praises, I will ever give to Thee.

---William Williams, 1745

The world is always seeking escapes from real life. Drugs, alcohol, gambling, excessive screen time, plastic surgery, overeating---there are countless tempting ways to try avoiding the realities of this world. There is great allure for a hurting yet ingenious humanity to try conquering the unpleasantness of life in the same way we have conquered space flight, locomotion, or bacterial infection. And if we are honest, many of us want religion to serve the same purpose as these escapes---we want it to shield us from the unpleasantness and pain of real life.

In today’s text, the hymn writer confronts real life head-on. No mere escape, our faith walks with us through the fearful days (and they will come, they will come). “When I tread the verge of Jordan…” ‘When’, not ‘if’, and not ‘if I must’. Facing life head-on, the writer acknowledges that death is a reality we all must face. What calms his fears is the steadfast belief that he will land safe on the other side. Facing the choppy waters of the Jordan, our anxious fears subside when we are accompanied by our strong deliverer.

Songs of praises we will ever give to Thee.

...for my sake

My song is love unknown, my Savior's love to me,
love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be.
O who am I that for my sake my Lord 
should take frail flesh, 
and die?
---Samuel Crossman, 1664

How overwhelming, that God stepped into the same skin that we walk around in, knew the risks, took on the aches and pains, shouldered the heartbreaks.

Chose this life. This death.

Chose not to walk away.

For my sake.

...winter's clear anatomy

I love to see, when leaves depart,
The clear anatomy arrive.
Winter the paragon of art,
That kills all forms of life and feeling
Save what is pure and will survive.
---Roy Campbell

If you look out any window where you chance to be right now, odds are you'll see them. Tree skeletons. Tall ones, narrow as rails. Squat ones, bones a tangled mess. Huge ancient ones, central trunks it would take two of us, three, to embrace, with tired arms nearly sweeping the ground, full of stick bundles long abandoned for cozier, deeper climes. Looking, for all the world, like death. No life here, not in these bones.

But we know. We, who've been around the sun a few times ourselves. We know there is life in those dead-looking tree skeletons. We know they are resting, for a season. Waiting. We know that to count them out now, because they look done, finished, over, would be a grand mistake. We know the purest sort of life is hidden in that bareness, waiting for its time. Distilling, concentrating, becoming more itself, more true, the life waits.

Don't discount the bare trees of winter.

Calling all angels

Before the marvel of this night, adoring, fold your wings and bow;
then tear the sky apart with light and with your news the world endow.
Proclaim the birth of Christ and peace, that fear and death and sorrow cease:
sing peace; sing peace; sing gift of peace; sing peace; sing gift of peace!
---Jaroslav Vajda

On this Christmas Eve, maybe a few angel instructions are only appropriate. This modern era carol is the only one I know addressed to the heavenly beings. We know from the Biblical account that the shepherds were shaken and stirred (and maybe terrified) by the angels' arrival on the scene that peaceful  night. Now from Vajda's imagination we hear the angels instructed to 'tear the sky apart with light'! What a scene! A marvel, even!
And the message? Birth. And death. The birth of Christ. The birth of peace. And the death of fear, and sorrow, and death itself. The angels' song? Straight up peace, with no room for anything that breaks it.
That good news is enough to tear apart the sky!

...so here we stand, whoever we are,
bathed in the light of a star...