...holding ourselves hostage

He breaks the power of canceled sin, He sets the prisoner free;

His blood can make the foulest clean, His blood availed for me.

---Charles Wesley, 1739

I have been singing this hymn for most of my life, and other Christians have been singing it since, well, the mid-1700s when Charles Wesley composed the text. You can imagine, then, how surprised I was by something new speaking to me from this page of the hymnal.

I believe most of us are familiar with the idea that Christ’s sacrifice has freed us from, and forgiven us for, our sins. This act of Christ’s has removed the separation between us and God. Look closer with me at the first phrase of the selected verse: He breaks the power of canceled sin. Now I am thinking, what is the power of sin, if it has been canceled by Christ? For me, the power of canceled sin in our lives is guilt, and the inability to really believe in Christ’s power to forgive. With the memory of sin, its shadow, hanging over our heads, we continue to live as sinful, and therefore separated beings.

And friends, living in the shadow of canceled sin, in guilt, is in no way living as free people. In a way, guilt is more of a prison than sin ever was---because, brothers and sisters, we sit in cells with unlocked doors, steadfastly refusing to step out into the freedom of forgiveness. By letting guilt exercise its death-grip on our hearts, we hold ourselves hostage.

But we have a great Redeemer. Our gracious Master has not only broken the power of active sin in our lives, but also the power of canceled sin. We are free from sin…and guilt. We are free.

...where is the tender spot?

"Where is the tender spot?" The doctor poked and prodded for the location of the discomfort. The discomfort, the tenderness, would, of course, be an indicator of injury. Healers probe for tenderness to help guide them to the source of the hurt.

There is at least one more sort of tenderness. This would be the care and gentleness with which we treat something, or someone, we value or love very much. We may treat priceless artwork, or newborn babies, tenderly.

I have been pondering, as I've talked to friends, and scrolled through my media, and reflected on my own life, that the Advent and Christmas seasons evoke tenderness, of both sorts, in an awful lot of us.

With the wonder of children, we unwrap ornaments and remember the stories that go with them. We bake---from scratch!--sweets and savories to share (and a few to keep for ourselves, maybe...). We envision the perfect gift for each loved one, the glow of happiness on each face when boxes are opened on the just-right Christmas morning. We pose our families for the everybody-smile pic for which (almost) everyone took your suggestion about wearing white tops, and it looks great. We tuck our own little ones into bed, or get misty-eyed smiling at someone else's little shepherds in the Christmas Eve pageant. There is so much tenderness here.

But if we're honest, for a lot of us, that's not the whole story. There is tenderness in this season that emanates from the source of hurt. Something about the season causes the backward gaze, and it is a time when those who have lost dear family and friends feel those losses in a deep and tender way, whether the loss is new or decades old. Circumstances change, and what is lost is noticed and mourned at the holidays. Health and wellness, always taken for granted, can slip away, and we note the holiday traditions that will be different. Strained relationships that are ignored during the rest of the year become painfully obvious during a season when the ideal holiday mood is one of togetherness and conviviality. Brokenness and alienation leave tender spots with no visible wounds.

In the midst of the lovely, tender times this holy season, there is also the tenderness that indicates pain. How can we celebrate the wonder of tenderness, and honor the tenderness of the shadows that is also part of the sacred everyday?

Where is the tender spot? I have mine...do you? 

...the turning

The solstice moon is like a pearl suspended in the lake
Frozen underneath a spell no human hand can break.
We turn our backs against the wind that drives the bitter cold,
And celebrate the wonders that a new year will unfold.
We turn to friends and family, and mourn the loved ones gone,
And gather them around us as we raise our voice in song.
We turn to feed the fading fire, dream deeply through the night,
And cherish songs that carry us from darkness into light.
We turn to ask forgiveness, and with gratefulness of heart
Turn once again to welcome in the new year as it starts.
And we will sing at the turning of the year,
Knowing we are a short time here.
And so we'll sing at the dancing, spinning, turning of the year.
--- Anne Hills, 2000

The cusp. The edge. A thin place. The turning. Although from living most of my life in an academic setting and a college town I will forever set my true New Year's clock by 'back to school' calendars and new backpacks, there is a certain magic about the clean slate feeling of a brand new calendar year.

One second, 2014. The next, a whole other thing. Just another second, really. But a whole new year, 2015. It stretches out before us, beckoning. What will you do with it? Who will you be? What will you carry with you? What will you leave behind? Is there forgiveness you must grant, bitterness you must let loose, shame you must release? Is there a softness, with yourself or with others, you must pick up for the journey ahead? Steadfastness? Assurance? Do you need trust to be reborn in you this year?

From shadow to sun, then. From the cold, to the rebirth of warmth. From year to year.

The turning.

Faith, hope, and love, these three...

Faith, hope, and love, these three remain;
But the greatest of these is love.

Who of us has not been at a wedding (our own or another's) and heard this famous quotation from Paul's letter to the church at Corinth? According to St. Paul, love trumps everything else. Not everyone agrees. Jim Evans, a former pastor of mine, claimed that hope reigned supreme of the three (I'm sure he meant no offense to St. Paul, or inerrantists). Without faith, he said, a life could still be meaningful with hope and love; likewise, without love, a life of faith and hope could sustain someone. Hopeless, though, all the faith and love in the world would be useless. Without hope, the soul is rendered helpless to wield the weapons of faith and love in the good fight against the shadows in the world. Hopeless, nothing else matters.

Friends, it may be shadowy or even inky dark in your life right now. But the dawn is coming. Hold on to hope.

Light in a Shadowy Night

It's true. The birth of Jesus, what we celebrate as Christmas, was no big thing. Conception shrouded in personal scandal, to backwater parents, in a busy little town preoccupied with a Roman census, marked by domesticated animals and a scruffy group of shepherds. No big thing.

But, like the smallest flame in total darkness, thoroughly transformative. From dark, to not dark.

If you have always wondered what the big thing was, or if you doubt that a little light could make that much difference, you are invited. Come with me on a journey, a search, for a little light in our shadowy night.

Let's make Advent together --- hope in a mean season, peace in a tumultuous time, joy in a desert place, love in a wounded world.