My assumption that the world is not ending tomorrow has left me stressing over all the preparations still necessary for Christmas. Presents to wrap, cards to write, housework–too much to do! Church preparation for Christmas is so peaceful by comparison. For one thing, it’s slow. We have had a whole week to ponder each aspect of our Christmas preparation. So before we move on, it seems only fair to review.
Four steps of preparation: The first step in getting ready for Christmas is to have hope. In faith we actually make the demand of God that this can’t possibly be as good as it gets. Moving away from resignation to the inevitable takes us one step closer to receiving our savior. Hope is in the promises that scripture offers telling us that God recognizes our plight and will send help.
The next two weeks had to do with repentance, getting us to turn away from what hasn’t been working and taking steps toward doing something else, with even some suggestions of what that something else might be. At this point preparing for a savior sounds like a self-improvement course. But on this last Sunday, as if we need a reminder that we aren’t preparing for Santa to give us what we want, but for God to give us what God chooses, we have a vision of salvation as God conceives it. God’s agenda, not ours, is the final piece we need for getting ready for Christmas.
So let’s get straight on God’s agenda. The temptation to rewrite the story of salvation in our own image is always with us, but seems to grow when certain events get us asking those bigger questions. The tragedy in Connecticut is such an event. Where was God in that elementary school? The question is being asked and answered everywhere, and the answers say something about how we imagine God’s gift of salvation
There are always those who will see God’s judgment in any tragedy. For them God has an agenda, which also happens to be their agenda, that takes priority over any other consideration. Since that agenda—usually some sort of return to the way things were in some vague golden age of American faithfulness—isn’t being met, God must take drastic, destructive measures to get our attention. This is not because God is cruel, but God is holy–above and beyond our standards and understanding. Words of judgment sound cruel and out of place in the midst of grief, but according to these preachers they are all God has to offer. Perhaps, if people met his demands, other words could be found, but at this point condemnation is all God has to say.
On the other hand are those who speak of a more compassionate God. They point to God’s presence in the acts of compassion and heroism that always surround a tragedy like this. God’ response is always seen in such small and holy acts. They are right, but is that enough? A God who must wait to show his presence until someone acts seems rather small, even irrelevant. How can such small acts answer the need for salvation? So the followers of this God don’t wait for his presence, hurrying on with their own agendas, whether to build up institutions that would provide greater security or to create a well-armed citizenry for the same purpose. Whatever God might want, we know what we have to do.
Laden with their own purposes, both of these visions fall short of what scripture offers:
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; *
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed: *
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him *
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel, *
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers, *
to Abraham and his children forever. Luke 1:46-55
This is salvation. Known as the Magnificat, this song is sung by Mary, pregnant with the promised messiah, in response to Elizabeth’s greeting (see the Gospel reading). In her song, Mary sings of mercy, not judgment, because this is a God who knows his people’s needs. Mary doesn’t speak of government, policies or security, but she does speak of power, blessing those who have not received and bringing up short those already have more than they need.
All this is actually fairly standard Bible-talk. It’s surprising that those who seem to quote scripture so often don’t sound more like Mary. You can find similar prophecies and descriptions of God’s agenda throughout the Old Testament, but with one significant difference: Mary is not being prophetic. She speaks as if this reversal of power and outpouring of mercy have already occurred. How is that? What does Mary see?
What Mary knows at this point is that she is pregnant. It is a questionable, even shameful, pregnancy. She may have had a visitation by an angel, but without videoed evidence, that’s going to be a little hard to prove. But Mary trusts that there is more to the picture. This pregnancy contains a promise. Future generations will call her blessed, not shamed, and in that reversal of popular judgment salvation has begun. Mary puts her own experience into a bigger context. God’s plan is bigger than the workings of the world as we and Mary know them. What has happened to her illustrates God’s plan and vision for all creation—the experience of salvation.
Mary’s vision is a dangerous one. During the Reformation, Martin Luther challenged the power of the pope and Roman church to control the faithful of Europe. When Luther translated the scriptures from Latin into German, Martin Luther supposedly left Mary’s song untranslated. The princes who supported and protected him were happy to hear from Luther about a God who did not need the power of a pope. These same powerful princes did not want to hear about a God who casts down the mighty from their thrones.
I wonder what parts of Mary’s vision we are leaving out of our own recognition of salvation. I think it is easy to see how those who speak words of blame and condemnation in the face of tragedy have lost track of the vision. If we are not talking about God’s concern for those in need, if we don’t remember the helpless and the lowly, then we are not talking about the God of salvation. We know all about the world of destruction and hate, a world where the violent and powerful trample the peaceful and small. God did not speak this world into existence, we did. We need salvation from just this world. This is not as good as it gets. God has made it pretty clear whose side he is on; our salvation comes in choosing the same side.
At the same time, we often attempt to build that better world by relying on our own vision. We might put our faith in the institutions that have failed us so often, lobbying for this policy or that, creating different foolproof laws as if this time will be different. Or, abhorring all social structures we can put our faith in endless distrust and division, attempting to carve a community for ourselves in the midst of suspicion. But the call of salvation is to repent, to turn from those things that have not worked, and do not work, in order to trust God’s greater vision of a salvation that includes the fearful and the confident, the successful and the disappointed, the strong and the weak.
Preparing to receive our savior means that we remember that we can afford to hold such a vision. Others will tell us that we cannot. The world is too dangerous—you can’t be naïve, we must meet the stranger with distrust and hostility! Shoot first! We can’t afford to share—there won’t be enough. Take what you want, let others fend for themselves. Us first, ours first—that’s the world we have to live in because that’s the only one we will ever have. Mary knew otherwise. As she proclaims her faith in the great things God has done, she proclaims her allegiance with this other possibility. God’s power for salvation calls us out of the world we know and hate, beyond safety and security, and into life.
Salvation is choosing sides. It will take our entire lives to learn to trust the power of salvation, to live in and through it; there is more to be said about how this power enters and is present in our world. Right now we only prepare to receive it again. But how? Where in your life do you change allegiances, and choose God’s side? Answering this question is the last step of our Christmas preparation.