Gordon Conwell Seminary faculty are sending out brief, insightful, daily Advent devotionals. Here is one from one of my mentors, Sean McDonough:
The vision of Jesus in Revelation Chapter 1 might seem like an odd place to find inspiration for a Christmas meditation. What could this terrifying sword-tongued, star-holding figure have to do with the innocent baby in the manger?
Quite a bit, as it turns out. It is made especially clear in Jesus’ description of himself in vv.17-18: “I am the first and the last and the living one, and I became dead, and behold I am living forever and ever.” The heart of the Christmas message is that Jesus is Emmanuel, God with us. That Jesus shares the divine identity – that he is who God is – is made clear in the remarkable three-fold formula, “I am the first and the last and the living one.” This is a deliberate echo of the description of God himself in Rev. 1:4, “I am the One who is, and who was, and who is to come.” Likewise, “I am living forever and ever” recalls the familiar Old Testament phrase “the living God.”
But the little interlude between those two formulas turns out to be even more remarkable, as we learn what it means for God to be with us in the fullest sense: “I became dead.” Richard Bauckham captures the paradox in this way: “His eternal livingness was interrupted by the experience of a human death, and he shares the eternal life of God through triumph over death.” (Theology of the Book of Revelation, p.56). Emmanuel, indeed.
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When I picked up Cormac McCarthy’s to be Pulitzer Prize winner a few years ago, I didn’t put it down until five days later, when I finished it. This unfinished novel transports the reader into a post-apocalyptic world with no explanation at all. Critics praise the film’s adaptation of these striking apocalyptic elements, and while visually stunning, they merely form the backdrop to The Road. To be fair, the film does preserve the story, an inexplicably profound, gripping, and exhausting survival narrative of father and son.
A Father & Son Story?
Like McCarthy’s other work, the power is in the story, not in the words. The reader gets the feeling that the story does not exist for the occasional philosophical flourish, but rather the philosophical statements exist for the story. People pick up immediately on the father-son dynamic, a social commentary on the importance of family. McCarthy extends this theme when the boy pines for play with other children. He’s desperate for community. Father and son is not enough. But there’s much more happening in this story than a father-son theme. McCarthy offers some help. In a recent article, he is cited as asking producer Hillcoat to do one thing in his adaptation of the book to film—”Keep the references to God in.” The interview with Hillcoat reveals a spiritual impulse in McCarthy, which will come as no surprise to his readers.The Road is both literal and figurative, a broken path (sometimes dust, sometimes highway, other times, mud) followed by father and son as they move south, to the coast. Along the way, they are threatened by other, less kind survivors, as well as their own starvation. Looping the same basic subplot, the story carries father and son off the beaten path into abandoned houses, looking for food. Food is not always what they find. Yet, they survive. Survival, however, comes at a high cost, especially for Dad.
Keepers of the Fire
We sense the father’s humanity slipping away, as he fights to live and to lives to protect his son. His son protests this decline, inquiring if they are still “the good guys”, if “we will always be the good guys, no matter what?” This morality is tested over and over, just like our morality is tested every single day. Will our morals outpace our instincts or will they bow beneath the weight of survival and suffering? The roaming couple find deeper resources for “the good” by being “keepers of the fire.” This enigmatic phrase has been interpreted as a cryptic reference to the soul or to culture, the human proclivity to create culture out of creation (make music, tell stories, produce food). I wonder if we are meant to see a combination of the two.
Excluding culture from spirituality, and spirituality from culture, is a persistent error in both religion and society. As early as Gnosticism and as late as Fundamentalism, Christians have often failed to embrace the cultural imperative in the foundational chapters of the Bible. Secularists fail to see the utterly divine impulse behind our proclivity to create. Keeping the fire requires a unique integration of faith, morality and culture. Pulling at one strand will inevitably lead to an unraveling of what God has so majestically woven together.
A Deeper Story
The film does a remarkable job preserving the story on screen, despite the various elements that are stranded. One such element is the final three paragraphs of the book, where we see the themes of relationship, faith, and culture come together. As the son sobs for his father, a woman reminds him that: “the breath of God was his breath though it pass from man to man through all of time.” A strong allusion to the creation of Adam by the breath of God (Genesis 2:7). Arising from creation is the divine impulse to relate, to love, to commune with one another.
Without hesitation, this theological anchor is dropped and the cultural ship sets sail. The next line reads: “Once there were brook trout in the streams in the mountains…polished and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes.” McCarthy returns us to Eden, the pre-apocalyptic environment of a pristine creation that foreshadows culture, where fish remind us of maps. But the world has changed—immoral, a seemingly permanent injustice: “Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again.“
The dereliction of the boy’s world, adjacent to the memory of an earlier world, remind us that things are not as they are supposed to be. These closing paragraphs push the story beyond its own pages into a story deeply embedded into the soul, to a world where faith, creation, and relationships are divinely bound in delightful permanence. To a place where we we long for everything to be put back, to be made right again.
U2 producer Brian Eno is interviewed about the making of “The Moment of Surrender”, which also happens to be one of my favorites from the album. Interestingly, the song was only played once, in the studio, where it came together and stuck!
Eno’s description of the song creation is insightful, not just for U2 fans, but also for anyone concerned with creativity. The creative process was transcendent and collaborative, as Bono put it: “Instead of going into the studio to find the music, the music found us.” Eno described this experience like “channeling the song”, which brought to mind Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk on the necessity of artist’s finding a muse.
Preview the new U2 single “Winter”, written for the Brothers soundtrack. I noticed more thoughtful lyrics than much of NLOTH, as well as a nice piano/guitar combo.
Last night we had the ACL Leaders Christmas Party, where we celebrated God’s grace towards our church this year through 35 of our leaders. Around 5:30 leaders and kids piled through our front door. For the next hour or so we had a great time of enjoying one another, eating good food, and trying out the Cupcake Bar! All this in the warmth of our home, cozied by the prayers, love, and decor of my wife.
Apology to my Wife
Just before transitioning into our time of reflection, I cut my wife off in order to make a public announcement and spoke unkindly to her. There was sin in my heart. My agenda was more important than hers. I was insensitive and unloving. Fortunately, she didn’t make much of it and graciously received my apology after everyone had left hours later. I learned, yet again, how desperately I need the gospel for my own forgiveness and transformation as a disciple who leads.
Evidences of God’s Grace
We took the next hour to collectively share evidences of God’s grace in our church and ministries. We described evidences of God’s grace as something we can point to and say, “Only God could do that.” As the evidences poured out, I was struck by the diversity of graces in our lives that people were grateful for. Here are a few that were mentioned:
- Relationships, friends, and “that word we all talk about” is really lived here—Community.
- Changed lives, growth in holiness
- Non-Christians in our community, who consistently rub up against the gospel in community
- Remarkable level of creative talent and generosity of those talents
- The transformation of the Austin Safeplace teen therapy room
- Our Kids Life director, Sam Gibson
- Renewed marriages
- Deeper understanding of the Gospel
Encouraging One Another
It was powerful, worshipful, joyful, encouraging. Thank you God. This time was followed by personal encouragement for every leader. The Staff took time to express our gratitude not only for the service of each leader, but for who they are as people. A few tears were shed. We don’t do this enough. Tell people how much we appreciate them and why. Encouragement, specific and genuine, is so hard to come by because we are too busy, too selfish, or too concerned about bloating an ego. Silliness. Paul’s letters are filled with specific, genuine encouragements to individuals. The writer of Hebrews tells us to encourage one another daily. Last night, was a sweet time of encouraging one another and 
rejoicing in God’s grace.
White Elephants
All of this was followed by a White Elephant Gift Exchange, which got us all chuckling, especially the leopard snuggy and the Osteen, Your Best Life Now book!
Thank you leaders of Austin City Life, for leading well and in God’s grace. Our church wouldn’t be the same without you.
As I continue to read Harvey Cox’s new book The Future of Faith, I wonder about how it compares with his early book The Secular City. The Secular City embraced secularism as an inveitable part of urban development and recognized the privitization of religion. The Future of Faith, however, seems to be opening up to the idea that Christianity may have a grassroots resurgence (it is in Africa and Asia) that restores some of its public potency.
This blog post was a helpful start in examining Cox’s theological journey between the two books.
As we continue to observe and celebrate the coming of Christ, here are some Advent devotionals and songs you can get for family and personal preparation.
I hope that you’ll take the time to reflect on the great grace of God in the baffling love of Jesus become babe.
Break away from the tide of buying, getting, and Christless cheer, for a few minutes a week, and center in on Jesus. After all, what good is a Christless Christmas? Instead, let Christ fill your soul with joy and your heart with love as you consider his great grace in giving you life.
Thanks to the tremendous work of Jesse, Dave, and Ben, Austin City Life now has several equipping and interactive blogs embedded into our website. You can visit our site and click through to this changing content or you can visit specific blogs and bookmark them in your browser.
