This Christmas though we reunite with remnants of our lives past, we long and yearn for better. A post-pandemic life grows more distant as each variant brings greater uncertainty, forcing us to recognize there shall be no immediate relief. I myself am still at times in disbelief of all that has changed, much of which I will not return to (like my job that I quit this past year).

During this Advent season, I’ve had one song on constant repeat - Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus. It’s become my prayer - a yearning and hope that I know won’t be satisfied by any earthly outcome, but rather in the promised return of our Savior of Jesus Christ.

Advent is wonderfully described by E.M. Welcher below:

“Advent is the hard-won faith Christ gave us the hour he first cultivated us into good soil; the hour we first believed that the light of the world still shines amid all this desperate darkness. When we celebrate Advent, we are daring to taste and see that God is good in the midst of present desolation”

Let us dare to taste and see that He is good. Merry Christmas!

“It's just what we're conditioned to do as Black men. Making people comfortable with your Blackness." - Matt James, The Bachelor, After the Final Rose

I don’t expect the Bachelor franchise to offer a satisfying resolution to the topic of race and identity, and this past season has shown us that it’s not enough to do something in the name of diversity without fully understanding its implications. It’s less of a reach to select a black male lead for a reality TV series than to meaningfully address the black male experience in America and the inequity therein.

If network television (and larger institutions like our government) can only present an unsatisfactory picture of racial equality, what does the church of Jesus Christ give us? Indeed, its own beginnings were roiled with race-based issues between Jewish and Gentile believers as evidenced in Acts 15:7-11:

And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.

Peter is addressing the fact that circumcision was being placed as a yoke by the Jewish believers on their Gentile brothers. The decision of the apostles and elders was to then “lay on [the Gentile believers] no greater burden than that [they] abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.” (v.29) When the church in Antioch received this news, “they rejoiced because of its encouragement” (v.31). The church does well to recognize the unnecessary yoke that they placed on fellow believers and to address it faithfully.

For the church in America, we do well likewise to not place an additional yoke on brothers and sisters of another race to enter our fellowship. It is important that we listen to the stories of those on the outside and identify ways in which they are conditioned into the majority. It is inadequate to say that “we see no color,” because that is to negate the fullness to which God has created that fellow image-bearer. The complete picture of our salvation includes “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:9). We will see race in eternity, and we should stake our claim to that day in the present.

William J. McCloskey, Wrapped Oranges on a Tabletop (1897)

Self, what is thy pleasure?
For around thee cries, “You do you.”
Seduced I say, “I am king of my destiny!”
The world my oyster, splendid pearl and luster.
“My kingdom,” says Christ, “a pearl of great price.”
Where your treasure is, there your heart lies also.
Oh heart, enthralled by lesser glory!
I must be less and He greater -
Usurper to the throne, this is thy surrender.

Frederic Edwin Church, Cotopaxi (1862)

Creature-thoughts and creature-words, says A.W. Tozer, are what we adapt to think of God. They are humanly wrought, and thus limited, but Tozer offers that “it is probably impossible to think without words, but if we permit ourselves to think with the wrong words, we shall soon be entertaining erroneous thoughts.”

I will admit to not always thinking rightly of God. In my attempt, I want to make God into something digestible. Something for me to wield, as in a smartphone app, able to conjure when I need. Thus Tozer’s words ring true - “Left to ourselves we tend immediately to reduce God to manageable terms…We want a God we can in some measure control.”

I confess that my creature-thoughts are just that, but believe also “that God can be known by the soul in tender personal experience while remaining infinitely aloof from the curious eyes of reason.” I think of Hagar in the wilderness and how she declared God to be “a God of seeing” (Genesis 16:13). That God on high would respond to the creature-words of Hagar sparks delight in us as evidence that though we think in only creaturely ways, our God is yet wonderfully known.

As of late, I’ve been moved by self-preservation over anything else. Underlying this is a fear - a fear that God does not have all things in His control, and that I (somehow!) am able to mitigate any potential calamity by inserting my own control over things. Perhaps also, as we have experienced in this pandemic, our limited agency has driven us to be even more protective over the things that we think we can control.

The irony for me is that the more I obsess over control, the more fears that have crept in. As my agency is increasingly stripped and anxiety mounts, I am left to cry for mercy and deliverance like a helpless child (and trust me, it’s not pretty). Yet it’s in these cries that I realize that I am most rightly positioned to my Savior - that the essence of my faith is knowing that I cannot do it on my own, but it is Christ who gives me strength

Some unhelpful things that I have told myself is that I should be better than my circumstances, and that I shouldn’t be feeling as poorly as I do. This is partly my own flesh and the work of the Enemy into guilt or shame, and these thoughts are frighteningly dark and constricting. In contrast, the Hebrew word for salvation, yasa, has the idea of going from a restricted, narrow space into one that is roomy and open. That picture is the same that I need to impress into the salvation that he offers from myself - that I can walk into His glorious light for in Him there is no darkness at all.

[Artwork by John Musgrove of Musgrove Painting http://www.musgrovepainting.com]

When we get to Old Testament descriptions of how the Israelites were to construct a tabernacle for God (Exodus 25-31), many of the details are lost on us as modern readers. We look to reconstructed illustrations or archaeology to get some sense of what that could have looked like. And still, the ancient forms seem foreign to our understanding of what God’s dwelling amongst men would have looked like.

As an art historian, the beautifully crafted description of the objects for worship are like a chef savoring a list of fine ingredients - but instead of truffles and saffron, I marvel at such details as the luxurious gold overlay on the acacia wood ark and table, the lamp stand with almond blossoms and floral flourishing, the painstakingly thought-out composition and exact dimensions, the purposeful insertion of color and texture and material…

But lest I get carried away with these descriptions, the standout detail to me is how the Hebrew word for “tabernacle” or mishkan is translated in New Testament Greek as skenoo. We read in John 1:14:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (ESV)

The word “dwelt” in our English translation is the word “tabernacle” from the Old Testament. The truth that God took on human form in His Son Jesus and dwelt amongst us is something I need to remember in my ordinary, far from glamorous routine. When the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, there was no gold overlay on His manger. No layering of curtains to shield from the livestock. When He came, He made His residence amongst us in ordinary, humble fashion. And now His presence remains with us in the Holy Spirit. This nearness of God is particularly invigorating to me, especially as our routines in these socially distant days seem even more ordinary.

I did a double take today looking at Philippians 2:12-13 -

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So, I am to work out my salvation because God is working in me? Who’s really doing the work here?

These verses stand out to me because of my attitude towards work. I believe in hard work. It’s what I expect of myself. So, hearing that I ought to work out my salvation sets off a rather dutiful response of me rolling up my sleeves and getting to work. The problem is that I often cannot live up to my own standard of work, which in turn makes me grow despondent, and then I don’t feel like doing anything at all, which makes me feel even worse about myself because then I feel I have to work extra hard just to make up for my failure.

I realize that others may read this passage and have a very opposite approach, focusing instead on “for it is God who works in you” meaning that we don’t have any responsibility to work out our salvation. This is quite the other extreme, and in order to come to a right understanding of what Scripture says, we need to fully embrace the paradox of what it is saying:

1. Christ completed God’s work of salvation at the cross, meaning that we do not need to work for our salvation. The Apostle Paul reminds the Philippians (2:6-11) that Jesus has done the work of emptying himself and becoming obedient to die for the sins of man. Jesus is Lord. We need not replicate this work.

2. The work is not done yet while we are still here on earth. In the next chapter (3:20–21), The Apostle Paul says “But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” God will bring this work of salvation to completion when Christ returns (1:6). Until then, we’re still not home yet. We need to proclaim His kingdom and live out our salvation to a broken world (2:15).

3. God works in us so that we may work out His purposes. The working out that we do implies doing that from which something results. Now, I have seen the results of me working things out on my own merit, and let’s just say it’s not pretty. But when it is God who works in us both in my will (my desire) in my actions so that I may be fruitful for His kingdom, I need not have this condemnation of trying to obtain to a result that is of my own doing. Mind blowing.

Shortly after the directive to work out our salvation because God is at work in us, the Apostle Paul tells the Philippians to be glad and rejoice with him (2:17-18). So in our labor, it is not the picture of some kind of brow beating, legalistic call to work. It’s a joyful one because we know, unlike the work that we often do in other areas of life, that our labor is not in vain (2:16).

That’s amazingly good news for the worker bee in me.

As video of the officer placing George Floyd in what proved to be a deadly chokehold surfaced online, our nation was already on the brink. The pandemic has seen so many of our “rights” being taken away in recent months, and our adversary, the virus, remains unseen. This is much of why we feel so unsettled, and because the threat remains invisible, we are rendered powerless, with only a thin line of defense in the form of social distancing and practice of good hygiene. Yet while the pandemic is indiscriminate in who it infects, the killing of Floyd is outrageous in that here injustice has a face - and it comes at the hands of one meant to dispense lawfulness and peace. Did injustice exist before? Absolutely. But when the threat is so very tangible, we rage.

In this pandemic, I have also been confronted with my own lack of righteousness. That is, in the end, I am often discriminate towards my own good, not the good of my neighbor. I confess that I lack the ability to love justice and mercy as is exhorted of God’s people:

Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times! (Psalm 106:3)

This verse comes in a psalm extolling the great deeds of the Lord. It calls to attention to the lack of gratitude and obedience of the nation of Israel but the Lord’s nevertheless willingness to save. In this psalm, I see that to observe justice, I must first confront the badness in me. We who know that justice was served on the cross must yearn for a kingdom that will one day see all injustice overturned. This is our hope as redeemed people. And in remembrance that we have a Savior “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:6–7 ), we can then go out in the world “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8).

The once grateful are now grumbling. It’s been 45 days of shelter in place, and the natives are getting restless. When will things return to normal?

Almost daily during this pandemic I am reminded how not normal things are. I walk out of my house and steer clear of people. I loathe trips to the grocery store. I can’t hold my niece. My classroom is now my dining room. And these are just personal inconveniences. In the news I’m confronted with far worse. The economy is sinking. Our medical system is failing. The death toll has surpassed the Vietnam War.

Let’s get this straight - it is not wrong to long for what was. The beauty of our God given role as caretakers on this earth is to fill it and subdue it. Yet we find ourselves bound to our homes and only permitted to leave for essential outings. We were never made for confinement, so certainly this goes against our very nature.

I’ve become acutely aware of my many flaws as mobility and freedoms have been stripped from us. And I have found myself returning to another time of persistent loss - when I was living overseas and dealing with my own sense of rights. This reminder of how God was gracious then has helped inform my present circumstance. That is, I know that this, too, shall pass. He was faithful then, and He is faithful now. It’s not that I get this every day. It took me weeks to cycle through my grief. But I’ve mercifully emerged with a comfort that gives me tremendous peace.

The Israelites easily forgot God’s provision and faithfulness. Not long would pass after God’s provision that they would start grumbling again. They even doubted in times of plenty, collecting more food when they were told that they would be provided for daily. And yet that steadfast - never ending, never stopping, never changing, forever love of God preserved them. May we turn to Him ever grateful, and not grumbling.

It’s surreal as we hunker down in our own homes and worship apart. I’m an introvert and should be loving the seclusion, but I also crave the physical gathering of the body of Christ as we gather together. There is a visceral connection in-person that simply can’t be made virtually. Years ago when I lived overseas in a closed country where there was no church as we know it here in the west, I craved the bodily presence of other believers around me and the freedom to praise the name of Jesus without fear of the governing authority. During that time I listened to the recordings of worship services from home and would often wind up in tears, weeping over the beauty of the voices of the church gathered together. It gave me a deep longing to be with the church, and though I was far away, I could feel the Holy Spirit presiding across the distance. One of the greatest truths while apart was that God was yet near even as I was thousands of miles away.

Dear Christian, as we are scattered in this time let us remember not to give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing (Hebrews 10:25). Though we are apart, let’s remember that the church of Jesus Christ is an eternal entity, so may we encourage one another all the more as we look forward to that day when we will be united forever in His eternal kingdom. Until then, may our hearts yearn to be reunited in person again soon.