Advent #4 - The Deliverance
Before the sky turns bright. On winter solstice.
Dear Friends,
Welcome to a rare Sunday when winter solstice and Advent intersect.
Let’s begin.
Winter is here, lingering in the lowliest of months.
The further away from the equator one resides increases the manner death, decay, and desolation become visible, tangible, and visceral. Barren trees, snow covered lands, inhospitable environments.
A casual winter day for me will hover around -10C when it’s normal (that’s about 14 in freedom degrees), and -40 with the wind on bad day (about the same in F).
That’s a cold you feel in the bones, cold that lingers and depresses. It’s devastating….
Deliverance From Devastation
When I consider the life and times of Mary, mother of Jesus, I wonder in what manner she felt the embodied liberation she foresaw in her Magnificat.
He shows mercy to everyone….
He has scattered those with arrogant thoughts and proud inclinations.
52 He has pulled the powerful down from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly.
53 He has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty-handed.
Her prophetic vision foresaw the new way Jesus would inaugurate, countering the malformed logics of empires past, present, and future. But she never actually saw the fruition of her words in its entirety. She saw the possibilities of a new order, but her lived experience was not that.
I wonder how our experiences are similar?
Christianity is supposed to follow where Jesus left off, standing in solidarity with Mary’s premonition.
Mary witnessed the miracle of the resurrection, yet spent her lifetime under the oppressive regime of the Roman empire. Liberation became a liminal experience for her. She witnessed triumph over death dealing ways, yet remained in daily realities of resisting empire.
Meaningless Salvation
A lot of Christians have distorted salvation by making it small—an immaterial deliverance of “saving souls”. Souls that conveniently escape this world for heaven in the clouds. That’s not an orthodox belief by the way, but it does match the desires of Christians who eagerly align to power. The most powerful and largest denominations who see themselves in solidarity with the empire—to government and institutions—for the sake of their own material interests.
In this way, these Christians/traditions have more in common with Herod’s continuous destruction than they do with the way of Jesus.
That should be a deal-breaker. But of course it isn’t. Just look around you and see the types of things Christians claim to cherish. Christians who align to the insatiable appetites of consumer exploitation for the sake of personal wealth generation. This pursuit willingly condones death, decay, and destruction.
In other words, Christians who have altered beliefs to circumvent the teachings of Jesus and embrace the desires of empire. The same sort that Mary decried and swore should be pulled down and sent away. The type of Christian who knows little, and can make no claim, to what liberation even means.
We could end here with a simple benediction of, “may it be so.”
But what about the rest of us?
Jesus or Empire
Those of us who live in the many intersections pf systemic oppression (Christians call it ‘sin’), know what longing for DELIVERANCE looks like. The rest do not (which is why they created another salvation category exclusively for ‘souls’…see how it works?)
If we are to believe Mary and Jesus, liberation is a material extrication from malformed powers. Salvation from the type of oppressive schemes that chain marginalized bodies to death dealing ways.
Salvation suddenly has real meaning for bodies under the crushing weight of empire. And to us, deliverance often seems out of reach.
Winter’s Desolation
Days cut short.
Barren realities curtailing freedom.
Longings to be whole met with constant darkness.
These days the darkness is long. Too long.
We remain in the in-betweens.
The thing about liminal spaces is that they teeter between worlds. Between the ‘now but not yet’. It takes work to notice there is relief from the confines of juxtapositions.
I notice how winter begins on the longest night of the year. The harshest season begins at its worst. It’s a reprieve. Every day, and the day after next, will get better. More light intercedes to break the hold of darkness. A daily rehearsal that transpires as dawn cracks the night.
I consider this rhythm a small signal of daily deliverance reminding me that tangible and visceral freedom may be in store. Perhaps you may find your own daily deliverance through these faint beats.
Advent’s Deliverance
Advent is often a considered a hopeful reunion of sorts—when we are reminded that death will one day meet its end. The Saviour is here! The one who will overturn death dealing ways with life.
But we exist in the in-betweens, and in this place we fumble in the dark, seeking liberation from the cold while knowing every day upon day, the light always returns.
Amen