Advent - Week 4
I am amazed, after living almost my whole life in the Great Lakes, how surprised we still are by winter. It's as if we were unsure that it was coming, and when it hits, we're not prepared for its awesome intensity. I've had many years now, white knuckle car-skiing to work. I step out of my little car, my teeth ground down to the size of corn niblets, trying to unclench my jaw. And yet, our house is here.
What makes it so treacherous is that the one exit ramp I take to get off the highway is routinely forgotten. If I were to go east, salt. Going west? Well, it's a crap shoot. It leads to the largest artery west out of town, and yet...good luck to me. I don't understand it. I pray my way through it every winter. My son gleefully yells from the back, "Weee!" And when I'm in the car by myself...I pray for forgiveness.
How can that circular piece of important winter driving chicanery get passed over so often? Unbelievable!
Today, as I was trying not to curse on my way to work, I was convicted.
That yawning, punched by Jesus in the gut convicted. I sat in the church parking lot feeling a bit like a phony.
You see - there's only one ramp to understanding the big deal about Jesus. It's the lavish love of the Father. Jesus becomes not only a big deal, but THE deal, when we understand how much God loves us in such an insane way.
It's the forgotten ramp to the Father.
I would rather believe in a God that is impressed by my good works, angry at my horrible thoughts, and possibly slightly indifferent to the times when I'm lost. How is that even possible?
Paul tells the church of the Colossians and those in Laodicea that he is contending hard for them. He reminds them that God, when they were in the middle of their ultimate corruption and sin, made us alive in Christ. "He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it ALL away, nailing it to the cross" (Colossians 2:13 - 14). That is insane love, lavish.
So why do I trade that away for a cheap replica of Jesus? Why would I think that God, as my Father and redeemer of my soul, would now tell me to get it together - shape up or ship out. Earn it. Do more. Get it together. I am driving at some ridiculous pace of self-management that I completely miss THE on-ramp to understanding the loving grace of my good God. It's what separates us from every other religion.
We don't get to earn it. We just don't. Because that would mean God is not enough. That Jesus didn't cover everything on the cross. It makes God cruel - to send his only son to kinda cover all my errant ways, but maybe not, through a horrific death.
So there I sat in the parking lot, in the dawn's early light.
Merriam-Webster has this for the definition of lavish: "bestowing profusely", "produced in abundance", "marked by profusion or excess" - see PRODIGAL.
The love of God is bestowed - given, not earned. It is produced in abundance - made over and above what is necessary. It is profuse, excessive. It is prodigal.
That is why Jesus is such a big deal. That is love. That's the only ramp - the only way to get out of the behavior management we've dumbed down Christianity to. Let's get out of it together. Let's experience love. Let's experience Jesus.
"But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." - Romans 5:8
Merry Christmas.
Eliza Cortes Bast
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