Advent 2017 and a Hint of What is to Come

Today marks the start of the second week of Advent 2017*.  Reading through the first week of Advent Readings increased my anticipation.  Of course, this anticipation is for Jesus.  The temptation leading to Christmas, though, is to think that of course we are anticipating Jesus and just leave it at that without actually reflecting  on what this means.  This week, I began to see hints of what anticipating Jesus means.  For the first week of Advent I am anticipating restoration for two reasons.  First, the Psalmists from this week’s readings are hinting at it.  Second, I am desperate for restoration today, some three millennia after they were writing.  Advent begins, then, with a hint of anticipation that my desperation will be noticed.

My days are spent in the middle of some of the most tragic stories you will ever hear.  They are stories of sexual, emotional, and physical abuse.  They are stories of addiction.  They are stories of shame for past wrongs.  They are stories of mental illness.  They are stories of loneliness.  The tragedy of these stories, though, isn’t in the stories themselves.  The tragedy is that each story is attached to a real person.  A tragic story is even worse when I see it on the face of a man who I know YHWH created to reflect His image.  Such stories give brokenness an unavoidable presence in my life.  A broken man, however, is more than his brokenness.  The time I spend getting to know homeless men at the shelter I work at in Saint John is what makes me desperate for restoration.

I have been working with homeless men in Saint John since 2012.  Faith is why this is possible.  I used to say this was because I am somewhat selfish and need faith to spur me on to ministry.  I don’t say that anymore.  The day-in and day-out of the type of ministry I am involved with is only possible because I know the end of the story and I know that Jesus is the person writing it.  I am in the middle of stories of abuse, stories of addiction, stories of shame, stories of mental illness, stories of brokenness but I am not immersed by them.  I am immersed by a story of restoration.  Knowing this allows me to go back daily.

When I read Psalm 80 during week, it ended with a fitting prayer that gives a reminder about the story that immerses me:

But let your hand be on the man of your right hand,
the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!
Then we shall not turn back from you;
give us life, and we will call upon your name!
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts!
Let your face shine, that we may be saved!**

Here is a plea from a writer who knows that he cannot provide restoration himself.  It is a straightforward request.  Put your hand on your servant so he is strong to do God’s work.  Restore us.  Give us life.  Save us.  That is the story I am immersed in.  A story that calls out to God, Restore us, that we may be saved!

The tragic stories that I am in the middle of are not always told by victims.  Some of the men who use the shelter are the perpetrators rather than the victims of wrong.  I oftentimes find myself sitting across the table from a man recently out of jail who tells me that he messed up and wants another chance.  Sometimes someone tells me his broken relationship is why he is at the shelter and it was his behaviour that broke the relationship.  I even know a man who refused to come into the shelter and instead chose to sleep in his car in the middle of winter because he felt so much shame about why he was arrested.  He admitted his guilt was absolute.  My heart breaks when I talk to a man who knows he is guilty and wants desperately to be free of this guilt.  My prayer is that Psalm 79 will become a prayer from that man:

How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
Pour out your anger on the nations
that do not know you,
and on the kingdoms
that do not call upon your name!
For they have devoured Jacob
and laid waste his habitation.
Do not remember against us our former iniquities;
let your compassion come speedily to meet us,
for we are brought very low.
Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of your name;
deliver us, and atone for our sins,
for your name's sake!***

Here we have a desperate cry for help, but it is not a cry to be rescued from an enemy.  Instead, it is a plea to a perfect judge from an imperfect defendant for mercy.  For millennia, people have been praying for the type of restoration these men are looking for:  Do not remember… let your compassion come.  That request is the beginning of the story that immerses me.

To begin Advent, I am getting a hint of what it is to anticipate Jesus.  He is not here simply to “save us”.  He is here to “save us from”.  What I kept coming back to throughout this week was that the Jesus who we are anticipating is a God who restores.  It goes a step further than that.  He is a God who restores even when who he is restoring is guilty. 

Restoration and its cousin forgiveness are radical ways to live but they are key to the story that immerses me.  Faith allows me to be immersed in tragedy and to recall evil because Jesus promised me there is something better coming and, to put it simply, I believe him.  Turn on the news today.  You will see evil and you will rightly be angry because our just God is also angry at evil.  You will see people who are doing that evil.  You will also see people who God wants to forgive and restore, regardless.  The most corrupt person you know can be restored, even if that person is you.  I know this because, to borrow from a hymn, God restored a wretch like me.  That is the Gospel.

My restoration, your restoration, and the shelter guests’ restoration is not the end of the story, however.  There is a Why involved with this story.  Why would God restore people?  Both Psalms highlight it.  A restored person will bring glory to God.  As we are witnessing our restoration, we must do so by calling on God and glorifying his name.  This is a crucial piece of what we are being told to do.  We are being restored to what we were created to be – People who live in harmony with God, worshipping and loving him and neighbour.

~~~

*The basis for this post, and subsequent posts, is the Revised Common Lectionary.  Advent was a small part of Christmas for me until recently.  It was something that my church – always Baptist regardless of the city or village I was living in – acknowledged with a wreath and a short reading on the Sundays leading to Christmas.  I discovered the Revised Common Lectionary a few years ago and have used it to lead my devotional reading for different portions of time.  This lectionary begins each week on Thursday and closes on Wednesday, to help the worshiper approach and then reflect upon Sunday morning.  This is year B in the A, B, C cycle and you can find the lectionary here:
http://www.commontexts.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/DailyreadingsB.pdf

**Psalm 80:17-19, ESV

***Psalm 79:5-9, ESV