Promise

Friends,

My favorite Christian liturgical season is Advent that begins tomorrow, December 1, the first of four Sundays waiting in anticipation of Christmas Day. I celebrate Advent both as an opportunity for me to yet again remember the biblical narrative of Jesus’ birth and consider its wider historical significance. But I also consider the Advent season in the spirit of honoring nature’s miraculous seasonal rhythm of life as a time of withdrawal and quiet as it patiently waits out the winter months. Both of these observances remind me that Advent is a season of pregnancy, promise and assurance. The spirit of Advent seems so appropriate during these uncertain times.

This time of the year the natural world provides a least one very tangible promise for me about the resilience of the great Life force that defies the odds and even death. I often look with profound wonder as flowering plants such as the rhododendrons dare to set their buds in the fall with such amazing trust and promise that they will produce spectacular blossoms in the spring, and they do so in defiance of the challenges of the harsh winter months ahead. I have seen them covered in ice and dripping ice water, their leaves curled for minimal protection, and I stop to admire their great courage and resiliency. Why would nature/God provide such a counter-intuitive example except to demonstrate the ultimate power of the Life Force itself? There are likely scientific explanations for all this, but for me the miracle of bud resiliency always provides a tangible expression of the promise for survival that is somehow at the heart of what it means to be alive, to be included in a truly wondrous, mysterious world of both beauty and harshness that defines life itself. 

The annual ritual of Christmas readings and music also offers what I consider an inspiriting and approachable, but muted, version of how I interpret the biblical telling of Jesus’ birth and the promise it offers. For me it is less important whether it is a factual story as it is a traditional narrative about the importance of the origins and heralding of the life and teaching of Jesus. The popular biblical interpretation of Jesus’ birth primarily emphasizes the traditional manger setting of animals, angels, wisemen, and guiding stars. But the full biblical backstory is about a poor young couple who lived under an oppressive government whose tax requirements necessitated a precarious sojourn to pay them. And it was during this time that a baby was born in the most humble and lowly circumstances. This is not the story of a privileged prince, but a story told to empathize that the Christian narrative begins by identifying with the marginalized poor. The story goes on the tell how Jesus survived the oppressor's brutal killing of children who were considered possible challengers to the power. To further support the importance of Jesus birth being a message of hope and promise for the poor and oppressed the writers of the Bible then record in a related narrative, Mary’s Magnificat (Luke1: 46-55), her powerful declaration pronouncing her faith in a God of liberation as a foretelling of Jesus’ historical ministry of liberation and preferential attention for the poor and marginalized. So whether any or all of this story is factually true, it is indeed a story for the ages. The story of Jesus’ birth has been told and retold now millions of times, for countless generations, as a kind of promise of God’s love, especially for the poor . And it is a story of promise we still need to hear today.

 We live in a political and cultural world where we cynically often dismiss promises. Sadly we seldom trust the reliability of public or corporate declarations or pledges about something that will be done or given. By necessity we must be wary of unkept promises or outright lies in spite of our apparent inability to counter them. But I also want to believe it is possible to keep promises. I want to remember the rhodies and the promise they keep to bloom again in the spring. I want to believe in the promise that a God of compassion, born as a poor child, will ultimately prevail. I want to believe promises I make to myself will honor my integrity, my “word," and that I will not make  promises to others which I cannot keep . 

So the question we might ask is what promises are we making in our lives? And to whom? Is it even realistic as a matter of integrity that we make promises at all given the difficulty of keeping them in such a morally compromised culture?  I don’t how to counter that kind of profound doubt except to be very careful about our own sincerity and commitment when we make our own promises.  Ideally we need to double down on our own truth telling, and, when possible, to hold others accountable when promises are broken. 

In what now seems like a morally chaotic era for our lives, our job is to stand as close to our truth and integrity as possible. Especially during these most challenging times our efforts and example will have ripple effects we will never know. The key may be that we foster a nonviolent intention of offering the example of our words and witness with both strength and humility. I don’t know how any of this high-mindedness will fare in the morally challenging days ahead, but I do hope our promises to each other, and to ourselves, will provide a moral basis for us to ultimately survive with our integrity and witness intact for the years to come. 

Peace,
Tom