Sometimes I wonder if I might not have acquired a "nutsy" propensity. I haven't talked to anyone, professionally, about it. Maybe I should, since it draws my focus down various odd, sometimes frightening, circuitous but always adventurous trails of thought. There is this way of transitioning or morphing from ruminating on a particular mind film into a completely different storied film. Kind of like asking; what made me dream that? Or like last week, when Amy called me. In the course of our conversation she said, "We are really looking forward to mom's and your visit." How in the world did that statement morph, the other morning, into my thinking how I so much enjoy T.S. Eliot's imagination when he describes the reminiscent thoughts of one of the Magi journeying from far away to witness the birth of Christ in his poem Journey of the Magi? Was it deep within my filing cabinet of memory; how I enjoy being in her home, loving on her, Jason, and two of my grandchildren? Beats me. But it happens more and more frequently these past few years. Finding the poem and familiarizing myself again, I visualized his using the voice of this, far from home, Magi to portray the weight in my own soul, who has confronted the human Christ, and Who has pointed me home. I've been thinking for the last week on how powerfully the poem concludes for me when I read:
“Birth or Death? There was a birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt I had seen birth and death.
But had thought they were different, this Birth was
hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our palaces, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
with an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.”
I've been ruminating on an idea of which Eliot provides a scene here that suggests that by setting my eye's on the Child Who was born to die is like dying myself, in a sense, and forever changing my sense of "home." I get a bit tenebrific (new word) at the thought, yet realizing it is a note echoed triumphantly, over and over again throughout the New Testament. I recognize that both Jesus and the apostle Paul utilizes the same imagery of death to describe life in Christ and uses interplay of both home and homelessness. A couple of examples are found in Matthew 10 and Galatians 2. First, Jesus uttered: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
In the season of Advent, I, along with millions of Christians, will be professing to be a people watching and waiting—in hope, in lament, in need—remembering and anticipating with those who first watched God step into the world through the mean estate of a dirty stable. We are going to be remembering those who first set their eyes on the Child who was born to die, becoming, in a sense, as Christ was on that first night, homeless and out of place. I wonder how many others will remember that we, too, are far from home, longing for a home we know in part. I am, already. Having truly seen the person of Christ, I see all the more clearly the reality of a world in need of justice, reconciliation, mercy, and healing. And I so desire to be, as Eliot describes, “no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods.” The message of Advent has started to awaken me to a fresh sense that I am both near and far from home, reminding my shadowed world that a bright Light has indeed been born in my soul, reminding my broken thought patterns that I am waiting for the return of this One Who shows me what it means to be truly human and whole again. I must remind myself to thank my pastor for adding kindling to the fire last Sunday, teaching on the subject of heaven.
While reading one of the most comforting conversations between Jesus and the disciples, in the gospel of John, I became conflicted, yet convinced as Jesus gives a description of this place, which I have only seen in part, and He assures me of an invitation to be fully inside. “In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.” Compounding this hope, His words are followed by one of His most quoted promises. As Thomas replied, “But Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
Yes, I am finding in Christ Himself the curious interplay of home and homelessness. This One Who so loved creation that He joins me within it is not only the herald of my homelessness but the forerunner of my home. He still is proclaiming this very kingdom among all mankind and He mercifully offers himself as the way inside. I find that G.K. Chesterton describes my mysterious place of being both near and far from home when he wrote these words :
“For men are homesick in their homes,
and strangers under the sun…
but our homes are under miraculous skies
where the Yule tale was begun.”
Father, God, I thank You for the part of Your story where Christ’s birth first brought a unique, clarion, and one of a kind message of hope and home—with the much needed room for lament over all that is presently missing and the desperately needed foretastes of a table where, before much longer, I will have the privilege of approaching, in healed communion with myself, my neighbors, You-The Trinity. I thank You, Jesus for taking on the fullness of humanity and became homeless that I might come fully home. I worship in recognizing, this early morning, Your proclaiming a kingdom here and while mercifully continuing preparing me for a place within it. May I be worthy to let my heart prepare You room! Amen
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