Tag: astonish

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
    “For hate is strong,
    And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
    The Wrong shall fail,
    The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from Christmas Bells

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?

The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

Let the stable still astonish;
Straw – dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.

Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place?”

Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms
Of our hearts
And says, “Yes,
Let the God of Heaven and Earth
Be born here –

In this place.
~Leslie Leyland Fields “Let the Stable Still Astonish”

During Advent, I too am guilty of nostalgia and sentiment, invoking the gentle bedtime story of that silent night, with the infant napping away in a hay-filled manger, His devoted parents hovering, the humble shepherds peering in the stable door.   

All is calm.  All is bright.

No, this is not a sentimental story.
It is astonishing.

God never sleeps.

This is no gentle bedtime story: 
– a teenage mother gives birth in a smelly among animals, with no alternative but to lay her baby in a rough feed trough.

– the heavenly host appearing to shepherds – the lowest of the low in society – shouting and singing glories which causes terror.

– Herod’s response to the news that a Messiah had been born was to kill a legion of male children whose parents undoubtedly begged for mercy, clinging to their children about to be murdered.

– a family’s flight to Egypt as refugees seeking asylum so their son would not be yet another victim of Herod.

– Jesus grew up to become itinerant and homeless, tempted while fasting in the wilderness, owning nothing, rejected by His own people, betrayed by His disciples, sentenced to death by acclamation before Pilate, tortured, hung on a cross until He gave up his spirit.

– Jesus understood He was not of this world. He knew the power that originally brought him to earth as a helpless infant lying in an unforgiving stone trough would eventually move the stone covering His tomb.

He would be sacrificed,
He would die and rise again,
He would return again as King of all nations.

When I hear skeptics scoff at Christianity as a “crutch for the weak”, they underestimate the courage it takes to walk into church each week admitting we are a desperate people seeking rescue. We cling to the life preserver found in the Word, lashed to our seats and hanging on. It is only because of grace that we survive the tempests of temptation, shame, guilt and self-doubt to worship an all-knowing God who is not dead and who never ever sleeps.

This bedtime story is not for the faint of heart. It is meant to astonish. The power invoked created the very dust we are made of, and breathed His life into us.

So be not afraid:
the wrong shall fail
the Right prevail.
He chose this place.
Peace on earth, good-will to men.

The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever.
Isaiah 40:8