MAKE YOUR FACE SHINE UPON US (ADVENT WK. 4)
Every year, Merry Christmas seems to be the new hello for the month of December. Who doesn’t want a merry one? I do. If our commercials are any indication of how merry it should be, then my wife needs to up her game in the gift department this year. One commercial in particular recently caught my attention. Pretty girl and GQ guy walking through the snow. He whistles and a cute dog comes rushing over the snowy hill into her arms. She whistles and a GMC truck comes roaring over the hill. If only our Christmas could feel that merry. Yet, how merry do you feel right now?
I have friends who are struggling with merry. Just this week, one dear friend received the results back from her brain tumor, an aggressive cancer. Another came to the realization with his young child that his family life will never be normal like everyone thinks it should. Another is holding an unexpected job loss after giving much up to take the job in the first place.
For many, this Christmas doesn’t necessarily feel merry. Often the depth of our feelings don’t match the height of this season’s festivities. Maybe some of us feel were walking around like…..
-we can never recover from our losses
-our dreams and longings will never take shape
-nothing good can come from how my life has unfolded
-Jesus doesn’t see me
And I want to say to all of you who are feeling any of that right now: ITS OK. You don’t have to fake it until you make it.
It feels like our circumstances and the feelings associated with them are much like those of the first Christmas season. 400 years of silence of any prophetic word. Mary feels the rejection of an unconventional pregnancy. People were living under an oppressed Roman rule. Anxiety, struggle, and an ordinary birth of a King dotted the landscape in the moment when God himself turned his face toward us.
One of our lectionary passages this week reminds us 3x in Psalm 80, Restore us, O God; make your face shine on us, that we may be saved. Immanuel-God with us. The face of God shows up and the first to see it is Mary. In that moment, both Mary and Jesus are taking a risk to love that holds both great joy and pain to come.
Love always has a face. I feel most loved by my wife and kids and friends when they turn their face toward me, look me in the eye, see me, hear all that I am holding, and be with me in both the merry moments and the un-merry ones. This is what Israel longed for, this is what we long for, the face of Jesus to see us.
How does Jesus turn his face towards us? It might be through
-a person who listens to your struggle and doesn’t try to fix it
-an unexplainable peace internally when externally all things seem in chaos
-a grace of courage to face our wounds and need for healing
-a calling out of the beauty you bring to the world being you
-a longing sometimes years in the holding coming to fruition
-a whisper of direction
-a moment of unexpected provision
-a community of friends that feel what your holding in life
The face of Jesus is turned toward you this Christmas season. His posture is open for you to bring and say what is most true about you this season. If your feeling merry, I greatly rejoice with you but if not, I hold all that feels un-merry with you.
Reflect:
What emotions are my current circumstances surfacing?
How am I turning my face to Jesus face with those?
Where has Jesus love for me been incarnated for me and in me?
The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.