Witness?

Every Christian is called to be a witness to Jesus Christ. A witness is someone who shares what they have seen or experienced with others. A witness is someone who points others to Jesus Christ by the content of their character. During this season of Advent we are reminded that John the Baptist “came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:6-9).

John the Baptist had a unique ministry in the sense that he bridged the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. He was the last of a great line of Hebrew prophets. The part of his ministry that was not unique, and that we share through the power of the Holy Spirit, was his calling to be a witness of Jesus Christ.

Interestingly, the concept of “witnessing” is usually given short-change in Christian circles. In mainline churches this is often equated with living a good life and in evangelical churches with challenging others to accept Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Obviously, both living the Gospel and challenging others to accept the Gospel are part of the total picture of what it means to be a witness.

However, a problem with defining witnessing as “living a good life” is that we usually reduce this to mean living a “middle-class American life,” which is not necessarily in alignment with the teachings of the Gospel. The problem with defining witnessing as “challenging others to accept Christ” is what do we mean by accepting Christ? Do we and the people we challenge realize the consequences of accepting Christ? Does accepting Christ mean praying a prayer or does it mean accepting a person into your life who will radically change every aspect of it?

We are witnesses and every-day we have an opportunity to let the light of our faith shine through our actions. When people examine our lives: at work, with our friends, with our family, when we’re driving, when were shopping, wherever we are – do they see Jesus Christ in us?

That is the question we must reflect on every day, especially during this season of Advent.

Repentance not easy but Essential

Changing our lives is never an easy thing. Repentance is seldom a pain free process. Advent calls us to examine our lives closely in light of the guest that we will welcome into our hearts and homes at Christmas. Repentance happens when you recognize your sin, confess it to God, ask Christ into your life and start to live differently. If you remove any of these steps from the process you don’t have repentance.

1.      Recognize Your Sin

A true recognition of how we’ve messed up requires the work of the Holy Spirit, not merely to prick our conscience but to align our conscience with the will of God.  As Christians the Holy Spirit dwells within us (1 Corinthians 3:16), but even then we can deny the work of the Holy Spirit and turn a blind eye to what we know is wrong. It is also possible that we are ignorant of what is wrong, and increasingly this is not unusual in a society whose prevailing ethics are in complete opposition to the ethics of the Gospel. When we recognize our sin we recognize the fact that the way we are living is in opposition to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

2.      Confess it  to God

Sin is a multi-faceted reality, but one of the things sin always does is break relationship. Sin always has a relational consequence, impairing our relationship with God, with others, or even ourselves as we were created to be. Since the Triune God is the source and summit of all relationships, all sin is a direct offense to God. This is why we must confess our sin to God. It is an acknowledgement that we have injured our friendship with God, broken His moral laws, and have willfully chosen to disobey His will. 

3.      Ask Christ into your Life

Sin is not a problem we can out-smart, out-work, or beat to death by ourselves. In the mystery of God’s love for us He sent His only Son to deal with sin so that you and I might be able to overcome it (2 Corinthians 5:21). When repenting of particular sins we should ask Christ to enter that particular part of our lives (i.e., “Jesus, please come into my heart so that I might not be so angry all the time”). Without Christ we will never be able to change our lives in the way that God wishes us to change them. Asking Christ into our lives is our humble recognition of our need for grace, for love, and for help from God (incidentally we also do this every time we put our hands out to receive the Eucharist).  

4.      Start to Live Differently

The results of repentance are both salvation (a free relationship with God and entrance into the reality that is heaven, which begins now, and echoes throughout eternity) and sanctification. Sanctification is the theological word referring to our growth as a Christian. The Christian life is not to be measured by attendance at Sunday services (though these are essential) but by growth in our character, in our attitude, and in our obedience to commandments of the Gospel. One pastor said that, “Confession without repentance is just bragging.” The point being that repentance is a road way that supposed to lead to a new location, a new behavior, a new life. Yes, we will struggle to repent, sometimes we will fail, but the direction of repentance is always away from sin and toward new life.

Advent is a season for us to repent, to get our lives together, in anticipation of the return of the King.

Why Wait?

“For centuries the Church has said you cannot celebrate Christmas rightly without doing Advent first.” This bold statement by an Anglican Dominican priest captures the spirit of the Church’s liturgical year, but may leave the ordinary Christian questioning its validity, not so much theologically, but practically speaking. After all, what is really missed if we skip Advent and jump right into the party of Christmas with the rest of our culture after Thanksgiving, after Halloween, around the beginning of November?

Can we not enjoy the festivities of Christmas straight away: the cheer, the hustle and bustle, the decorations, the music, and the rest? We can, but we’ll miss out on some things along the way. Think of Advent and Christmas as two parts of an epic film, with Advent telling the first part of the story and Christmas the rest. Without Advent, you’ll enjoy Christmas, but much of what is happening will go straight over your head or will be more confusing than comforting.

Think of the relationship between Advent and Christmas as being akin to the relationship between engagement and marriage. The period of engagement is a period of preparation before the big day, which leads to an even bigger deal: a new kind of life with new possibilities and new commitments. Advent is our engagement period before we celebrate the coming of the King. In fact, the entire Christian life on earth is a period of engagement, a holy preparation, getting us ready for that day when the King will return and the fullness of our relationship with God will be realized.

 
So if you’re in favor of hasty weddings, with little or no preparation, by all means jump right into Christmas. For my part, I’d rather prepare for the big day, and more importantly, for the bigger deal that follows.

Spirituality of Thanksgiving

Thank God is perhaps the most basic form of prayer in Western civilization. Even if we didn't grow up in a home that immersed itself in a rich tradition of spirituality (which I certainly didn’t) most people would be familiar with the idea of thanking God. In my work with families over the years I've always been amused by the "forced" thankfulness of some young people. If you're a parent or where once a child you probably know what I'm talking about. Here is how it works. A parent comes to pick up their kid from some activity: school, sports, church -- whatever. As they leave the parent inevitably says, "Did you say thank you?" to which the child replies with a monotone "thank you," as he/she goes to the car. In families where manners are valued the idea of please and thank you are drilled into children from infancy. I'm not complaining about this because it was drilled into me and I'm glad it was.

Yet I wonder how much of this robotic responsiveness to thankfulness continues to influence our understanding of gratitude as adults. Consider the fact that in general we tend to approach thankfulness as an obligation. We write thank you notes because we're supposed to and we say thank you to gifts, lunches, and compliments that are less than appealing because we want to be polite. When a crisis strikes a neighbor or a different part of the country we are often reminded of our blessings. We pause to consider that our life isn't so bad after all and we are very grateful, very thankful, that whatever tragedy has struck, hasn't struck in our own backyard.

Even this kind of thankfulness is incomplete. It is true thankfulness, but it's a thankfulness that says "I'm glad those other people got hurt, and not me." Closer to the Biblical notion of thankfulness is the mere acknowledgment of your heartbeat; a simple thanks for the air you breathe or an innate sense of gratitude when watching children playing. It's a thankfulness that has been placed deep in our hearts by the Spirit of God. It's a posture that we as followers of Jesus are to approach life with. Life may have its up and downs, but we won't change our posture – we won’t stop being thankful.

That’s one reason that Christians have historically celebrated the Eucharist weekly, because Eucharist in the Greek language means “thanksgiving.” The Eucharist reminds us to be thankful and strengthens us to be thankful despite the tough stuff of life. Christians are fundamentally called to be a thanksgiving people – we are in the business of saying thank you. Are you a thanksgiving person?

Are you Ready for Advent?

This Sunday marks the beginning of the historic season of Advent. Advent is the beginning of the Christian year, sometimes also referred to as the Liturgical year. Advent is intended to be a time of waiting, watching, and preparation. The preparation is in reference to the coming of Jesus Christ: first in His birth in Bethlehem and then again at the end of time when He will return to “judge the living and the dead.”

Advent, like the other seasons of the Christian year, is intended to do more than provide a color code for Sunday service vestments, but to shape the daily pattern of our lives. There are a variety of traditions related to the celebration of Advent for individuals, couples, and families. The most well known is the use of an Advent wreath and the lighting of that wreath, usually at the principal meal of the day, accompanied by a prayer (for more ways you or your family can observe Advent click here).

Traditionally, Advent is a time marked by silence, quiet reflection, as well as service to others in preparation for the great feast of Christmas. In our North American culture this time of year is marked by the exact opposite: noise, stress, and self-indulgence (if you’re sick of this dichotomy, join the Advent Conspiracy by clicking here). Observing Advent requires a willingness to be different than our co-workers, families, and friends. Observing Advent requires a willingness to say, “I’m not ready to celebrate Christmas yet, I have to prepare first.” Advent is not about squashing holiday fun, but about capturing the deeper joy, the deeper meaning, and the deeper power of Christmas.  In addition, Advent causes us not only to recall the events of Bethlehem, but to consider the future as it relates to the return of our King, and whether we are ready for Him to return or not.   

I want to leave you with the words of Father Tony Clavier, an Episcopal priest, who offers some good advice related to this time of year, and to the season of Advent: “We perhaps moan about a secularized Christmas that begins before Thanksgiving and ends abruptly on the day after Christmas. Rather than moaning we can meet the challenge it presents. We can be subversive by keeping Advent in holy preparation.”

Healing and Christian Faith

October 18 is the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, also known as Saint Luke the Physician. According to Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, Luke was a medical doctor who was a friend and co-worker of the Apostle Paul. The miracles performed by Jesus and by the Apostles’ remind us that healing played a prominent role in the early days of the Christian faith. This healing work has continued throughout Church history into the modern day.

Modern medicine, hospitals, and counseling can trace much of their development and origin to the Church. Today, healing in all its modern and scientific forms is offered by many sorts of people, and many sorts of institutions. For this Christians should be thankful, trusting that God uses individuals and institutions regardless of their belief as channels of His healing power.

The supernatural work of healing, which has manifested itself in every century of the Church, is met with more skepticism today than it was during the time of Jesus. Today, we are aware of many scandals and charlatans, people pretending to be so called “faith healers,” and so for many of us, the idea of miraculous healing is hard to accept.

These doubts have not stopped many Christians from continuing to pray for healing, whether through doctors or through the miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit. Prayer chains, healing services, and specialized healing ministries (see here for example) continue to fill the Christian landscape in North America.

God may indeed work His healing power through these sorts of services and through our prayers, perhaps in the way we want, perhaps not. As one man said, “I have prayed hundreds, if not thousands of times for the Lord to heal me and He finally healed me of the need to be healed.”

Who is a Spiritual Person?

Here’s the problem. The Church has often given the impression that there is one cookie-cutter way to being a spiritual person, to being a Christian. There is not. If you take ten spiritually mature Christians and put them in a room they will not all resemble each other. Of course, they will share much in common in terms of their values and their relationships with Christ and others.

There are many paths or ways of following Jesus Christ; of being a spiritual person; of being a disciple; in short, of being a Christian. Here are some of them. 

The Serving Pathway

These folks come alive spiritually when they are helping others. They are the sort of person who wants to help people in practical ways. They rightly recognize that being a Christian means doing good for others. These folks flourish more in doing for others than they do in Bible studies and conversation groups.  

The Relational Pathway

These folks come alive spiritually as they develop meaningful connections with other people. They are the sort of person who wants to spend time with others. They rightly recognize that being a Christian means being in community. Take this kind of person away from other Christians and their spiritual life will tank quickly.   

The Intellectual Pathway

These folks come alive spiritually when they are able to engage their minds with the truths of the Christian faith.  They rightly recognize that being a Christian means learning new concepts and learning to worship God with our minds. These kinds of folks tend to suffer spiritually when in a church that doesn’t challenge their minds or take intellectual questions seriously.

The Contemplative Pathway

These folks come alive spiritually when they are able to spend long periods of time in prayer and silence with God. They rightly recognize that being a Christian means developing a close relationship with God. Trying to force these types of people to be more activist and “busy” often kills their spiritual life.

The Artistic Pathway

These folks come alive spiritually when they are creating or expressing something deep from their hearts. They rightly recognize that being a Christian means recognizing the beauty of art and that art should be used to honor God. Often people wired this way have no formal or official way of expressing their gifts in the Church, which damages their spiritual life.

Creation Pathway

These folks come alive spiritually when they are outdoors. They rightly recognize that being a Christian means recognizing the goodness and beauty of creation.  These types of people tend to suffer spiritually when they are unable to get outside, whether their preference is the water, the woods, the mountains, or the prairie.

The Activist Pathway

These folks come alive spiritually when they are putting everything on the line for a cause or work they believe to be important. They rightly recognize that being a Christian means being willing to sacrifice and to give our all for the causes of the Kingdom. Activists suffer when people try to “slow them down” and force them to adopt a more normal lifestyle.

The problem is that the Church has often given the impression that the “contemplative” path way is the only and best way to being a spiritual person. This is a sinful and heretical notion (and I do not use those words lightly) that has paralyzed generations of so-called ordinary Christians.  The best way to move forward in your Christian life is to embrace your primary pathway. Yes, you may be able to see yourself in more than one pathway, though for most of us one pathway dominants.

Let me say that there are certain practices and commitments that all Christians should be developing, regardless of their pathway (i.e. prayer, worship, giving, etc.). But persons of different pathways will engage in these practices differently. For example, someone with the serving pathway may have a very short time with God in the morning, a short bit of Scripture and a few short prayers, while the person with the contemplative pathway may start their day with an hour in silent prayer. One is not better than the other.

I think those of us who are teachers and leaders in the Church need to do a better job of letting people know what it means to be a spiritual person. The stereotype of what it means to be spiritual person is still out there and is still preventing many men and women from recognizing themselves as spiritual persons. This not only hurts them, but hurts the Church, because we need all the pathways in full operation to carry out the mission Jesus has given us.