Despite the Cold

Despite the Cold--January 9, 2019

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.... And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." [John 3:17, 19]

Sometimes I don't know how God stands it...us.

For all its beauty, and for all the glimpses of compassion and nobility there may be, the world can be a terribly cold place.  No--let me not try to shirk or dodge responsibility: we can be terribly cold, we human beings.  And sometimes it is hard to believe that God hasn't given up on us.

I have to say, more and more for me the wonder of the Incarnation--the idea of God coming among us and wearing our skins--is that in the human flesh of Jesus of Nazareth, God was willing to be identified as one of us, despite our rottenness.

I don't mean to be melodramatic here, but seriously, the world that God sent the Son to save is not a terribly friendly place a lot of the time.  Like John says, Light has come into the world, and we consistently say, "No thanks" because we would prefer to keep our cold self-centeredness hidden behind a mask of shallow niceness or the cover of night.  Light came into the world, John says, but we love the dark.  

It is hard not to be disappointed anymore--disappointed in our selves (myself included, to be sure) at the ways we harden our hearts.  It is hard to watch the news and not find myself shaking my head in sheer disgust at the ways we treat each other.  Whether it is our propensity for violence toward each other, or the opposite cruelty of indifference to the sufferings of others, whether it is our fear of others who are different, or our insatiable appetites that drive us to put Me and My Group first above the needs of the other, it's hard not to be disillusioned at the face in the mirror and the world full of fellow cold-hearts with whom I share a common sin-sickness.  I am fond of saying we humans are "stinkers," but that almost sounds glib at times, like our inclinations toward fear and cruelty are harmless, when I know better--we all do--that we are capable of such terrible actions and attitudes.  

And I think, if I were God, I would have given up.  I would have given up on the whole project, the whole planet, the whole lot of us.  I would have seen enough of our cold and hardened hearts, and I would have said, "I'm done with this."

Thank God I'm not God.

Thank God that instead, impossibly, wonderfully, gracefully, the word from the Scriptures is NOT that God is fed up with our rottenness and has gone off to heaven to leave us to our own devices.  

Thank God that the announcement from John is NOT that God says, "Oh, you love darkness and don't want my light? Well, if you won't accept my gift, I guess I have to leave you all alone to fend for yourselves."

Thank God that the declaration of the Good News is NOT that God is naïve and thinks we are all good little boys and girls.

Thank God that the Gospel's word for us today is this: "Yep, the whole lot of you loves darkness and wouldn't accept God's light if it were dangled right in front of you.  But that doesn't stop God, and it never will.  God is willing to love you all in spite of yourselves.  And God knows full well what terrible things you are capable of--and God will bear you doing them to him in Christ, rather than give up on you."

Please, let us not leave the Christmas season behind without considering the immense and infinite commitment it means on God's part.  In the coming of Christ, God has looked full and deep into our cold hearts, seen the worst in us, and hasn't flinched.  God has still said, "I am with you.  I have come among you and I will own all the baggage that comes with loving you as you are.  I will not be stopped by your own refusal to welcome me or open the gift."

Every time I hear some angry voice grumble, "It's not MY problem--they should take care of their own needs!" or "We have to look out for our own--I can't be troubled with the worries of someone else!" or every time I catch that same coldness on my own lips, I am caught off guard twice: first, by how brazen our hardheartedness can be as a human species, and second, at how amazing it is that God does not take such a policy toward us. That is exactly the point of the Incarnation--the coming of Christ is God's refusal to tell us, "You're not MY problem."  The brown-skinned body of Jesus is the form of God's commitment NOT to be as coldly indifferent toward us as we are toward one another.

That is a greater grace toward humanity than I can muster, honestly.  But it is my--and all of our--only hope. After the manger scenes are put away, the stubborn, persistent, relentless love of God in the human life of Jesus continues to say, "I will not take your darkness-loving No for an answer.  I will not let you destroy yourselves.  I will not let your coldness be the last word."

For whatever rottenness is waiting in the headlines of the new day, my hope is not that "Maybe we'll do a little bit better job tomorrow," but rather that God will not walk away from us despite the cold, and despite our turned backs.

Praise be to the God who wears our skin in solidarity with us beyond our deserving or willingness.

Lord Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank you, for your wonderfully stubborn refusal to leave us.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, for staying.