January 2010 Pastor's Pen Points for the Banner

"The Shining" may now be known as the title for a Stephen King novel and movie; however, it originally meant "Epiphany." In ancient Greek "Epiphany" meant to shine forth upon. "Epiphany" is derived from epiphanos, and the root word phanos was used to describe a lantern or sometimes even a light house, and so "The Shining" can provide us with a vivid image of a light beaming through the darkness and clouds in the same way a search light might guide and help us when we are lost at sea - or simply lost in the night.

The evangelist John wrote in his gospel about Jesus that "What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people." (John 1:3a-4) That is, the life that Jesus brings into world gives light for our lives! His light helps guide us through life's ups and downs and leads us finally to safe harbor and rest.

I look for that light, especially when the days are dreary and clouded with challenges. For this year 2010 I'm praying and hoping for better days for all of us, and yet sometimes I'm tempted to think that we are "Waiting for Godot."

"Waiting for Godot" is a play that recently had a popular revival in New York City. It's Samuel Beckett's story about two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who wait for another character named Godot. Godot's absence throughout the story, as well as numerous other aspects of the play, have led to many different interpretations of the play since its premiere; however, one popular intrepretation has been that Godot represents God for whom we as people hope and pray but who does not come.

Of course, this may indeed have been the intrepretation of some truly religious people, Christians as well as Jews, who believed with all of their hearts that God would come and deliver them from death in Nazi concentration camps. They were waiting for God to show himself as their savior, but after the grueling work, the harsh surroundings, the unrelenting cruelty and the woeful executions the remaining survivors were truly tempted to think that God like Godot never came.

Did God come? That's what we believe. Quoting The Gospel of John, we say, "the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14) A more accurate translation of those words is that the creative and just wisdom, that is, God, became human flesh and set up his tent among us in the way a stranger sets up his home next door to you and me, and then we teach that that heavenly stranger gets acquainted with us and our ways and we get acquainted with him.

So what would it be like to have God living next door? And what would it have been like to have God lying in the bunk next to you in the concentration camp?

Jesus' contemporaries may have had triumphant, victorious images of their promised Christ as being wiser than Solomon, more powerful than David, and … but we believe that God enters human flesh as the child of a working couple who only succeeded in finding a manger, the feeding trough for donkeys and cattle, for our Lord's first cradle.

God who comes to us is not full of himself, but he comes empty. He comes empty and ready to feel what it means to be human not only in our joys but also in our sorrows, not only in our triumphs but also in our defeats. He comes as one who exchanges a crown for a cross, so that he might know from the inside out what it means to be human from beginning to end.

Paul describes Our Lord's experience among us this way:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, 8he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross.9Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

Before Jesus came to our world he emptied himself so he could be filled with all of the experiences of what it means for us to be hungry and satisfied, injured and healed, grieving and comforted, persecuted and vindicated.

At the end of December I viewed the groundbreaking movie "Avatar." The computer generated graphics were incredible, and the acting was good. But what I think set it apart from other recent science fiction movies is that it had a straight forward story line with some good character development. The main character, a human being, through technology inhabits an "avatar," the genetically-grown body of an alien that was designed for this human's genome. As an "avatar" this human being becomes an empty cup to be filled with the experiences of what it means to be a native of an alien planet. It's only then he can know and understand the native people and only then he can gain their trust, by being one who walks with them.

I hear more and more people outside the church talking about us people in the church as being "church people," as if we are some type of alien race who are not native to the world they inhabit. So as Paul says, "Let's let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus." Let's begin this new year by emptying ourselves of some of our presumptions about others and be open enough to learn from others what they are experiencing as they struggle to make sense of their lives. And as we walk with them, let's pray that we gain their trust as we have gained trust in Jesus, God in human flesh, who walked with us.

Your partner in mission,

Pastor Mark