Make Straight the Way

Preparing for Christ's Coming

We seek your Face, Oh Lord

If you have been visiting Making Note of the Moments for long, you have probably noticed that I am a Christian. This no doubt colors what I write. It also colors how I respond to what others write.

For some reason, special Christian seasons evoke anger in non-believers or those who doubt. They level a charge at God: he should do away with evil, with suffering, with the kinds of atrocities we can inflict on one another. In fact, he should prevent them from happening at all. They recite a litany of things that God should fix, or that if he is all-powerful, the universe would without fault from the beginning.

Today I read a harrowing example of this kind written by a young woman. It was clear to me she was in pain. It is especially painful she was a believer who was taught that God would protect her from harm. Yet she was harmed. No one protected her or brought her comfort. She blames God.

As I read it, I thought, “Don’t you see? It was the people around you who are responsible, the ones who injured, and those who did not protect or help.

“Nearly everything on your list is because humans chose to do wrong. To stop human-on-human injuries, or worse yet, atrocities, God would have to change us all into people incapable of sinning, by removing our ability to choose right from wrong. We would be like mannequins on display. We would be lacking one essential thing. We could not love him and know him, because puppets do not love. We could not decide to follow him, and to make his love visible in the world. We could not love at all, because love requires freedom of choice, loving souls who commit themselves to others fully and freely. To be human requires the freedom to choose, even if the choice is bad.”

For some reason, this young woman’s writing led to a strong reaction on my part, beyond the philosophical argument made above. I offer it here in the spirit of Advent, for those who believe, and for those who are open.

Isaiah 48: 17-18

Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go.

O that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your prosperity would have been like a river, and your success like the waves of the sea

Father in Heaven, I am tired of seeing you accused of a lack of love, of powerlessness, of even nonexistence. I am tired of people accusing you of failing to do what we should be doing and should have done for centuries. I am tired of people not acknowledging the work that has been done by Saints and by those who follow after you now. I cry out in defense of your Holy Name! 

Father, we cry out to you from the depths of our misery. We labor under heavy weights. The oppressors, the wicked, unjust rulers, and warfare, all cause the poor, the lonely, the exiled, the refugees, the orphans, and the widows, to cry out. Where is God in all of this? My response is, where are the Christians? God has given us the command to comfort those who mourn, to feed the hungry, to care for the widow and the orphan, to clothe the naked, to shelter the homeless, to visit those in prison, and to welcome refugees. Do we do these things?

Father, have you not told us over and over what we must do? Are we goats or are we sheep? Where lies the burden of all this sin and destruction?

Of course, I can hear your response. Not everyone chooses to do good and not evil. Because we are free to choose, there will be evil-doers in the world; in fact Jesus himself said narrow is the road that leads to salvation and few take it. The road is broad that leads to damnation and many take it.

It is our failure to convert, to be transformed into Christ here on earth. You provide the power through your Holy Spirit if we but cling to you, if we but listen to the voice of conscience whispering in our hearts. Oh Jesus, most tender, patient, loving, you will not always come to us with soft words and open hands. At the time of your second Advent, you will come to judge the world, and that means to judge us. All of us. Those who commit crimes and those who fail to oppose them. Those who pass by the poor, who leave them unhelped and uncomforted, even though they have the means.

Most loving Father, hear my cry. Open our eyes to see the truth and turn to you, who are the source of all our joy, you who wait for us to turn and be saved. We are saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved if we allow you to work in us.

You give us time, you give us centuries, you offer and you wait and you provide. Have mercy on your people! Help us repent more deeply than ever. Open our eyes to your great love for us so we may have the courage to let go of our sin and run to you like the prodigal son!

Help us accept the joy of your Incarnation, when you became one with us, the God-man born a babe in Bethlehem. This is your answer to our plight. You became like us, fully human, yet also fully God, and without sin.

God entered into his creation. Stop and think about that! God the maker of all that is, all matter, all energy, all space-time, became a helpless infant born into a poor homeless family. He was completely helpless, dependent on his mother and father for everything. He faced the difficulties we face: homelessness, false accusation, an unjust trial, rejection by his town, and later the Pharisees, Scribes, and the crowd, and physical abuse, unlike anything we can imagine. Yet he died, forgiving those who killed him. He went willingly to his death, because he knew that it would open a way for us to be saved, to repent and be healed, to turn from our evil ways, and become members of his body here on earth.

Your love is displayed for all to see: Jesus born in Bethlehem. God, the Creator of the Universe, lowered himself to take the form of an infant helpless in Mary's arms. This is beyond imagination. The Maker of everything that is, the one who brought the universe into being from nothing, took on the flesh of a human infant. And why? So that he might one day give himself in love upon the Cross, to set us free from sin. If this is not love, there is no love. If this is not joy, then there is no joy, and we dwell in darkness still.

Oh, Christians, hear. We bear the greatest responsibility because we know what we should do. It is written plain and simple in the Gospels. It is in Jesus’s words to us, in the Beatitudes, in the Parables, his end-times warnings. Those who do not see, or who think they see when they don't, need open eyes. Those who think they are his friends when they are not, need to be shown how to become his friends.

We are given such an opportunity for life. Let us be true, faithful, and full of joy at your great gift this Christmas. Let us take this joy into the streets and let it shine before all men and women. You have not abandoned us, God-is-with-us, the promised Emmanuel, you have come. Alleluia!

Once again, I write this in the spirit of Jesus’s coming to us at Christmas, and in the spirit of his second coming, when he will judge us. This is as much for me to hear as anyone else.

Photo by Rick Medlen on Unsplash