Revolution has come and is coming again.
Photo by Bangsal Nam
Revolution has come and is coming again. This is what the Advent season gives us the chance to remember. Call it what you want, Christmas, Advent, the Holidays. Standing between Thanksgiving and Christmas day, these few weeks of holly and eggnog stand in defiance against the world as we know it, reminding us that all is not well but will one day be.
If we allow them, these few weeks can help us encounter the revolutionary, Jesus, who draws near and whispers "revolt," enticing us into His subversion of the broken world. But for this to happen, we must stay alert, fully awake to the reality in which we live. Peter helps us do just that as he encourages the embattled Church in no uncertain terms, "Stay sober, watchful! Our Adversary is on the prowl and bent on devouring us. We must continue to resist, trusting as we have before Jesus and His way. Know that our sufferings are shared by many just like us, and in the end, our gracious God, the object of our faith, will personally restore, strengthen, and establish each of us (1 Peter 5:8-10 my paraphrase).
The revolutionary God calls us to be revolutionary people. Listen to Peter. We do not live in a world that is for us. The way of the world is the way of suffering and death. And while beauty and light break through in so many wonderful places, one merely needs to pick up their phones and scroll through their news feed to be reminded that unimaginable horrors characterize our world. Just this week, Coronavirus cases skyrocketed in places once thought to have the virus under control, a man plowed through a holiday parade in Wisconsin, killing six and injuring over 40 others, and various trials centering on violent divisions of racism and bigotry either ramped up or down. On and on, the horrors go.
Even the so-called good news is a reminder of how deep the darkness runs. This week, Kevin Strickland, a black man wrongfully convicted of a triple murder in 1979, was exonerated and released after 43 years in prison. Yet, the good news of exoneration falls flat as we reflect on 43 years of another human being's life stolen. One stolen by the very system meant to protect the innocent and bring justice to victims has victimized the innocent. We can hardly pat ourselves on the back and boast that we finally got it right. Perhaps this particular horror wouldn't be so bad had it been an anomaly, a bug in the system. Yet, we are discovering more and more what people of color have long understood. It is a not-so-subtle feature.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, all three men who pursued and gunned down Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man in a modern-day lynching, were found guilty. But again, so-called justice rings hollow. Ahmaud is still gone. The grief and ache of those who knew him remains. And those who look like him still grieve the fact that they live in a world where the racist circumstances that led to his execution in the middle of a Georgia street still exist. This is not God's brand of justice. There is no wholeness here.
And none of this accounts for the darkness we experience personally in broken relationships, miscarriages, loss of loved ones, loneliness, greed, hate, etc. The Adversary is indeed on the prowl, and we would do well to remember that we are on his turf.
But in remembering this, we also are reminded of that first burst of resistance, the child born in poverty, obscurity, and weakness. The revolution begins in the manger. Christmas, all at once, reminds us both that the world is profoundly broken and that God has profoundly responded to that brokenness.
And so this season calls us to stretch our memory back to the manger, remembering that God has not deserted us to death and darkness. But at the same time, it calls us to stretch our imagination forward to that great and terrible day of the Lord the prophets go on and on about, the day when God's peace will burst into every nook and cranny of our hearts and our world. When wrong shall fail and right prevail, and we may finally shout, "peace on earth!"
Meanwhile, in this middle space, the in-between community of Jesus lives into both the memory and the hope of God's coming as revolutionaries, insurgents, insurrectionists, revolting against the Adversary and his reign of terror.
Our tools of revolt, however, are not those of our Adversary. We do not fight fire with fire. Instead, when we consider how Jesus calls us to resist, we look to the manger and find all we need there—the God who made Himself weak, poor, and insignificant in self-giving love. These are our tools of revolution. It's no accident Peter begins his call to resistance with the call to humiliation, "Humble yourselves and let God do the work! Hide behind Him and His might and know that He will raise you up. He cares deeply for you beloved (1 Peter 5:6-7 my paraphrase)."
One cannot help but think of the highest examples we have of this type of living. Mother Teresa, the missionary martyrs of the world, and Doctor King, to name a few. Mother Teresa did not tend the sick from afar but joined them, living among them, becoming one of them, when no one else would. She associated with the lowly, touching the untouchables, and spent her life for others. In the back of Moody Bible Institute's chapel stands a wall of names, each belonging to an individual who gave their lives in the fullest sense, resisting the darkness. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. neither submitted to the night of this world nor wielded its violence against it. Instead, rather than fighting fire with fire, Dr. King found profound, dare I say, divine, power in weakness. Each, in their own way, following the carpenter from Nazareth, lived in the way of the manger.
The Jesus revolutionary believes that when Jesus returns to flip the world right side up, the weak will be made strong, the poor rich, the unknown known. We begin this season by reminding ourselves that we are revolutionaries, and the lives we live are lived to one end. Resist the night, and share our specks of light in hope and love with the world around us. It will undoubtedly cost us in significant ways, but "know that our sufferings are shared by many just like us, and in the end, our gracious God, the object of our faith, will personally restore, strengthen, and establish each of us."
Let's support, pray, and encourage one another to reimagine lives lived into revolutionary trust and love of Jesus'. Join the discussion on discord.
