And so began the last week of the church year. Thanksgiving, perched almost at the end, a confluence of church and civic calendars, usually offers a chance to gather around a big table. In my family, that means lots of stories and reminiscences. I wonder what we'll say in years to come about this Thanksgiving. We attempted to eat together--yet apart--those that had quarantined sitting closer to my at-risk parents and their caregiver in the bubble--and the rest of us perched in the periphery. Good-natured and loving though it all was, I did feel at one point like I was watching the cool kids in warm conversation while I looked on. Did I mention this gathering was in my parents' garage and on their sloping driveway, and that not all of the family was together? So has the novel coronavirus affected us, even as (thankfully) it's taken no lives in our family.
Yet none of this discomfort and dis-ease is anything surprising, when seen through the lens of scripture and the Christian faith. The collect*, or prayer for Christ the King Sunday speaks to the heartache:
Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Coronavirus or COVID-19 merely brings to the surface what has always been there: our selfish natures, our desire for self-preservation and freedom from constraints, our sense of judgment, our tribalism, our distaste for disruption or change.
So the church year ends with an admission of guilt but also an acknowledgement of where our salvation comes from. Restore all things O God--fractured families, filled lungs, dashed dreams, lost jobs, forgotten futures. The collect reminds us that this restoration was not first of all our will, but God's will, God who can see all in a moment--the grief and great loss and the endgame of goodness.
Just as the clock strikes twelve and we move to a new day, or the calendar ends and we put up a new one, so we begin the cycle of the church year once more, acting out the waiting of God's people and the cries of the prophets, the longing of Abraham, the anticipation of Mary.
We act it out, and we also wait ourselves, when words of healing don't come, when we can't forgive as we know we ought, when the selfishness of our hearts hurt others and we don't really care. But what are we waiting for? I was caught off guard once by a friend exclaiming, with regard to human-initiated tragedies, "I can't wait until we are all enlightened!" Are we simply waiting for enlightenment, for our behavior to suddenly improve? Tim Keller speaks to this in a selection that was quoted in this Sunday's worship bulletin:
"Christianity, then, is not primarily about self-improvement. It is not just a place to get some inspiration and guidance for life. Of course, the Christian Gospel has massive implications for how you live. But it is first of all a message that you need to be saved, and you are saved not in the slightest by what you can do but rather by what he has done. You begin with Christ not by adopting an ethic nor by turning over a new leaf, nor even by joining a community. No, you begin by believing the report about what has happened in history. Did God really become a human being? Did Jesus really live and suffer and die for you? Did he really rise triumphant over the grave? If that is the case, then all the other things the Bible says about how to live make sense. But if the biblical story begins, 'Once upon a time,' if it is inspiring advice and not the declaration of the greatest events in history, then it is all nonsense. Christmas shows us that Christianity is not good advice. It is good news." --Tim Keller, Hidden Christmas
We need this good news. Why? I think we know. We know because our lives, indeed the entire planet, have been disrupted this year as millions struggle for breath. We have seen with new eyes the racial injustices of our country and our world. We have seen how false witness can shake a nation. This is not right, we say, again and again and again.
This is the groaning, the waiting for the consummation of all God has promised. Christ has come, bringing us peace with God, but we wait for him to come again and restore all things, making all the wrong things untrue. This is Advent.
*A collect is a prayer in the Episcopal or Anglican tradition designed to focus the worshippers on an attribute of God.
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