Luke 1: The Deceptive Cadence of Christmas

Deceptive cadence is when a deceptive resolution happens, in other words, the dominant is followed by any chord which not the tonic. This cadence has the “surprise effect” and not the conclusive. - www.simplifyingtheory.com

Recently I was returning from Taiwan and the long, tiring flight was about touch down in San Francisco when suddenly the jet's engines fired up and the plane accelerated and started to climb. After circling once or twice, the plane descended again and this time it landed and pulled into the gate.

The Christmas story feels a bit like that to me. Anticipation has been building in the people of Israel for 400 years. You only have to read Simeon's prayer "waiting for the consolation of Israel" (Luke 2:285-32) and Mary's song (Luke 1:54-55) to sense the unresolved tension and the expectations of resolution and restoration centered on Jesus' birth.

Then there's John the Baptist, whose father Zechariah is told that he will be the forerunner of God's next big move:

And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. - Luke 1:17

The shepherds hear that the Messiah had arrived. The Messiah is supposed to bring everything under his dominion and resolve everything, right? Everyone is amazed and rejoices at the good news.

The magi show up, stirring up Jerusalem with their star, dreams and expectations of finding a king. 

So much excitement generated but then things seem to go quiet. The magi find their toddler and go home/ Shepherds go back to work. Jesus and his family disappear into Egypt and then work as laborers in northern Israel. Elizabeth and Zechariah try to keep up with their precocious baptist baby in their old age.

The deceptive cadence of Christmas ratcheted up expectations. It seemed that the time was so close for seeing God's resolution of the whole kingdom situation. Then it didn't happen, the silence of God seemed to return and meanwhile the discordant melody returned to lead us on for another 30 years.

Suddenly, in the wilderness, John leads the reprisal of the redemption theme, reintroducing the Messiah theme, which builds and builds, driving us inexorably (it seems) towards a triumphant conclusion with Lazarus' resurrection and the Palm Sunday entrance. But again, on Good Friday, the deceptive cadence takes us to a dark, melancholy chord and, worse, it is followed by God's silence once again, leading us to think that it is all over and the tune has come to some sort of disturbing ending.

Sunday, the Messiah theme returns, triumphant, for forty days. Surely, these are the days when the kingdom will be established! Then Jesus leaves them! He has done it again! Resolved some but leaving vast, unanswered and unresolved questions. We live in the times of the deceptive cadence, awaiting Christ's resolution of all history.

Acts 16:9-10: Dig In, Eyes Up

During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. - Acts 16:9-10

Sections of the Bible like this can be frustrating. Wouldn't it be nice to have dreams that gave clear directions? Three times in five verses, Paul is given direct, clear guidance: avoid Asia, avoid Bythnia, go to Macedonia. My dreams tend to be more mundane, more confusing and certainly never mention the Mediterranean.

• I wish my calling was clear. Instead I am left wondering whether my nudges from the Holy Spirit are genuine or else the result of my own wishful, selfish thinking. The upside is, I have to think about it a lot. 
• I wish my calling was dramatic. Instead I am usually guided to reconcile with my wife, support someone in need or even do a U-turn to help push a car into a parking lot.
• I wish my calling were more "spiritual". Paul got guidance to "preach the gospel to them". My calling usually brings me into tough work situations or caring about what my neighbor is telling me of his life.

I have concluded that the reason that I haven't heard God's voice or dreamed God's dream is not because I am blind or insensitive, but because-through a thousand hints and nudges-he is calling me to stay, grow, wait and watch. There seems to be this pattern: flourish where you are planted, but be ready to move when God moves. Sometimes, we are not digging in, sometimes we don't have our eyes up in expectation. There is a balance.

Jesus' parable in Luke 12 shows the foolish manager who was running the master's estate while hte master is on other business. This manager expects nothing will ever change-that the master will never return-and abuses his position of trust and "the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of." (vs. 46) The manager was not expecting anything to change, which led him (or her) to be lax in the day-to-day responsibilities.

When talking to the Thessalonian church, Paul tells believers who are caught up in God's next big move to settle down and flourish. The believers eyes were up-watchful for Christ's return-leading them to not dig in with their day-to-day calling. So Paul had to say:

...make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. - 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12

So my calling is clear: I'm called to dig in and keep my eyes up. My calling is dramatic: but it is in the part of the story that occurs between chapters or after the period but before the start of the next sentence. My calling is spiritual-but I am not always the one with a speaking role. Sometimes I'm earning the respect and living God's hope and provoking questions by the way I follow Jesus.

Psalm 134: In The Night

Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who minister by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who is the Maker of heaven and earth. - Psalm 134

This psalm-the last of the songs of ascents-caught my attention while studying from Eugene Peterson's A Long Obedience In The Same Direction. What struck me were two things: 1. It was sung by the many pilgrims who walked the long road to Jerusalem to worship God at the temple and 2. It was directed at those who worked in that temple, not during the public ceremonies, but during the long nights. It is an invitation to those who might be numb from exposure to the temple from those who have been long away--an invitation to experience again the pilgrims' joy at coming close to the living God.

In some ways, the difference between the temple servant and the pilgrim is like the difference between a doctor and a patient. For the patient, cancer is a terrible, unexpected, life-and-death event that becomes the central focus of their lives. For the doctor-especially someone like an oncologist--the cancer is one more in a steady flow flow of patients, symptoms and treatments. A doctor cannot take the strain of fifty or a hundred emotion-filled, life threatening illnesses without developing some degree of detachment. But that detachment threatens to remove the very real human cost of cancer. There is always a tension.

God's presence is a consuming fire. How to live with that continuously?

Any who have served for long in ministry, whether vocational or not, know the numbness of which can slowly deaden the experience of God's presence. Maybe it is the over-familiarity with the holy, or the taint of shallow faith expressions, or weariness of the soul, or the frantic dealing with details. Working to put Sunday services together for many years, in many different capacities, I have witnessed how their very regularity can nitpick away at our joy and mask the very presence of God that the worship is meant to reveal. There can be cynicism. There even be annoyance at the joy of others.

The psalm invites the hard-working temple-dwelling servants to join the pilgrims (see also Psalm 84) in the joy of worship-of lifting hands and praising God. It is a recognition of the realities of prolonged night-watches, un-glamorous stretches of ministry. That is why the author of the psalm ends with a blessing-a re-introduction of those whose work was in the temple to the presence of the God in which they worked nightly.

God, many labor for you with numb hearts, worn down and worn out. Renew them with the joy of the pilgrim and the vision of God transcendent.

Ecclesiastes 3:12-13: Ordinary, But Not Typical

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live--that each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. - Ecclesiastes 3:12-13

Be careful what you exalt. Believers showcase missionaries and pastors and full-time ministry workers as examples for others to imitate. I have known many truly godly men and women in these professions, whose humility and obedience to the call of God on their lives has challenged my faith. I have also known many truly godly men and women who have slugged it out through the day-to-day struggle of living the ordinary life of a Christ follower at work, church, home and neighborhood, and they stretch me.

So I cringe when the "best" growth path offered for Christian life is full-time ministry and anything else is somehow less. When has the church highlighted (apart from stay-at-home motherhood) the well-lived, ordinary life of the the insurance broker, the computer programmer, the secretary and the sanitation engineer as the exemplary Christian life-on par with pastor-ing or missionary-ing?

I am convinced that I am called to the ordinary life, but not the typical life. I'm married, own a house, have three kids, go to work each day and own a house. Not everyone's life, but not unusual. I am called to love my wife well, raise my kids to meet God and love others, excel at the work I'm given, enjoy the provision of God and live generously towards everyone God brings into my path. This isn't plan B for my life-what someone with a seminary degree does when they don't happen to make it into full-time ministry. I am convinced that this is God's plan A for me-no less blessed.

Listen to Paul's words the members of the church in Thessaloniki:

Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. - 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12

No call here for the revolutionary life. Rather the ordinary quiet life-industrious, respectable, excellent. Not typical. Not mediocre. Not the anxious and anger lives of their neighbors, but rather full of love and hopeful.

So what does it look like when the ordinary people show up? The same stuff happens, the same laughter erupts and tears flow, but the grace of God accompanies the people of God into each and changes its significance and thereby glorifies God.

Luke 8:15: Perseverance Is Patience Prolonged

But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. - Luke 8:15

Paul says that "suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character and character, hope." (Romans 5:3-4). I have wondered whether being annoyed counts as "suffering" in this context. Because I am often annoyed. :-) It doesn't take a coliseum full of hungry lions or midnight raids and secret trials. A slow-moving buffet line or a shopping cart angled across the aisle of a grocery store will do it easily and with a lot less...fuss. l often mentally catalog ways that people could optimize their handling of a tedious situation to make it easier for other people. I am easily annoyed and, therefore, I am on the fast track to hope and saint-hood, right?

What I have found instead is that fostering annoyance or impatience leads me to be a more irritable and impatient person. And when I reflect on what I am saying (silently or out loud) and thinking (loudly) about other people in these circumstances, I find I am not a person whom I can admire.

So I have begun to do four things over the past few months:

1. Deliberately choose slower options, such as slower lanes of traffic or longer check-out lines. I call this the "discipline of the longest line". It is a means of fighting my me-first, critique-filled attitude and a means of testing where I am in this process.
2. Keep a tally of the number of times that I am impatient with people in these types of situations, 
3. Talk with God each time to discuss why I felt so entitled and in a hurry and 
4. Discuss this process with some that I trust. 

Why? Because I don't like the type of person I am when I am impatient. Because I am chronically in a hurry even when I have plenty of time. Because my wife and good friends see it also.

It's early days, so nothing is settled. I have gone from a high of about 18 or 19 incidents in a week to a record low of 4 this past week. Thanks to God's work through this, I am doing better in traffic and at stores, but I have found new areas. I didn't even know how irritable I am in buffet lines (12 "incidents" in one evening!) or airport security. Each time is a prompt to reset myself before God:

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24)

I hope that these seasons of patience ("perseverance") in the little things produces the harvest Jesus talked about. As farmers know, no harvest ever came without perseverance and perseverance consists of day-after-day patience in the same direction as God does his life-changing work.

But with character, there is hope. Hope that I can actually be different. Hope that I can actually be the person that Christ imagines in me.

Ephesians 3:17b-19: Rooted and Established

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. - Ephesians 3:17b-19

Summer is the testing time for our garden. The heat in our town beats down and we can see which plants and trees are established. That is, they have developed a reliable connection to the water and nutrients that are available in the soil. Or not. That connection allows it to stand the test of the 20+ days over 100 degrees in July.

When a seed is first introduced into the ground, it has a certain amount of life within it. Enough life to sprout up towards the sun. Enough life to dig down into the soil. But that life is limited and if that first growth does not become rooted and established, it will fail. It must make a connection with the sustenance in the environment. If not, it will die. No long term prospects.

Jesus uses a similar idea in his parable of the farmer who scattered his seed. He explains that "The farmer sows the word." (Mark 4:14) God's word has life in it. It has the necessary elements to initiate life. It has the necessary DNA to form godliness within us. But it must be rooted and established in order to grow. Otherwise it has no long term prospects.

Paul expands on this: he prays that all the folks in the church, who are "rooted and established in love" get an idea of the full richness of soil into which God has planted this new life. God hasn't left us in the flinty, rock-filled, nutrient-deficient soil. No, he has planted this life of ours in the wide-open, unimaginably rich and fulfilling soil of his love.

If we are feeling nutrient-deprived and water-stressed, perhaps our roots are stretching for sustenance in the wrong directions.

Mark 4:30-32: Environments Where Others Can Thrive

Again he said, “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds can perch in its shade.” - Mark 4:30-32

When you walk into most churches on Sunday morning, you don't realize it, but the air is being processed by machinery under the control of computer software. Likewise, the light is often controlled by a sophisticated controller that allows pre-programmed settings to set the mood and highlight specific points of interest within the sanctuary. A mixer board manages and massages the sound produced by the instruments to blend together for a pleasing effect. Working together, these create an environment meant to complement the message and help the people be prepared to receive it. We've probably all noticed when it wasn't working: ice-box air, silenced instruments or voices, empty spotlights.

What does it look like when the kingdom of God is present at work? At home? In a church? Jesus points to it when he mentions that the mustard seed grows to a full-sized tree "with such big branches that birds can perch in its shade." The tree creates a new environment which allows the birds can now escape the heat of the day and rest. They can build nests, escape predators and raise their young. In Biblical terms, where the kingdom of God is made manifest, there is peace, or shalom or (to my thinking) an environment where others can thrive.

To extend the parable a bit further, some plants do not create this kind of environment. Some plants poison the ground underneath their canopy so that no other plants can grow there-a trait known as allelopathy. Some plants produce spines that limit which kinds of animals can climb or land on the branches.

What does it look like when other kingdoms reign instead of the kingdom of God? Elimination of the competition, suppression of those within the reach of our influence, withdrawal of help and support, to name a few, and sucking up resources for self.

The kingdom of God extends to wherever its citizens are active. What would it look like if the kingdom of God showed up in your office? In your home? In your church? In your neighborhood? In your country? You and I are there, so there is some provision-however small-has been made by God for the kingdom to establish a foothold in all of those places. We all may have ideas about what the kingdom of God should look like, but Jesus' point in this parable is that, as his representatives, we create an environment where others can thrive, the kingdom of God is gaining a foothold.

It will always imperfect in this age, because the world is not perfect and neither are we. Entropy reigns and selfishness corrupts. Only in Christ and his kingdom is there hope for anything else.

We are all called in ordinary ways to use the grace given us to provide that canopy under which others can thrive. This is me as a manager, a parent, a spouse, a neighbor and a part of my church. Check yourself-before looking for excuses: Are the people around you trending towards wholeness? Are you being honest with yourself about the influence you are actually having on them? You been given the grace to make a difference?