Jesus then qualifies the works he has been doing as God’s Son and clarifies the unity of the Godhead, that he is in the Father and the Father is in him.

Next he makes a statement vastly important to the mission of the church: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father” (12). Jesus promises that his followers, those who believe in him, will do his works, and greater works still. This is glorious and good news for followers of Jesus today because he has left us a task, a mission in which to participate. In addition, and this is the point that encouraged me so deeply on the last day of Christmas, those who believe in Jesus

do these “greater works” because Jesus is going to the Father. Here Jesus is speaking of his ascension where he is lifted up to the Father’s right hand, the control room of the universe as it were (see Acts 1:9-11). And, it is precisely because Jesus ascends that his body can do greater works than those he performed while on earth. For, while Jesus was on earth, he was limited by space, only present to those where he walked. But now that he has gone to the Father, his real absence is also his real presence to his people by the agency and power of his Holy Spirit.

So, on the last day of the Feast of the Incarnation, we are reminded that God in Christ takes our flesh on himself not only to live and die for us, but to be raised again and reign at the Father’s right hand in glory in order to empower his people to live lives of mission, doing “greater works than these.”

These truths have emboldened us to pray with faith and specificity entrusting ourselves to the Lord of the Harvest. In this new year, I encourage you to do the same.

First, Matthew’s account of Jesus’ calling Simon and Andrew makes it clear that Andrew was obedient. ”While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him” (Matt 4:18-20).  Immediately they left their nets.  Imagine Andrew and Peter dropping their nets, their very livelihood and identity to follow this rabbi.  This faithful response is a clear sign of obedience to Jesus.

Second, John’s account of Andrew and Peter meeting Jesus is a bit different.  Here we see that Andrew is not only obedient, but he is a missionary.  Andrew is one of John the Baptist’s disciples, and it is in Andrew’s hearing that John proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36).  It says later, “One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus” (John 1:40-42).  That Andrew knew Jesus was the messiah of God demonstrates his attentiveness to the Scriptures and to his own rabbi John the Baptist.  What is more, Andrew goes to his brother in jubilation – “We have found the Messiah.”  And, Andrew brought Peter to Jesus.  Andrew was the first of the disciples to be a missionary.  This missionary action didn’t necessitate going to a different culture or location.  Andrew simply responded to God and acted in his own surroundings.  His simple act of bringing Peter to Jesus would change the history of the world as the Holy Spirit later poured out in glory would empower and guide the young Church in the continuing expansion of the kingdom of God.

Andrew demonstrates a similar sensitivity to his surroundings where he brings the boy with the loaves and fishes to Jesus in order to feed the multitude.  Again, Andrew responds to God in simple faith.  In fact, it seems that Andrew is able to see things that others don’t see. Remarkably, Andrew’s ability to envision God’s work is close to the biblical definition of faith.  ”Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).  As the eleventh chapter of Hebrews rolls on, words related to seeing and vision keep showing up.  Andrew’s obedience as a disciple and his missionary heart were rooted in faith, in his God-given ability to see what was not yet, and come into line with God’s gracious move.

God’s call on our lives is similar.  He is moving in our midst lovingly, constantly, even without our approval or petition.  Like the word of God that emanates from creation day after day, night after night, pouring forth speech, so too God’s impetus of love is pouring forth.  Our task is simply to drop our nets and join in.  I believe we see this in St Andrew’s life, and it is a posture worth emulating.

So, today we remember our brother Andrew who most of us know as Peter’s brother.  But, much greater than this, we know him for his obedience, his missionary action, his eyes of faith, and above all, we know him as a man who brought others to Jesus.  If all we are known for in this life is being the person who brought others to Jesus, like St Andrew, then we should be overjoyed with the fruit of our lives having offered ourselves willingly, obediently, in faithfulness to God.

The Love of Christ Compels Us

Mary Magdalene, having been healed from her demon-possession by Jesus, having been made a completely new creation, was compelled by the love of Christ.

• • She gave her life, just like the disciples, to Christ.  She gave her life to attend to his needs throughout his ministry

the love of Christ compelled her

• • When Peter and John had left Jesus’ empty tomb, not knowing that the “scriptures had to be fulfilled,” not knowing exactly what was happening, Mary remained and mourned her dear friend and savior.

the love of Christ compelled her

• • When who she thought was the gardener spoke her name, “Mary,” she immediately realized with whom she was speaking – Jesus.

the love of Christ compelled her

• • She was the first to be commissioned, in a sense, to preach the gospel:  “Go, tell my brothers, that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

the love of Christ compelled her

• • He also told her, do not cling to me for I have not yet ascended.  In the liturgical time of the church, we are in the season after Pentecost, in that post-resurrection season, in the season between his ascension and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and his second Advent when he will come again in glory
    

In Mary Magdalene we see . . .

• • The attentive abiding of a Christ-loved soul.  A soul that was completely “present” to her God.  Surely this is why she was the first to see Jesus – she was simply there.

Are we making ourselves fully present to God in daily life?

• • One who has learned that because Christ has died for all, she no longer needed to live for herself, but for him who died and was raised on her behalf.

How is Christ’s love compelling us?  To what degree and to what end will we allow his love to move us to compassion, service, mission?

Distracted – are you easily distracted?  If you know me, you know I can’t even tell a story without being distracted.  This is normal right?  Do you get a sense that distraction is a big part of our lives whether we know it or not, and whether we want it to be or not?  And, what’s wrong with being distracted?  Well, in the above lines from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets we get a sense of the sickness of which “distracted” is merely the symptom.

Our world today is filled with distractions – maybe this very blog post is a distraction to you.  If we allow these distractions to overrun us, we can eventually wind up “filled with fancies and empty of meaning,” filled with swollen “apathy with no concentration.”  Can you think of a more despairing state of being?  Empty of meaning yet swollen with apathy?  In my own life, the ultimate problem with these distractions, whether it be the evening news, a song I can’t get out of my head, or my own stubborn pride, is they keep me from being fully present to God.

Fully present to God?  Isn’t God always with us?  Absolutely.  But are we always with him?  Are we attentive to the still, small voice?  Are we fully present to God?

I’m curious.  What are some ways we can make ourselves more fully present to God?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

In the first section plunges the reader into some deep stuff – the intersection of past, present, and future in the end of time, etc, you know, stuff you think about over breakfast.  Anyway, Eliot brings the reader into “our first world,” which is Eden, and after being drawn deeper into this mysterious place, the thrush (which invited us to go into the garden in the first place) tells us, “Go, go, go . . . human kind cannot bear very much reality.”

The implications of this are, of course, huge.  Being in the garden, the place that was guarded  by the angel with a flaming sword after Adam’s disobedience, we are in a holy place.  I’m reminded of C.S. Lewis’ story The Great Divorce where residents of hell are allowed to take a bus ride to heaven to see if they’d like to stay.  Rather than being overwhelmed with the beauty of the hills and grass and the heavenly beings there, the visitors from hell cannot stand being in heaven because all the matter is too substantial for them.  The grass even pierces their feet.  They cannot bear very much reality.

Further, in the Scriptures no one ever remains in the presence of God and lives.  Even in Isaiah’s vision of God, smoke fills the temple and shrouds the Holy One from the man with unclean lips.  When God passes by Moses in Exodus 34, He must hide Moses in a rock.  John is tempted to fall down and worship the angel who is guiding him through his heavenly vision.  Human kind cannot bear very much reality.

My thought is this: we sing often of seeing God.  One song in particular says, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord . . . I want to see you.”  Granted, the song rightly continues acknowledging that God is “high and lifted up, shining in the light of [his] glory,” and this inevitably causes us to sing “holy, holy, holy.”  But do we really want to see God?  What would happen if God fully revealed himself to us?  I think it would be frightening.  Yet, this is our destiny, our “end” as Eliot puts it in the poem.  (By end Eliot is meaning not the “finishing point” but the purpose or telos for which something is created.)

So, we don’t stop asking to see God, but we do so with trepidation realizing that He reveals as much of Himself as He will.  And realizing that human kind cannot bear very much Reality.

This psalm came to mind when I was in Atlanta last week at our worship retreat.  On the last morning of our time together we sang a song called “Offering” by Paul Baloche. While this song is familiar to me, it did strike me in a “new” way while singing it.  The lyrics tell us that “no mortal man would dare to stand before [God's] throne, before the Holy One in heaven.”  Immediately a vague image of the Ascended Christ on his mighty throne came into my mind.  But as the song says, “It’s only by your blood and it’s only through your mercy, Lord, I come.”  Jesus graciously invites us by his own person: because of his love, mercy and shed blood we can approach the throne of grace.  And what is our response?  We bring to God an offering.

The song continues, “I bring an offering to you, my King; no one on earth deserves the praises that I sing.”  And it hit me – the picture of the great King, the Royal Son we hear described in Psalm 72 came into my mind.  Verses ten and eleven of the psalm declare, “May the Kings of Tarshish and of the coastlands render him tribute; may the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts!  May all kings fall down before him, all nations serve him!”  These geographic locales represent peoples that are “foreign” to Israel and not inherently part of the old covenant – in other words, they are not “friends” of the King of Israel.  Nevertheless, because the Messianic king, Jesus Christ, is exalted as head over all, it is as if kings from these “outside” nations bring him offerings.  What is more, these verses show us God’s heart for all the nations and demonstrate that the Messiah came not only for Abraham’s descendants, but that “all families (nations) of the earth might be blessed” (see Gen. 12:1-3).  Indeed, Christ himself has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility and made all peoples that will receive him into one new dwelling of the Holy Spirit (Eph. 2:11-22).

So, as we engage daily in offering ourselves as living sacrifices and specifically on Sundays in the gathered church, let us remember that we bring Christ our very best, our everything, because he is the Royal Son, the Great King.  But also keep in mind that peoples from all over the globe bring him tribute as well.  May our lives of heavenly worship be caught up in the spectacle of God’s kingdom that knows no boundaries.

“I haven’t come for only you but for my people to pursue.  You cannot care for me with no regard for her; if you love me you will love the church.”

I’ve had an appreciation for this song for some time and had “understood” the concept – if you love Jesus, you love his church.  But the poignant part for me yesterday was, “I haven’t come for only you but for my people to pursue,” taken in the context of “if you love me you’ll love the church.”  In other words, the church does not exist only of those in it currently but consists also of those who are to be part of it.  And, our love of Christ extends not just to the people in the church, but to those God is drawing to his church, the people who are not even part of the church . . . yet.

This thought led me to Psalm 22, which is a fascinating psalm in its own right, and contains a peculiar passage toward the end of the psalm that expresses in part Derek Webb’s powerful lyric.  Verses 30-31 tell us, “Posterity shall serve [God]; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.”  God’s goodness and rescue is being proclaimed and will be proclaimed to every people, and this includes people yet unborn.  I think we can interpret this literally – future generations will hear and know and serve the Living God.  And we can also interpret this typologically – that the current “offspring of Israel” fear and know the Lord and proclaim his goodness, and ultimately “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord” – meaning that these people yet unborn, these people who have yet to hear and know and serve the Living God.

So, I’m remembering today that Christ has not come only for me, but for his people to pursue  - the yet unborn.  And, I cannot care for Christ with no regard for the church which consists not only of those presently joined to Christ, but to those yet to hear.

In other words, I want to better learn how worship serves and energizes mission.  How is it that when the community of which I am a part gathers for prayer, singing, the reading and preaching of the Scriptures, and the celebration of Holy Communion, makes us to be a missional people?  Maybe I am too interested in the mystery of God’s grace at work in his people, in the unseen ways that Christ’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).  Nevertheless, I want to understand some part of this mystery so that I might facilitate it faithfully and disciple others into this leadership position.

As I was doing some research on the ascension of Christ, I came upon a small explanation of this dynamic.  In writing about Christ’s ascension to the Father’s right hand and Christians’ consequent engagement in the world as “citizens of heaven,” Gerrit Scott Dawson writes:

“Christians are counter-cultural revolutionaries in the twenty-first century west.  We are spreading the customs of an alternative kingdom.  Neither withdrawing nor capitulating, and never imagining we can do it ourselves, the church engages the world with the gospel.  It is a struggle to the death which leads to life, staged amidst ordinary lives as the citizens of heaven seek to turn the world’s attention up toward a higher vision” (Gerrit Scott Dawson, Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of Christ’s Continuing Incarnation [Edinburgh: T & T Clark,  2004], 161).

How I engage this dynamic through music and worship is yet to be seen, but what this does tell me is that by nature, the church is to be a missional people.  Because our Lord and Savior of whom we are living members has ascended and taken our flesh with him into the very presence of the Father, we engage the world in his own power.  We “struggle to the death” only to find the life of Christ in the struggle.  Thanks be to God for this mission!

“The simple, unadorned purpose of the Christian year is to proclaim the gospel of God’s saving deeds with Christ.” (Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year, 31.)

Christian year spirituality finds its roots in the Jewish pattern of marking time: “For the Jew to commemorate the past is not merely to recall it as a past event but to commemorate it in such a way that it gives the present new meaning . . . . Consequently, the past and the future converge on the present [kairos] in such a way that it makes a difference in the worshiper’s experience now.” (Webber, 31-32)

So, how does Advent make a difference in our worship now?  For what action in mission does it form us?

To answer this question, we must look to the Scriptures, assigned by thelectionary, expounded in the Sundays of Advent:

1. The First Sunday:  Eschatological – an adult Jesus tells us not even he knows the day or hour
2. The Second Sunday:  John the Baptist – we learn about his special ministry calling people to repentance
3. The Third Sunday:  John the Baptist – recognizes that he is not the Christ
4. The Fourth Sunday:  The Annunciation – Gabriel reveals to Mary that the glory of the most high will overshadow her –

We must take into account the scriptures expounded in Advent because the Christian year is driven by God’s Story of salvation in Jesus Christ – Scripture.

So, according to these passages and themes, what is the spirituality inherentin this season?

Advent is a time when we look and watch expectantly for Christ’s coming in glory – this results in living that images the end of days – eschaton – the new heavens and new earth.

Advent is a time when we pray desperately for God to ‘break in’ on us, to come in power and glory, to help us to cast off the works of darkness and enact works of light, works of God’s justice.

Advent is a time in which we recognize that this only happens as God comes to dwell with us – Emmanuel – indeed, the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ not only makes possible the salvation of the faithful, it also empowers and mandates our work of mission as Christ’s body.

“Advent is a time when we ask, even plead with God not to leave us alone, for when God leaves us to our own choices and turns us over to our own ways, we are certain to drift from him.” (Webber 43)

For further reading:

Robert E. Webber, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004).

Lawrence Hull Stookey, Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996).

Family Worship Resources:

Robert E. Webber, The Book of Family Prayer (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996).

Gertrud Mueller Nelson, To Dance with God: Family Ritual and Community Celebration (New York: Paulist, 1986).

The Book of Common Prayer