O Come, O Come Emmanuel

"O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here until the Son of God appear."

On Sunday, we celebrated the Feast of Christ the King, drawing the Church's year to a close, and now we prepare to enter Advent, a season of pregnant expectation. Yet for many in our world, the images of a victorious Jesus reigning in glory may be hard to embrace or to believe in the midst of brutal violence and suffering.

The horrific photos from Aleppo this weekend remind us that faith is often an easy luxury of those who enjoy safety, stability, and the satisfaction of basic needs. One photo showed a father weeping over his child, who had been killed in an airstrike, "I've lost everything," he cries. Reports are coming in of civilian casualties not only from the heaviest aerial bombardment in the last five years, but also from exposure to chlorine gas. One frightened boy, exposed to this chemical weapon, asks a medical worker, "Am I going to die?" Food and basic supplies are running out; hospitals and schools have become targets for violence. Many are urging the international community to take action in response to crimes against humanity. It must be hard for any person of faith--whatever faith he or she professes--to see God in the midst of all this. How can the captives believe in Emmanuel, "God with us," when the exile IS so lonely, when God feels so absent?

It is in the context of this world that we await--anxiously and impatiently--the arrival of the Christ-child. We hope for God's ransom of humanity from its endless captivity. And yet, when the child comes, he grows up to preach a message of peace and love that will get him killed. Jesus ends his life on earth not as a king enthroned in splendor, but as a defeated criminal condemned to a shameful form of death. This is the most unlikely scenario for a savior. The criminals flanking our crucified King of kings and Lord of lords plead with him to save himself and them from their impending deaths, which of course, he does not do. The true victory only comes when Jesus takes death as far as it can go, and then comes back from the supposed point-of-no-return. The crucified human does not do it on his own, but through the strength and power of God, which makes even the unimaginable, even the impossible, possible. That same hope is offered to us: "may you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience" (Col.1:11).

The Feast of Christ the King affirms that it is through God's power that we are able to imagine a future beyond death, beyond the bombing and chlorine gas. It declares that we must not let the now define the future. Never allow anything to deny the possibility of hope. If we are God's hands and feet in the world, as St. Teresa of Avila claims, then we should take seriously the psalmist's assertion that "He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire" (Ps 46:9). This is not only a statement of divine power, but God's instruction for our lives. God's power fills us with the strength, power, and endurance to defy destruction and death. If we believe that a helpless child can become a savior that survives death on a Cross, then we too have a chance to overcome our own experiences of death. I believe that Christ the King mourns with us, and says, "I've been where you are; but I survived death, so that you may survive it, too." God IS with us in suffering. The Word became flesh and encountered human suffering in all its grotesque brutality; and yet, in defiance of all the odds, life triumphed over death. Advent is the season when we begin to imagine a different future for humanity that reaches its fulfillment in the reign of Christ the King. For now, we mourn the loss of life, the scope of death's sway; but we look ahead to the appearance of God's Son, and prepare to resist humanity's lonely exile.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

Of Giant Crosses and Ketchup Bottles

One of the great joys of being between parishes is that I now have time to read, write, and travel. As my husband and I drove through the endless corn and soybean fields of southern Illinois a couple of weeks ago, we stopped at a few curiosities along the way: North America's largest freestanding cross in Effingham, the world's largest ketchup bottle in Collinsville, and a vintage Route 66 service station in Mt. Olive. Fun and kitchy, to be sure, but also reminders that people find identity and meaning in all kinds of unexpected things. They are markers of a people's history that have become cherished across generations, and so, are worthy of study. These three detours provided a thought-provoking contrast to the much grander stops on our itinerary, such as the St. Louis Arch and the Lincoln Presidential Museum. The first, where I became reacquainted with my fear of heights, serves as an awe-inspiring monument to engineering ingenuity and prowess. The second chronicles the life of one of our most revered leaders during an agonizing period in the nation's history. As signs of human achievement, and national crisis, and local pride, all of these markers of our lived experience have the potential to teach us something important about our faith.

"Fall Plowing" by Grant Wood (1931)

One of these insights is that we need to study subjects that we don't tend to examine through theological lenses. This became abundantly clear last week when viewing the special exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, "America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s." The exhibit was a commentary on the multiplicity of American artistic perspectives in response to the Great Depression, including the agrarian Regionalism of Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, the Realism of Edward Hopper, the Modernism of Arthur Dove and Georgia O'Keeffe, and many others. What it conveyed to me was the variety and uniqueness of these lenses through which artists attempted to process America's economic time of trial. Images of agrarian abundance and industrial might, for instance, were expressions of an American ideal of prosperity, which served as both aspiration and nostalgic escapism. But in periods of adversity, those symbols of life on the other side of want and barrenness are important for survival. Americans in the 1930s must have felt defeated and hopeless, and yet some found ways to cope.

"Crucifixion" by Jan Provoost, 1500

The same was undoubtedly true for those who witnessed the Crucifixion. The Cross on which our Lord Jesus hung must have seemed so overbearing and oppressive that artists throughout the centuries have been deliberate in depicting it as insurmountable. And yet, there was life on the other side of death. What was an instrument of defeat, the Cross, was transformed into a sign of God's victory. The planks of wood nailed together in Provoost's painting at right represent a criminal's shameful death, and yet the meaning doesn't stick. And even the tomb is not able to contain the new life of the Resurrection; it becomes a sign of the destruction of death itself. Later, in the midst of Roman persecution, the early Christians must have found signs of new life in both the trivial and the important to bear their sufferings.

Things are not always what they seem. A giant ketchup bottle or vintage service station may be a community statement of civic pride. A series of abstract strokes of color on a canvas may express the anxiety of a lost generation or a tortured conscience. When we examine the world, we should be careful of accepting what we see at face value. And we all may see those same things differently. Signs of decay may hint at signs of life. The trivial may point to the important. The crucified criminal may point to God.

Abundant blessings,
Fr. Ethan+

Holy Week Message 2016: Tragedy in Brussels

My dear sisters and brothers,

In the wake of the terrorist attack on Brussels this morning, we are urged to realize the significance and call of Holy Week, the journey of Jesus' Passion and death on the Cross to his Resurrection. The following video message offers some points for reflection. As we enter the mystery of this journey, may we be mindful of the context of violence and death in which we often live and offer our prayers for those who are grieving and clinging to life, and for those whose lives have been lost. May their souls and the souls of all the departed rest in peace. Amen.
Fr. Ethan+