The Divine Initiative: An Advent Reflection
For forty
years, since its publication in 1978, Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline has spurred
millions of Christians to renewed interest in and practice of spiritual
disciplines such as fasting, meditation, study, and so on. Foster also warns against something I will
call “magic.” That is my word, not
Richard’s, but I have heard him give the warning in public talks frequently.
“Magic,” as
I am using the word, expresses an attitude toward spiritual practices, an
attitude that expects God to perform if a believer or group of believers “does
it right” (whether “it” is prayer, or solitude, or fasting, etc.). The magical attitude arises from our desire
for spiritual power. We want control
over things and events: we want to heal sick people, convince unbelievers, influence
elections, stop wars, prevent droughts . . . The list is long of things and
events that we wish we could control.
And Christianity, it seems, offers what we want! Peter told the paralytic to rise and
walk. James wrote that the prayer of a
righteous person avails much.
We want
spiritual power. And Jesus told his
disciples they would have power after the Holy Spirit came on them . . . And so
we are tempted to think if we just fast enough or pray in the right way or do
something else, then God must act.
And we will
be in control.
Foster, as
I say, warns against “magic” over and over.
Spiritual disciplines do not make God do things. Solitude and study are not spiritual tokens
with which we can purchase God’s favor.
Instead, Foster says, the disciplines change us. They make us ready
to receive good things from God. God is
always good, and he is always in control.
Consider
Simeon, in Luke’s gospel. He was an old
man who lived in Jerusalem, waiting for the messiah. Simeon had a wonderful hope, because the
Spirit had told him he would not die until he “consolation of Israel.” After the birth of Jesus, when Mary and
Joseph brought the baby to the temple, Simeon praised God for keeping his
promise.
It’s easy
to imagine that Simeon prayed passionately for messiah to come. Faithful Jews for generations had been hoping
for messiah. Simeon stands out from the
others not because he (or his prayers) deserved God’s answer; Simeon’s was
simply the voice God chose to use to speak a word which Mary would remember her
whole life.
Advent
season should teach us that we are not in control. Yes, we pray for the kingdom to come. We preach the good news. We work for peace. We practice doing good in many ways. But none of our actions control God. God is good, and he is always in control.
In some
seasons of life, we affirm our trust in God as it were in the dark. We pray, we fast, we wait, and nothing seems
to happen. Notice I say “seems.” Perhaps we know enough of human psychology to
believe that our souls have unconscious depths.
God may well be using our spiritual disciplines to change us in “places”
we don’t see.
In other
seasons of life, without warning the grace of God explodes into our conscious
experience. It could be as simple as
hearing, for the ten-thousandth time, that “in the town of David a Savior has
been born, who is Christ the Lord.”
The daily
news convinces me, beyond all caveat, that we need a savior. Our technology has discovered not one but
lots of way to destroy humanity. Brilliant
minds devote themselves to hacking hospital records so they can extort
money. Armed terrorist groups (of many
sorts, not just Islamic) use bombs, trucks, airplanes and any other bit of
ready-to-hand technology to kill innocents.
We drive animals to extinction by destroying their habitat. Chemical and nuclear wastes pollute the land
and sea, and in recent decades we have learned that our pollution of the
atmosphere is even more dangerous.
Of course,
it’s easy to imagine someone writing this essay in the 1950s, when the specter
of nuclear war first forced its way into our collective consciousness. In America, someone could have written
similar words in 1862, when it began to be clear how stupendously bloody the
Civil War would be. There are times when
history presses us to acknowledge our need.
Advent 2018
is one of those times. We need a
savior. A savior has been born.
It’s not
magic. It’s better than magic. God is with us.
