Season of Advent

 

I'm just going to come out and say it: This is a difficult place to live.  If you haven't heard echoes of this in the reflections of my friends, I'm just going to be upfront about it.  This Holy Land has proven to be an extremely challenging place, particularly spiritually, for me to live.  I'm a recent graduate of Concordia College in Moorhead, MN and on a Lutheran campus, as a religion major, surrounded by some of the strongest friendships and mentorships I have ever known, the sense of spirituality wasn't hard to come by.  From beautiful revelations during class discussions to unexplainable moments during a choir concert, I was being spiritually nourished to say the least.  Outside of that atmosphere has proved to be a different story. 

 

This passage from 2 Corinthians was actually exactly what I needed to hear.  As Christmas is approaching, the realization that I will not be spending it with my family is really sinking in.  And as my time here lengthens, the stark realities of the occupation become only more real.  In the past week, as an unprecedented snowstorm has hit Jerusalem, 36 people -- 24 of them children -- have been displaced, left homeless because of housing demolitions.  I could continue, but I think you are getting the point.  So many facets of my identity, Christian, volunteer, human being, cry out for the healing of this place, and so many broken places around the globe.  It is difficult sometimes not to despair, difficult to find the spiritual.  

 

BUT. 

 

I love how the Bible is full of all these buts.  All of these crazy paradoxes, all of these pieces that don't seem to go together, yet somehow, through the grace and steadfast love of God they do.  Today's passage is no exception. Verses 8 and 9 read, "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."  That's a lot of Buts.  What I needed to hear, what comes through for me in this passage, is not that through the love and grace of God all of our burdens are lifted and life is somehow transformed into a place without pain or suffering.  Not at all. This passage acknowledges that we will feel hurt, abandoned, lost, and broken, but that through all of that we carry the hope of Jesus and the hope of a reconciled kingdom with us.  

 

In today's lectionary reading from Luke, we hear about John the Baptist, the one chosen to "prepare the way of The Lord."  The passage from 2 Corinthians encourages us to do the same: "For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord..." (2 Cor 4:5). As a volunteer, I think particularly as an American volunteer, I sometimes (or more than sometimes) find myself wanting to fix. But, I am reminded again and again by the complexity of this place and the beauty of its people, that I am in need of fixing, I am broken, as well.  I know this has surfaced in my other reflections, but it is more of a reminder for me than for anyone else.  My role in the world is not fix, a mindset that I think seeks to "proclaim ourselves".  My role, as this Advent season reminds us all, is to proclaim Jesus. To prepare the way for the one without whom we can do nothing.

 

-Sarah