Enclosed by the Darkness of His Robes

Advent Around the Table: Week 1 Hope

Why are you so downcast?

I find within myself too many reasons to wander the glittered aisles of my local, over-priced Whole Foods. In one visit, I’ll spend too much money on satisfying my unquenchable desires. My favorite things to reach for are eggnog, chocolate peppermint truffles, maybe toss in some immunity winter vitamin since I’m not feeling all that great, a good port wine and a beeswax candle too. If I had it my way, when I returned home I would sink beneath the weight of my Pendleton blanket, surrounded by my recently bought creature comforts, and with one press of a button pointed at the TV, announce the arrival of the Ultimate Christmas Comfort: the holiday rom-com.

But before we get too carried away, let’s crack open a window and let that frigid winter air prick us. Nothing really grows in a comfort zone. It can be the worst addiction, and as The Converse Cowboy on Instagram says, “it’s a cheap ticket to depression.” Funny, because usually I’m on Instagram out of a need for comfort. I’ve bought that cheap ticket almost every day of my life, hopped on a train down memory lane and sometimes diverted into other people’s stories, looking for hope. And all I was left with by the end was a handful of tinsel wondering where to toss it.

Hope can feel like you’re chasing a shadow.

Lately, church has been kind of a letdown too. I’ve weathered some pretty bad sermons in my life, given my history in the Fundamental Baptist world. Recently, a pretty bad one from a guest preacher sent me right back. Unfortunately, there were many of us left with our heads in our hands and a command to go be transformed. Hoping, for the love of God, to crack open some windows.

Unfortunately, or mercifully, depending on how you look at it, transformation doesn’t happen in a snap. And it rarely turns out well if it is not first received for oneself. But we’re tempted to bypass our own transformation, tossing tinsel at others, and they are left wondering, “What are we supposed to do with this?”

Put your hope in the Lord

Annunciation, by Gottfried Helnwein

I am grateful for the repetitiveness of seasons and the Church calendar. Every year is different, accompanied by an odd déjà vu. There are traditions we practice from generations past and foods we continue to eat even though they give us indigestion every year and movies we re-watch and songs we sing and Scriptures we tell each other once again, that Jesus really was born. Some years it is harder to believe than others. And sometimes I wonder if the proof of Christianity is less evident in our beliefs than who we are with.

So, in an act of confession, I throw off my blanket and click off the TV and down my spiked eggnog with a prayerful urgency that takes me out into the bleak midwinter. I am persuaded once again to find hope. This shadow of a God who says He wants to be found. This shadow darts and dashes around the old street lamps of my childhood. It races through the field, waiting for me in the glistening trees at a dead end drive. It ignites patient eyes, gathered around a table, or a living room, who look upon me with compassion when I admit my fears. And it says in a whispering, clarion voice, I am with you. You are not alone. I have loved you before the beginning of the world. Shadows are giving way to a thick darkness now, and I find myself no longer afraid.

Sometimes there are dark nights carved into a rugged cliff, and we are graced with no one. Not a shadow, not a whisper, not even the glory of God passing us by. Tell me I’m not the only one prone to respond by wringing my hands and demanding to see God’s face. But sometimes the cleft of the rock is His hand and the darkness is good. He’s teaching me how to see in the dark, how to trust. Being in such close quarters with the One who loves me, I suddenly realize I don’t want to see His face. It’s too much. I hide my own in the cleft of my own heart. But Jesus did not turn his face away; he faced his own torture and death. So I hold onto Him, in the face of my own death, praying all along to please let the resurrection be true too. Here in the dark I am stunned back to belief.

Transformation is painful. Hope in God isn’t a fairytale. It requires the imagination of fairytales while keeping our feet on the ground. Transformation messes with our lives, because it’s a continued dying-and-being-reborn cycle in the depths of our desires, which is very risky and exposing. It’s risky to put our hope in the Word who became flesh and trust that He can unlock our hearts.

Hope says even in the face of all that, it is worthwhile. Do it anyway. Let yourself be stunned. Let yourself be undone.

The poet, Mary F.C. Pratt recalls in, Stunned Back to Belief While the Mezzo Sang “He Shall Feed His Flock, (For the mezzo, Wendy Hoffman-Farrell),

“...I always used to believe he would,

but lately, with life wandering out of control –

beasts, sharp edges everywhere –

I have not been so sure.

Concentrating on my part –

the crazy alto timing in “He shall purify,”

the slippery bits in “Unto us” –

I was forgetting to listen.

But then her voice.

Not like light –

not clear, star-studded, disturbing,

the dangerous sky of a wild and wakeful night–

but close and warm and dark,

the safe dark when everything that can harm is asleep, comforting dark when you have been gathered up

and peek out at the puzzling world

from the folds of his robes,

the happiness of his encircling arms.”

He welcomes us into the safety of His robe. Like a shepherd, he enfolds us and teaches us even when we lack belief. Especially when we lack belief.

***

“Someday you will,” my Spiritual Director says to me. Someday, I will lift my head to the hills. Today is not that day. Today I am enclosed within the darkness of his robes.