NOTE: This article uses hyperlinks to scripture in order to not overwhelm folks with too much print on the screen at once. Quoted verses are for emphasis but lack context. Please consider clicking the link and reading thoughtfully before moving on — we prefer to let the scripture speak for itself.
We start with an ancient story:
There was once a prophecy speaking of the One who is to come. It spoke of one who was to come and bring the world into balance. “A Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance […] be restored.” This was an ancient prophecy that many had given up on. However, there was one whose voice kept repeating it until the One was finally found. And it cost him his life.
That person was Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi Knight in Star Wars who was convinced the prophecy had been fulfilled in the form of Anakin Skywalker. If you’re not a Star Wars fan, Anakin is the kid who eventually becomes Darth Vader...and if you don’t know who Vader is, then maybe anthropologists should be studying you.
The story of waiting for something good to come is the defining feature of the Advent season. And no, I’m not just talking about waiting for the final Star War movie that comes out next week. But what is this waiting for?
For many people, they’re waiting to celebrate Christmas – Jesus’ birth. That’s not to say the act of God entering the world and doing so as an infant isn’t profound and beautiful. However, in the context of the Biblical narrative, the waiting isn’t about a baby. It’s about the person that baby would become and, more importantly, what he would do.
Advent is about the Revolution -- a coup d’etat against the powers and principalities of this world. It’s about destroying darkness with light so that all can see and experience its goodness.
In the same way that the story of Star Wars unfolds bit by bit, gradually revealing a much larger narrative, we can see the narrative of Revolution developing throughout the entire Judeo-Christian story. Here’s the timeline:
The Manifesto
“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. [...]
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; [...]”
Let’s start at Isaiah 35:1-7a, 10.
These verses could be dismissed as an outlier prophecy if they were an isolated case, but this is not the only time Isaiah uses this type of language. In Isaiah 40, the verse John the Baptist was known for quoting in the desert, it also tells of God coming as a liberator, leveling the mountains and raising up the valleys.
The Atacama Desert, Chile
Alisha and I used to live in the desert, so the transformation described in the first and last parts of the selection is extra potent for us. Every summer, a monsoon season begins, bringing rain and life to the desert. This is a phenomenon that happens all around the world.
Images of restoration – returning things to how they’re meant to be – and transformation – changing one thing into something completely different: These are the images Isaiah uses to describe God coming into the world.
It’s exciting to read a verse like this as those hopefully anticipating the renewal of the world. However, this type of message is also a warning to those holding power and benefiting from an inequitable society. If I’m on the margins of society, blind eyes opening, deaf ears hearing, and weak hands strengthening sounds incredible. But if I’m the status quo in this scenario, this is terrifying.
Have you ever seen what it looks like when waters enter the desert? The ground is never ready for that much water — that much — change — that quickly. These aren’t slow, lovely changes. They’re violent and jarring.
Desert transformation requires rain, which must destroy and destabilize the status quo before life can begin anew.
Our timeline starts in about 750 BC with a double-edged message: “God is in the business of transformation and restoration and change is coming in a big way.”
The Resistance
“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
Over 700 years later, we still hear these words being echoed. They were a defining part of John the Baptist’s message, which is well known. Perhaps less known, however, is the epic song Jesus’ mother Mary sang before he was born: Luke 1:46-55
These words are sung by a poor refugee woman, placing her on one of the lowest rungs of her society. That in mind, this song emphasizes something very important: these passages aren’t written with most of us as the intended audience.
This is a song for the marginalized. This revolution lifts up poor and broken folks. It also crushes those who unjustly hold power and enable abusive systems that sacrifice others’ happiness for their own.
Are you one of the “lowly” in society? Are you actually “hungry?” Do you know anyone personally who fits one of these labels? If I interpret this Revolution as happening for me but I don’t seek to also bring it to less-fortunate folks, then I’ve missed the point. To better understand the Revolution – to join the resistance – we need to understand who we are in the story.
The tendency to insert ourselves inappropriately into the biblical narrative happens all the time. For example, in Spain the main gift-giving day isn’t Christmas Day (Dec. 25) but Día de Reyes (Jan. 6), which celebrates the “three kings” bringing their gifts to Jesus. And, even though Jesus receives the gifts in the biblical story, we are the ones who receive them here. Intentional or not, that inserts us into the story as Jesus.
In the nativity story, I’m not Jesus – I’m not an infant/deity born during a child genocide to a poor, refugee family. And, therefore, I’m not his parents, either. I’m definitely not one of the wise men.
I think, if we’re honest with ourselves, most of us are the same social category as the innkeepers who told Mary and Joseph they didn’t have enough room. We don’t need to worry about where our next meal is coming from, our finances are reliable enough, and our work isn’t life-threatening. We’re relatively comfortable.
The good news is that this Revolution isn’t exclusive to the poor, but we have some obligations if we want to be a part of it. Whatever amount of privilege we carry, we are obligated to use it to bless others and crush systems of injustice.
What would it look like if we change the perspective during the holidays from “we’re the ones giving and receiving the gifts” to “we’re going to do what we can to ensure everyone gets a gift?” How do we make Mary’s song a reality for all people?
The Uprising
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”
Jesus furthers the Revolution narrative considerably. In Matthew 11, we find John the Baptist in prison, clearly unimpressed with how Jesus is conducting his ministry: Matthew 11:2-9
Jesus uses the exact same language of Revolution that the Jewish people had been holding close for over 700 years, except he uses them in the present tense. The Revolution is underway!
“I mean come on.”
At the same time, Jesus seems stupefied that his Revolution is much different than expected, even though the evidence was all there before. He asks, “What did you go out in the wilderness to look at? Did you expect someone in the desert to have nice robes? What did you hope to find?”
They found a guy who eats bugs wearing clothes made from camel hair speaking the prophetic words of Revolution.
As God’s people drawn into the desert, what do we expect to find? A spa? A social club? Karaoke? We find the gates to the kingdom of God, which are hard to fit through but liberating once we figure out how to get in. We find the Revolution.
On the church community level, perhaps we’re brave enough to say that we want to be John the Baptist in this story. We want to share a message so true, it makes normal people leave their old lives behind and work for something much greater. If so — if we’re to be a church in the desert — what do we expect to look like? What does a prophetic church look like and say that’s different from the status quo? How are we different from the Pharisees?
The Insurgency
“As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.”
After Jesus’ crucifixion, Jesus’ followers found themselves planted as the seeds of a Revolution that would accomplish its goals once the Kingdom of God has been realized. But what role do we play as insurgents? In James 5, the author is addressing that exact question: James 5:7-10.
This passage reconnects the Church to the OT prophets, which in turn connects us to this same narrative. Waiting and hoping. Again.
These verses aren’t permission to do this waiting passively, as some may read them. Aside from the fact the prophets weren’t known for being silent and inactive, we know this based on context given at the end of the proceeding chapter: James 4:13-17.
“Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. [...] Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.”
Waiting for Christ to come in his fullness is not a passive thing – a pious, prayerful, church-y thing. Rather, we are Christ’s hands and feet commissioned with the responsibility to continue the work Christ started. Advent – waiting for Christ and God’s Revolution – has little to do with lighting a candle each week and lots to do with being Christ to those who need this revolution the most.
Over the past couple of months, our church community’s youth and I have been writing an Advent song. Occasionally, we’ve had issues with what tense we’re writing in. Should our verbiage indicate the past, the present, or the future?
We realized that at this point in the timeline – where we are in this moment – the Revolution takes place simultaneously in all three tenses.
And so we wait, hope, collaborate, and conspire for this Revolution, knowing that, if we’re not supporting the marginalized, we’re liable to be crushed with the others who hold power and use it selfishly.
In retrospect, we can pinpoint the spring of 2021 as the time our laughter disappeared — when our four-year ministry in Barcelona began to fall apart. As concerns regarding COVID-19 began to ease, expectations in the local church community changed. Gradually, things arrived at a point where our family needed to step away.
It's hard to laugh when it feels like the world is crumbling around you. It's an act that feels almost audacious considering the state of the world: pandemic losses, church divisions, guilt and anger over White privilege and indirectly benefiting from systemic racism, environmental collapse, rampant economic ruin, and war. How can one laugh when the world we live in is so far removed from the one Jesus describes throughout the gospels?