Monthly Archives: December 2018

"Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people." Luke 2:9

A scene from Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan serves as a wonderful Third Sunday of Advent illustration. First, a little background.

During the Hundred Years' War, the teenage Joan of Arc claimed to hear the voices of Michael the Archangel and two other saints instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination. She eventually led several successful military campaigns that paved the way for Charles' coronation and eventual French victory. That's the history.

Now in one scene of the play Charles peevishly complains "Why don't the voices come to me? I am king, not you." Joan answers, "They do come to you, but you do not hear them. When the angelus rings you cross yourself and have done with it. But if you prayed from your heart and listened for the thrilling of the bells in the air after they stop ringing, then you would hear the voices as well as I do."

The theme of the third Sunday of Advent is joy. Joy is an unusual word. We don't use it often. We talk of happiness incessantly as if it were the highest good. But happiness depends on agreeable circumstances (literally "good haps"). Joy is quite different from happiness.

Joy is a gift from God. Paul lists it as the second fruit of the Spirit. You don't work to get joy. It's the soul's response to God's grace. Now interestingly, at least to me, the word for "joy" in Greek is derived from the same root as "grace" and "gift." In other words you can't earn or achieve joy.

In this realm of grace we operate with an entirely different calculus. Joy is not a quantity you can increase any more than you can increase the carbon in your body. That element is there simply as a function of the organic chemistry that enables life. So it is with grace in the spiritual realm.

The key is to become awareof grace, and that is the single most important difference among people. A few are aware. Most are not. When we become aware of God's grace then the soul laughs. Joy is the laughter of the soul that fully accepts that it is fully accepted by God. Grace leads to joy.

Joan's reply to the king is spot on. You don't perform any extra religious rituals to hear the voices. You simply be still and listen. The voices are constant. They will come to you. Be still and you become aware of the joy that is your birthright as a Christian. You can receive joy, and experience joy, but you cannot achieve joy.

Are you making time to be still this Advent? Don't complicate this! Find a quiet place, perhaps with the glow of an Advent wreath, and make time for that divine hush, the pause, the selah (as the psalmist put it). Don't rush. That little tingling you likely feel? That's it. That's the laughter of the soul that hears the Word telling you that you are loved, accepted, and secure. And that is good news of a great joy.

Grace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

December 16, 2018

"We have peace with God." Romans 5:1

What a way to run an incarnation!

The coming of God in the flesh is one of the great moments in history, right up there with Creation and the resurrection. Yet so much about the birth of the Messiah is puzzling, surprising, even outlandish.

The casting appears all wrong. A peasant girl. A carpenter. The setting is puzzling. Bethlehem was full of surly, out-of-town tax payers. This is before Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, even Motel 6. The inns were booked.

So full was the city that Joseph and Mary couldn't find anywhere to stay, even though Mary was about 39½ weeks along, and had just traveled about 80 miles ON A DONKEY! That trip would have taken about two weeks or so. You'd think that God would pull a few strings here. The incarnation was swaddled in uncertainty.

Yet the theme of the second week of Advent is peace, and the candle we light is called "The Bethlehem Candle." Who planned this? Nothing about the first Christmas in Bethlehem was peaceful, unless you look at it through God's eyes.

Look at it through God's eyes and you see a plan. You see the outworking of salvation. You see Him meeting every need. You see love. You see hope. Right there in the middle of all that chaos you find God's peace.

God's peace is like a steady, dependable line through the sine curves of life. The good and bad will oscillate back and forth. If you tie yourself to that chaotic rhythm then you're going to be alternately high, then low. Over and over again. You'll be just like everyone in Bethlehem that first Christmas.

Everyone, that is, except Mary and Joseph. I'm sure they went through moments of panic. No one is immune to the sine curves. But they had a basic trust in God and a fundamental commitment to obedience. Trust plus obedience equals peace.

I think most people reading this GraceWave trust God. The alternative seems foolish. It's the obedience part that trips us up.

Obedience is stillness when everything around you is swirling. Obedience is silence when the world is shouting. Obedience is refusing to wrestle with every disagreeable circumstance. Obedience is stepping aside when someone throws dirt at you.

So when will you be still this week? Or silent? Who, or what, do you need to stop wrestling with? Or let go of?

God's job is not to make life easy, but His job is to give you peace. So find the time and the will during your busy Bethlehem days to trust and obey. Then you will find peace.

Grace (and peace),

Dr. Terry Ellis

December 11, 2018

"And this hope does not disappoint because God's love has been poured into our hearts." Romans 5:5

Are you hopeful? Honestly, I fear hope is on the decline. All of our little handheld computers, and otherwise, are too often little more than the amygdala's megaphone shouting all of our fears, angers, and frustrations to an itchy-eared audience. We broadcast our caustic emotions and create and ongoing expectation of imminent apocalypse. Hope is lost, or at least severely muted.

Hope, however, is the theme of the first week of Advent, and hope is most needed where it appears most absent. In fact, hope loves to show up where it is least expected.

The Christmas carol "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a great example. Longfellow opens with his typical optimism. The Christmas-day bells remind the world of "peace on earth, good will to men." The second stanza is even better, for he hears that sweet refrain in his heart. So far so good.

But the tone changes dramatically in the third stanza. Longfellow turned from the hope of heaven to the misery of the moment, and those moments were genuinely miserable. Written in 1864, Civil War ravaged the country, and the future of the UnitedStates was sorely in doubt. No wonder Longfellow wrote "And in despair, I bowed my head, there is no peace on earth, I said. For hate is strong, and mocks the song, of peace on earth, goodwill to men."

Now there's The Realist! Hatred was strong. Any wooly-headed optimist who suggested something higher and better may well have been mocked and ridiculed. Such is the sad, predictable refrain of The Realist.

Frankly, it takes no particular intellect or creativity to sound doom. The world alwayshas enough bad in it for despair to set in. There's plenty of hatred today. And anger. And resentment. All seven deadly sins are alive and well. If you want a reason for despair, then click on the front page of your favorite news outlet.

Thank God for the fourth stanza! Longfellow turned back to the heavens and penned, "Then peeled the bells more loud and sweet, God is not dead nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, good will to men."

Hope, real hope, is always grounded in God's character and providence. That's the ultimate Reality. Connect hope to worldly metrics, like health, wealth, relationships, performance etc. and you will be disappointed, for life is hard. Focus on God and hope becomes the candle of your soul.

Trust God to make all things right in His time, and you'll find hope. As for the despairing world around you? In the words of St. Francis, where there is despair, we bring hope.

Grace and peace,

Dr. Terry Ellis

December 3, 2018