Stir up your power, O Lord…

Orignally posted December 14, 2014.  Revised and updated Sunday, December 17, 2023.

Today is “Stirrup” Sunday — an irreverent nickname some of us “Whiskeypalians” give the Third Sunday of Advent, based on the (pun intended) “stirring” words of the opening collect:

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

The more traditional name for this day is “Guadete Sunday” from the first word of the traditional introit of the Latin mass: “Guadete Domino semper, iterum dico, Gaudete!…” or “Rejoice in The Lord always! Again, I will say, REJOICE!“

That line comes from Paul’s letter to his beloved church in Philippi (Phil. 4:4). Writing from a Roman prison cell, a remarkably emancipated Paul suggests to this fledgling flock that to “Rejoice!… Always!” may well be the best way to harness our Lord’s “stirred up” power.

The notion of having the power of a Holy Spirit “stirred up” within us is both liberating and comforting, but also a little damn frightening.

Metaphors abound in my head, and all of them have their limitations. Some are just plain silly. But a “stirred up” Lord coming among us “with great might” could be like a summer rain storm, that may blow a few things around but also cleans the atmosphere, cooling and nourishing the environment. Or maybe like chemotherapy, destroying in a not so pleasant fashion that which would destroy us if not treated.

Or perhaps even a “stirred up” Lord is like the Incredible Hulk. Bruce Banner can certainly be “stirred up” and unpredictable, even destructive of some things to be sure,  But the “Green Goliath” is ultimately protective, serving a greater good. (Ok, I admit this last metaphor is a bit of a stretch. But hey, such is the byproduct of a “stirred up” Lord.)

According to this sublime collect of Advent 3, the reason we need such a rambunctious remedy to arrive is “because we are sorely hindered by our sins.”  This time of year especially, perhaps the biggest hindrance of all, at least for me, may well be our inability simply to be still.  A good friend years ago helped me to realize that to “do” nothing – in meditative stillness and quiet – is NOT a lack of activity.  Indeed, such attentive and intentional mindfulness is in fact a positive action requiring great discipline, often more than I have.

If there is anything that these last days of Advent are meant to teach us, I think, it is that the “nothingness” of waiting — in expectant faith for our Lord’s Love and Goodness made manifest at Christmas, can indeed “stir up” unspeakably deep joy. To exercise such trust, to rely on such “nothingness” and to actively engage in such “passive” waiting, can be as difficult as any 30-minute elliptical workout. But I’m coming to find that when I fail to do so, I am “sorely hindered” indeed.

Gaudete Domino …Always!

…with firm and certain faith

Today is the Feast Day of “St. Thomas the Apostle” and each year, just four days before Christmas, it is meant to remind followers in the church about the importance of faith. The collect for the day invokes our need this way:

Everliving God, who strengthened your apostle Thomas with firm and certain faith in your Son’s resurrection: Grant us so perfectly and without doubt to believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, that our faith may never be found wanting in your sight; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Christ shows himself to Thomas,
a mosaic at Washington National Cathedral
by Rowan LeCompte and Irene LeCompte.

Of all the lovely prayers in the Episcopal liturgy, today’s collect is definitely not my favorite. Any human with half a brain who prays for a belief that is “perfect and without doubt” knows that it is a petition akin to praying to Santa for the ability to fly… and then go into a coma.

For to have a faith without any doubt is 1 – not humanly possible (at least for those humans that would prefer to rise above robot status); and 2 – a recipe for stagnation. After all, once a human “achieves” such “perfect belief” status, how can there room for further growth?

I have never been comfortable with the idea that being a “doubting Thomas” is a bad thing. (It is probably the “raging agnostic” trial lawyer in me.) Sometimes, it’s good to be a little skeptical, especially if the news is “too good to be true.” And that was certainly the case with Thomas after being told the “goodest” of all good news that humankind has ever been told, that “The Lord is risen!” (Jn. 20::19-29)

Thomas understood the benefits of healthy skepticism when he made his proclamation to his fellow disciples that he would not (perhaps he could not) believe in such a grand thing. The disciples had shared that his friend and teacher Jesus, who a day earlier hung dead as a door-stop on a Roman cross, had just popped in for a quick visit with them as they cowered behind closed doors “in fear of the Jews.” We don’t know where exactly Thomas was when Jesus first appeared, but he was not there hiding out with them, afraid, behind locked doors.

Jesus understood Thomas’ reluctance too, I think, and that his hesitation may not have been based on the fear that his disciple brothers were playing some sadistic practical joke. Rather, Jesus could fully comprehend that Thomas’ fear about this incredible story was that it was in fact real and true.

And if true, it was the ultimate of all Reality and it would change EVERYTHING!

Maybe that is why Jesus was so compassionate when he reappeared to the disciples a week later. This time, Thomas was present. Far firm admonishing this deep thinker, Jesus simply beckoned Thomas to reach out his hands and touch his wounds.

During this Christmastide, on this darkest day of the year, could it be that Jesus beckons still? And that the invitation to Thomas is our invitation too? And that the path to having a faith “that is never found wanting” may start by touching the wounds of this world, and of those around us, and by acknowledging and attending to our own wounds?

And in so doing, believing that somehow we are touching the Son of God?

Let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us…

(An earlier version of this post was written in Advent 2014, but has been significantly revised and reposted here in Advent 2020 to ask whether we can “Rejoice, always!” even in the time of Covid.)

Two days ago was “Stir-up” Sunday — an irreverent nickname some of us “Whiskeypalians” give the Third Sunday of Advent, based on the (pun intended) “stirring” words of the opening collect:

Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

A rose-colored candle in honor of Mary’s deep joy lights the way for the Third Sunday of Advent.

The more traditional name given “3 Advent” is Gaudete Sunday, from the first word of the introit of the Latin mass: “Gaudete Domino semper, iterum dico, Gaudete!…” or “Rejoice in The Lord always! Again, I will say, REJOICE!” That line comes from Paul’s letter to the Philippians (Phil. 4:4), a young church he seemed to have particularly loved on the east coast of Greece. (The ALL CAPS are mine…not sure whether his shaky pen writing ancient Greek on papyrus did the same.)

Writing from a Roman prison, a remarkably emancipated Paul suggested to this fledgling flock of new believers, and maybe to all of us in 2020, that we should “Rejoice, always. Again I say, rejoice! …The Lord is at hand.” And in the same breath, he speaks of a “Peace of God that passes all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). On the one hand, it can be seen as an utterly absurd notion, especially in times like these. But for generations of Christians ever since, it has proven to be more than a notion and somehow utterly true.

The Third Sunday of Advent also traditionally recognizes and celebrates Mary and her deep joy, hence the rose-colored candle on the Advent wreath now illumined in her honor. And so the question is posed: on this Gaudete Sunday or “Rose Sunday” or “Stir-up” Sunday in 2020, is it possible to “rejoice in the Lord, always”? How can we follow, in such a year of turmoil and disease and death, Paul’s admonition to embrace an ineffable Peace and the “bountiful mercy and grace” of a “stirred-up” Lord?

At the beginning of Advent, I would likely have seen such a call as too much. And still it may be.

Indeed, just this week our nation passed 300,000 dead from this ravenous virus. Three hundred thousand chairs at last year’s Christmas tables will now be as empty as the hearts of those loved ones having to stare at them. And yet, also this week, nearing the end of this loooooooong and dismal year, there seems to be actual news about which we can in fact rejoice.

Thanks be to God – and thousands of researchers, scientists, healthcare workers and tens of thousands of volunteers willing to be guinea pigs in dozens of studies worldwide — vaccines are here! There’s a long way to go of course, but now the hope that seemed so far off is (as Paul reminded the Philippians about The Lord) “at hand.” That glimmer of light at the end of the proverbial Covid tunnel does not appear to be a train coming in the opposite direction.

For sure, we have this year been “sorely hindered” as the collect says, “by our sins” of neglect or ignorance or arrogance or all of the above — and more. Especially when looking at this nation, I confess that a daily dose of 9/11-sized deaths has, I greatly fear, made me numb, asleep to something too horrible to contemplate. To truly fathom the ongoing loss is crippling, and so out of a survival protection mode, I change the channel or click the next link. I suspect I’m not alone.

The power of powerful prayers like Sunday’s “Stir up” collect can bring me back, though, as can hearing once again the paradoxical Truth of a real Peace that does in fact simply pass human understanding. My lawyer-brain’s inability to make sense of it fails to make the Reality of It any less true. To delve into such Mystery behind a stirred-up, Rose-colored Gaudete Sunday is to be able to withstand the pain of knowing that much of 2021 will be too much like 2020, especially in the beginning. Throughout it all, though, the “Gaudete Sunday” of 3 Advent bids us look for, and indeed rejoice in, the “bountiful grace and mercy” to “speedily help and deliver us,” from a “stirred-up” Lord that indeed is close “at hand.”

Gaudete Domino …Always!

…of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one God,
    the Father, the Almighty,
    maker of heaven and earth,
    of all that is, seen and unseen.

This season of Advent just seems to do a number on me.

Yes, there is the absurd rush, the frenzy to not miss a single party or sale or movie opening.  But there is also, from time to time, a sense of the surreal that breaks through.

Christmas trees in the dark: Yearning for something, not knowing what it is, only that it is.

It’s another kind of absurd altogether — a fuller sense of the “absurd” reality that we Christians profess.  We are reminded this time of year more than any other that our God, the “one God, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth” chose to appear to Creation in the form of an utterly helpless infant, born to a young unwed girl under desperate conditions.

Maybe I just manage to keep this absurdity at bay better during other seasons, more easily brushing off the sheer wonder and profound beauty of a single human breath.  Not so much during the longer, colder nights of Advent.

When I refer to the long, cold nights of this season, it has little to do with shorter hours of daylight in the northern hemisphere.  For me, these “long and cold nights” are more of a spiritual description than thermal — the darker, longer, colder nights of the soul.  Watching lights on a Christmas tree in the quiet dark lead to a deep stirring within.  My truest heart desires something intensely, to know something and to know it deeply.  And yet, that heart is not really sure what it is yearning, sure only in the deepest feeling that whatever it is, Whoever it is, it IS.

Most times when I am asked by the Celebrant to “stand and profess our faith in the words of the Nicene Creed,” I begin to mindlessly recite the words, and just gloss over the opening sentence, and its enormously powerful last phrase. But it is this darkness of Advent that reminds me more clearly that God is the maker of “the seen and the unseen.” God has made not just the stars in the heavens and the hairs on my head — not just what can be seen through telescopes and microscopes — but the Unseen, too.  We are surrounded by a holy host of maybes, which (or who) somehow swirl around us at the most needful of times, like a snowfall at night, unseen until one awakes in the morning, and  realizes what has been going on while we slept.

This time of year leads me to understand more clearly that part of our human nature is to seek and yearn for the unknown.  And it leads me to believe more and more that this very human trait exists because we have been “created” to seek and yearn for a Creator. We are meant to bathe in that Mystery. And perhaps, such a Divine (?) purpose goes even further. Part of my “rent” for occupying space on this planet is to purposefully search for that Mystery not only in what is “seen” around me in this universe, but also in the “unseen,” in those closest to me, and ultimately in myself.

And I as engage in that exploration, I am bound to be in that state perpetually.  I am like Bono singing “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…” and I’m beginning to understand I never really will. Advent is telling me that the finding comes most often in the searching itself. The “answer” is not discovered by “arriving” at a destination but in the journey along the way.

And the deepest of such yearning is to know and feel Emmanuel. God with us.

God– the of the omnipotent loving Creator
With– not over us or far away, but closer than close, touching us and everything in our existence
Us – in this tiny speck of dust that is our little corner of galaxy in the universe.

I become like the author of Psalm 8 when confronting such things. Such knowledge is too good for me; I cannot attain it.

I can only yearn for it.

And may the peace of God, which passes all understanding…

This has been the tried and true standard “go to” benediction of choice for generations. And for good reason. It is, after all, awfully hard to do better than Paul himself at his best.

This familiar phrase comes from the fourth chapter of Paul’s epistle to the Philippians.  I have always found it somewhat odd that the writings of Paul seem to be at their most passionate, their most poignant, their most hopeful, when his situation seemed the most hopeless. At the time he wrote this affectionate “love letter” to the fledgling church in Philippi, Paul was in a Roman prison, an enemy of the most powerful government the earth had ever known. There was no earthly reason to be of good cheer. No earthly reason.

But as bound and broken and confined as Paul’s body might have been, his spirit was wonderfully and wondrously free. He gives to his friends in that small town on the east coast of Greece the rather silly advice to “Have no anxiety, about anything…” (Phil. 4:6.) Rather, he urges them to try a different approach, to simply pray about “everything,” and to “let your requests be known to God.”

If if they could but do that, says Paul, to honestly, fervently, deeply pray to our Loving Creator about their anxieties (and I can only imagine what all they had to be anxious about!) Paul promised them that a marvelous thing would happen:

“And the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Centuries later, this “marvelous thing” has comforted and strengthened and sustained generations, and his words have become the fondest of parting wishes at countless worship services.

Two stories. Both true…

When I was three, my older brother died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was only 10. I remember Tommy a little, but not much. Blessfully (I think), I don’t remember anything about his death.

Decades later, after we had moved her into assisted living, my mom and I were having a very rare conversation with about Tommy’s death. I shared with her that I had long wondered how she even functioned after losing her first-born. How did she and my dad go on, not just to survive after Tommy’s sudden death, but to raise that beautiful boy’s younger sister, younger brother (me), and two more sisters yet to be born?

“How did you do it, Mom?” I asked her. “I don’t know, Michel,” she told me, “I really don’t… What I remember is this phrase kept coming back to me. Over and over, I kept hearing the phrase, ‘The Peace of God that passes all understanding…’  PEACE. God’s peace. Beyond understanding. Over and over…”. She looked off in the distance for a second.

And then she looked right at me, and I never will forget what she said. “And I wrapped that phrase around me like a cloak!”

Somehow, some way, it got her through.

My Dad’s notes in Philippians

Second story. I’ve written in this blog before about the day my Dad died. The part I left out occurred the next day, when the Rector of my parents’ parish was scheduled to come by to talk about Dad’s funeral, and the scripture and hymns we might select. As it so happened, I had read that “Peace of God” passage from Philippians just a few weeks earlier as a lector at my home church, and had heard Buechner lecture on it the previous year,.  I thought maybe my dad might approve, so I ventured back to my folks’ bedroom and eventually found my Dad’s Bible. (Folks that knew him well would not be surprised to learn it was rather dusty.) I flipped my way back to the fourth chapter of Philippians.

Thinking that my dad might approve of this passageAnd there — circled and underscored, with arrows and squiggly lines for emphasis — was that very passage I was seeking.  In my dad’s very distinctive handwriting, he had penned the entire four verses on the opposite page.

I’m not sure such things pass all human understanding. I’m damn sure that it passes mine.