"The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." Those words from Phillips Brooks end the first stanza of his classic carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem (Lewis Redner wrote the music)." It's a song I've probably heard at least once every Christmas season that I've been alive. As is the case with anything we've known for a long time, it's easy to have heard these lyrics so many times that we actually stop hearing them.
This Advent season I've had this "hopes and fears" line on my mind quite a bit. What hopes might Brooks have had when he made the visit to Bethlehem that inspired the song? What were his fears that sat in the same space as his hopes? Could his hopes and fears have in fact been the very same things? The collision of hope and fear experienced by Mary and Joseph, Herod, a group of shepherds, the Magi, Phillips Brooks, and you and me is one we typically try to avoid, usually to our own detriment. To not admit and tell the truth about how close our hopes and fears resemble each other is to not tell the truth about our own lives, our own personhood, our very humanity.
I'm a guy who really appreciates questions. Growing up in an ultra-fundamentalist setting that confused certainty with faith will do that to you. But sometimes, answers are needed. As I consider the implications of Brooks' lyrics, however, the answers seems to be elusive. Or maybe the is that I have in fact arrived at answers that leave me with equal parts exhiliration/hope and frustration/fear. Because to consider both the possibilities and the problems of Bethlehem is to have to come to grips with not what, but Who, creates those possibilities and problems.
The collision of those possibilities and problems, and the fact they've been brought by the very One we hope will save us from this tension, confronts everyone. Some just choose to ignore both the the collision and the tension, either through believing nothing about the One born in Bethelehem that night, or believing things about Him that He never said about Himself. One of the most inconvenient truths about the baby born in Bethelehem is that quite often He doesn't deliver "your best life now." Quite often He actually calls us to a very difficult life, even the hardest life imaginable. He promises to be with us along the way, but the way can be very hard, heartbreaking, damn impossible.
In case you've confused unexamined certainty with faith, and before you completely dismiss my rambling here, consider the collision and tension John the Baptist experienced, all brought on by the baby from Bethlehem now grown into manhood. John the gospel writer writes that John the Baptist pointed out Jesus and told everyone, "There He is! The One who will save us from all this trouble?" When you read John the writer's account of John the Baptist's words, it seems the Baptist had no doubt whatsoever, and he seems to be full of hope about the possibilities this Jesus person will bring.
Luke the gospel writer tells a different story, however. John the Baptist has been locked up for telling the truth about a crooked political leader. While in prison John sends some of his followers to Jesus, telling them to ask Him a very direct question: "Are you really the One we have been expecting, or should we go back to waiting for someone else?" It's unsettling to consider just who is asking that question. The very one who announced to the very sizable crowd that listened to him that the embodiment of hope and freedom had arrived is now asking the very guy he pointed out if he should expect anything at all from Him. John the Baptist seems to be saying, "Look, I've pinned all my hopes on you, and in a pretty public way. You're now a rock star and I'm stuck in a box waiting to be killed. Really!? Is this really the way it's supposed to be? You call this hope!?"
Jesus' answer to John's followers (which you can read in Luke 7:21-23) does nothing to alleviate John's problems. At the end of His description of the kind of transformative work He's doing, Jesus seems to be telling John, " The possibilities and the problems are the very same thing. Yes, I am the One so there's no need to look any further. And that truth needs to be enough, because a change in your circumstances isn't coming."
These aren't the kind of words we normally think about during Advent. We want words about light shining in darkness, angels visiting to announce good news of great joy, strangers showing up with gifts. We want the possibilities. I believe in the possibilites. But if I'm going to step into the story Jesus continues to tell, I have to accept the collision. Like I said earlier, it's a very inconvenient truth, but it is the truth.
So this Christmas week, whatever our possibilities and problems may be, whatever the impact of our collective collisions has been or is, even if we're having to send somebody else to ask Him if we should look elsewhere, I hope that when He speaks about blind people seeing, crippled people walking, dead people coming back to life, and those who need good news the most receiving it, He will be talking about us.
Dear God, let that be a possibility.
