Of Bears and Penguins

Advent, Day 18:

Visiting the mall, or really, any store at Christmas is like an engraved invitation to visit your own personal heart of darkness.

Opportunities to be impatient, annoyed, self-important, self-absorbed, harried, hurried, irritated abound.

This is part of advent too, not only the eager expectation and reception of the Savior, but also the knowledge that we stand in deep, deep need of one.

There's a certain insidious whisper that would invite us to think that while we are, ourselves, sinners, there a many sinners much worse than us. But that lie can have a hard time holding up at a mall during the holidays.

When King David grievously had Uriah killed, it took a man of great courage to go and tell him the truth. Nathan spun a pretty story about a cherished lamb, murdered by someone powerful to the loss of someone poor. And when David demanded to know who would do such a thing, Nathan spoke the truth, "You are the man."

The Holy Spirit speaks those words to our hearts now. The words that say, "You are the person who would speak in spite, do in meanness, act in anger. You are the person who would lie, and manipulate to your own advantage. You are a fallen sinner."

I think part of advent for me is reflecting on my own brokeness, my own sin. It is sobering. It is heartbreaking.

It's also heartbreaking to be on the opposite end of someone else's broken and sinful behavior, to be the recipient of the harsh word, or action, to be duped by a lie or a manipulation of someone whom you trusted. To be harmed at the hand of another. To find, I suppose, that not only are you, yourself a sinner, but that you're in the poor company of other sinners just as likely to double-cross for their gain as help you. No honor among thieves and the like. All of us a bit like Tolkien's Gollum, muttering to our idols, which are often ourselves or others, and slowly being deformed and defiled by them.

It makes me want to hang my head. And gives me a little idea of what Adam and Eve felt when they hid from the Lord in the Garden. But then as now through Christ, the Lord, by His own hand, acted to make things right between Him and us.

I can't for the life of me remember the song it comes from, but the lyric says, "There's a cross to bridge the great divide..."

And for that cross, and for the manager that preceeded it, I remain eternally grateful.