What Would Be His Name?

God, if you were going to have a son, what would you call his name?

How about, “Grand Master Over All the Universe,” or “Potentate Supreme Above All Potentates?”

Or, “The Untouchable One, Unattainable and Exalted”?

Would you call him “Glorious One”, “Majestic One”, “King?”

For surely, he would be all these things.

If you were going to have a son, what would you call him?

My child, I would call him Wonderful.

Beyond understanding, leaving you speechless!

You will see him in the awesome sweep of a mountain,

In the breathtaking roar of an ocean wave,

In the fiery flash of a lightning strike.

But you will see him in small things, too.

You will see him in a simple daisy, striving to the light,

In a butterfly dashing colour from its wings as it flits from flower to flower.

You will see him as a newborn infant squalling as he enters your cold and dark world.

My God, that is beyond understanding!  It leaves me speechless!

He is Wonderful.

I would call him Counsellor. 

Not a road map laying out your whole journey before you

So that all is clear and you need no one else along the way, but a compass.

When you feel like you have hopelessly lost the way,

You must listen for his voice carefully as he coaches and coaxes,

Through his Word, through his Spirit, and through the hands of fellow pilgrims,

Who reach out to help you and hold you and cheer you on.

He will give you enough that you can find your way through the morass of your broken world,

But not too much that you can do it alone.

In my wisdom, I will call him Counsellor,

And he will guide you home.

I would call him Mighty God.

A fearsome warrior, he stands teeth bared, eyes glaring, sword drawn,

Crouched protectively over the cowering child at his feet,

And poised to crush those who would try to harm this little one of his.

A Mighty Man, he looks down upon the world and holds even chaos in his hand,

So that when your world is upended, you can know that he is there.

When your enemies rise against you, you can trust that he will fight.

When you look around you and see a world gone mad and out of control,

You can trust that he holds the world.

Greater than any Colossus, he bestrides the universe

As Mighty God.

 

I would call him Everlasting Father.

Mighty God With You.  God Come Near.

He will enter your world, become a part of your life.

His hands and arms will be strong and gentle as he teaches you how to walk,

And carries you close when you are too weary to continue.

His smile will be broad and his laugh will shake his shoulders

As he takes pride in your successes and delights in your delight.

His tears will track down his cheeks and drip from his chin

When he sees your struggles and feels your heartaches,

And he will crouch down to you as you run and bury your face

In the arms of your Everlasting Father.

I would call him Prince of Peace.

When you hide from a Holy God in the bushes of shame and fear,

Trembling because of the sin you have committed against this Righteous One,

He will seek you out and offer to be your peace treaty.

When you find yourself at war with others,

He will give you the courage to offer peace from the peace he has given you.

When you lie awake at night, and the darkness presses hot upon your heart,

And you are lashed by the winds of worry and dread,

He will stride across the waves of your storms

And cry out, “Peace!  Be still!”  You will sleep like a child, the lines of worry smoothed away

By the hand of the Prince of Peace.

God, if you were going to have a son, what would you call his name?

My child, I would call him Jesus.

© Marianne V., with many thanks to Dr. D. Barker for his inspiration and ideas

February 3, 2006

Advent

I don't know if it's because I'm getting older and less able (or willing) to tolerate the madness that seems to overtake us in December, if it is because I have just come through a stressful and demanding season at work, and so am simply more tired than usual, or if it is because recent stories in the news, whether printed in papers or in my newsfeed, have left me feeling sad and discouraged, but I don't feel much like I'm in the "Christmas spirit". Jingle bells and fa-la-la get on my nerves.  Even "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World" feel like too much to handle.  Truth be told, I don't feel much joy, just a deep-seated weariness, and a thinly-masked resentment against the expectation of Christmas cheer.

It feels like everyone is putting on a big fake peace-love-and-goodwill mask, while underneath, this world is crying out in agony.  All the families who have recently lost a loved one ... friends of mine who are separated from their most loved ones at this most wonderful time of the year ... and I'm so tired I can barely get out of bed, let alone think about baking desserts to add to the weight of food on the tables, which will only add to the weight on our backsides.  But, oh, we must have Christmas cheer!  Bah, humbug.

What I feel mostly is sadness that the world DIDN'T end on December 21.  Not that I was under any illusions that it would, but still.  Oh, Jesus, why?  Why couldn't you have come back yesterday?  When, Jesus, when?  When are you going to come back?  Oh, Jesus, can't you hear us crying?  Do you hear the cries of a friend who just lost a brother?  Do you hear the cries of friends separated from family at Christmas, missing their sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, grandkids?  Do you hear the wailing of the families in Newtown, Connecticut?  Jesus, do you hear the sobs of the Syrians, the people in Palestine, in Israel, in Egypt, Iraq, and all the other countless places where war is waging and lives are being torn apart?  Do you hear my sighs, sighs wrung from a heart that is weary beyond words?  Jesus, if you came, all would be made right.  If you came, all tears would be wiped away.  Jesus, why didn't you come?  If you don't come soon, I'm not sure how much longer we can hang on.  When will you come?  Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel!

. . . oh . . .
     . . . come
           . . . oh, come . . .
                      . . . Emmanuel.

But isn't that a Christmas carol?  But if that's a Christmas carol, I wonder . . . I wonder if we haven't got this all wrong.

We sort of know that Advent isn't about the excitement of waking up to a white Christmas with presents under the tree.  But perhaps it's not even about the anticipation of a new birth, the way I was recently anticipating the birth of my new niece.  Perhaps Advent is much more about feeling the awful weight of a broken world until I am groaning for relief from the agony of it.  Perhaps it isn't so much about welcoming the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay, no crying he makes, but about feeling again my desperate, desperate need for a Saviour.  Perhaps it's about knowing that I just can't go on unless he breaks in and intervenes.  Perhaps it's recognising that my heart is broken, and I am powerless to fix it unless the Healer enters in.  I wonder if perhaps the true Christmas spirit is found not in smiles and laughter, but in tears and a deep longing for Emmanuel to come and right this world.  Emmanuel.  God with Us.  He, only he can make what is wrong right again.  Perhaps looking forward to Christmas is not so much about joyful anticipation, but one of longing for relief.

Which makes Christmas all the more surprising.  Because that's an awful lot of expectation to put on a baby who is suckling at his mother's breast, still red and wrinked from his passage into this world, utterly helpless, utterly dependent on his inexperienced, teenaged mother. We need a rescuer and we find a baby.  We're looking for a Saviour, and we find a squalling infant.  I wonder if, in our disappointment that he is not what we expect, we settle for what he think he is, and forget what he will become.  A baby can't save us, so we try to put our longing aside for a while, to focus on the joy of a new baby -- after all, who doesn't love a new baby. We pretend we're ok, and we can hang on for a while longer, at least until, say, Easter.

Well, I can't.  I can't hang on. And I don't have to.  Because Emmanuel came at Christmas, not Easter.  He came.  Just when I was slipping and falling to my death, he came.  He came, as a baby, yes, but God-With-Us.  I am not going to put the grieving aside to find some false Christmas cheer.  I am not going to pretend that all is right when all is wrong.  I will feel the depth of sadness of a world that is groaning in agony.  I will feel the weariness of my own heart and soul.  And I will cry, "Oh, come, oh, come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here."  And then, I will marvel at the thought that Emmanuel HAS come.  And he is coming again.

And that, I believe, is the true Christmas spirit.

Formula God

What do I do with a God who utterly defies formulas?

Every time I try to neatly contain him in a box, he insists on exploding out of it.  Every time I attempt to predict how he is going to work, he does something different.  Every time I try to order my theology into five neat little points, he shows me a text that refuses to fit.

What do I do with a God who so steadfastly refuses to be pigeonholed that he will work outside the formulas he himself created?

I try to expand my theology to make everything fit, until I am left with something so cumbersome it becomes useless and comical.  I twist myself into contortions attempting to do just the right thing, act just the right way, and somehow force God to act in the way I think he ought to.  I lock myself into my watertight, safe little life and hope he doesn't mess things up.

But he does.  He always does.  Or, at least, he sometimes does.

We sing the chorus three times, dim the lights, cut the drums, and expect God to move in our worship service, but a crying baby messes things up.

We tithe faithfully and give to the poor when we can, and we expect God to provide for us, except that the rent is due and there's no money in the bank to pay it.

We don't swear, smoke, dance, or chew, and we expect God to bless us with a comfortable life, but  then we get the pink slip, or the positive diagnosis, or a drunk driver hits us on the highway.

I was reminded of it again this weekend, when I heard Psalm 44.  It starts off so great.

We have heard with our ears, O God; 

our fathers have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago. 

With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers; 

you crushed the peoples and made our fathers flourish.

It was not by their sword that they won the land, 

nor did their arm bring them victory;

it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, 

for you loved them.

You are my King and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob.

Through you we push back our enemies; 

through your name we trample our foes.

I do not trust in my bow, my sword does not bring me victory;

but you give us victory over our enemies, 

you put our adversaries to shame.

In God we make our boast all day long

and we will praise your name for ever.

That's so awesome.  We do our part, God does his part.  He brings us victory over our enemies, blesses our endeavours, and we glorify him.  Everyone is happy.  It's tidy and comforting.  It's what we expect.  That's where we finished reading on the weekend.  I wish it ended there.  I really do.

But it doesn't.

The next lines read:

 But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies

You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us.

You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations

You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale.

You have made us a reproach to our neighbours, the scorn and derision of those around us.

You have made us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us.

My disgrace is before me all day long, and my face is covered with shame

at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me, because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge. 

That's bad.  That's really bad.  Life is just not going the way I want it to.  In fact, life is about as bad as it can get.  But that's not the worst of it.  The worst of it is this:

 

All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant.

Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path.

But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals and covered us over with deep darkness.

If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

would not God have discovered it, since he knows the secrets of the heart?

Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

God, what??  I'm doing my level best here to serve you, to love you, to follow you.  I'm giving everything I can, or at least everything I think I can to live for you.  I am doing everything I can to be faithful.  And this is it?  Crushing and a haunt for jackals and deep darkness?  It makes no sense!

Because God refuses to be bound by formulas.  He is unpredictable, untameable, uncontrollable.

So what do I do with a God who utterly defies formulas?

I learn to wrestle with him.  He's big enough to take my pain and my questions when things don't make sense.  The Psalmist in Psalm 44 does.  He tells God to wake up and do something now!  The psalms are full of people questioning God and challenging him to act on their behalf.  So I wrestle with my questions.

I learn to trust him.  Even when things don't make sense, I trust that he is still on the throne.  He is still working.  And, most importantly, his heart toward me is still one of love, even when nothing makes sense and I am in the middle of the darkness.  Psalm 44 ends with the words "unfailing love".  It is why I can wrestle.  It is why I can trust.   Because his heart toward me is always, always "unfailing love".

I learn to live in the mystery.  I learn to live in a relationship that is always new, always exciting, always changing, growing, and deepening.  It's terrifying.  It's wonderful.  It's terrifyingly wonderful.  If I am honest with myself, it is the mystery that makes it wonderful.  What kind of a god would he be if I could control him and manipulate him with dimmed lights, hushed drums, planned giving, and the right kind of prayers?  What kind of a god would he be if I could control him at all?  I don't want a god I can control.  I want the Mystery.

What do I do with a God who utterly defies formulas?

I love him.  I worship him.  

And I hold on for dear life.