IF YOU can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; goes the opening line to the famous poem If. People are losing their heads around us all the time, although it may not sometimes look like it. Having a coffeehouse gives one a chance to observe many people who don’t think they’re being observed. Life, for many people, is a very intense experience. We are preoccupied. We are worried. We are sad. We are driven. We need attention. We are not relaxed. “If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same …If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!” If by Rudyard Kipling. Good admonitions, and a tough balance to strike.
Life isn’t for sissies, and the battle is on every moment, especially when we think we’re not at war. But the message from our Epistle today challenges our perception of life and relationships and even what God may seem to be after in us. The knowledge of a perfect God, all powerful and wise, who has come and even died to save us, ought to make us very serious about goodness and repentance and things holy.
I don’t think there was ever a more serious man than St. Paul: serious to the point of putting himself in danger at all points to gain even a few disciples like himself for Christ. And yet this very serious Paul said, in a 20th century translation: “Always be joyful in the Lord! I'll say it again: Be joyful! Let everyone know how considerate you are. The Lord is near. Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks. Then God's peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, keep your thoughts on whatever is right or deserves praise: things that are true, honorable, fair, pure, acceptable, or commendable... Then the God who gives this peace will be with you.” Phil 4:4-9 (GW) And – which is more – you’ll be a man my son.
Rejoicing may seem, for us driven American people, a silly way to orient ourselves to the serious matters of life. Stuff breaks. People we love die. Crime rates go up. The economy tanks. Strangers plot evil against us. Our elected officials betray our trust. We fail to achieve important goals. Rejoice? Rejoice about what?
Some people handle life’s difficulty by becoming flippant, joking over everybody’s pain, in the quest to insulate themselves from compassion. Heaven forbid I might actually feel something akin to your troubling emotions. Cracking jokes when others are hurting was not what Paul enjoined us to do, for rejoicing is not mocking nor is it avoidance. It’s finally understanding the bigger picture and entering it. Rejoicing and letting everyone know how considerate you are: those are two characteristics that balance each other. Joy is knowing that God loves all of us and is powerful to save us through our trials and temptations. Consideration is caring for others and showing that their concerns have a safe place to find their expression in you. But if the joy does not deride the sufferer, so feeling the pain of another should not eclipse the deep happiness that is ours in Christ. Our knowledge of God’s love and His power to save us has the strength to overcome the hardness of every evil in our world.
I have seen an abuse of these virtues. Overly faith-driven Christians want to fit their “Praise the Lord!” phrases in at times when silence and compassion are called for and would be more fitting. It may comfort them, but such enforced joy alienates a sorrowing person. And I’ve seen people who come in like a purple fog on any happy event scowling over the fleshpots and debauchery even of a child’s birthday party. Spoiling others’ joy for the sake of super-holiness is neither loving nor is it holy.
Two phrases of our beloved King James Epistle leave us moderns at the gate of incomprehension. “Let your moderation be known unto all men,” always sounded like being famously humble. It’s a difficult Greek word to translate apparently, as various Bibles have it as meekness, reasonableness, gentleness and a forbearing spirit, as well as the consideration I just read. Between these words I believe we catch the meaning. It means we humble ourselves to the needs of others, thinking through the things that matter to them, finding common ground, being the kind of person that people go to. And there, I believe, is the link to joy.
Jesus Christ was not a handsome man, if we are to accept Isaiah’s description, “He had no form or majesty that would make us look at him. He had nothing in his appearance that would make us desire him.” Isaiah 53:2 (GW) And yet thousands were drawn to Him. They laid their coats on the road for His donkey to step on. A woman wept tears on his feet and dried them with her long hair. They kept Him up all night bringing their dying loved ones to see Him. He was attractive, not for His physical beauty, but for who He is. I think He embodied that balance of joy and caring.
The other odd word in our King James is found in the phrase “Be careful for nothing.” This is not so difficult. It means, as other translations have it, not worrying about things, not being anxious, as the Lord instructed in His Lilies of the field teaching. Joy overcomes anxiety if we know what to be joyful over. I don’t think that, even at Gethsemane, Jesus was anxious or worried. It may look like that, but taking on the sins of the whole world and suffering the just punishment of billions of people is a serious battle. He won it, not by ignoring the pain or quoting blithe admonitions or avoiding it, but rather by going straight through it. At that point, the joy was hard to see, but the compassion was everywhere. His concern was for you and me, and He needed to get His humanity underneath His divine will so that it wouldn’t betray Him out of simple fear. Your body can betray you when fear of pain and death overwhelms you. At such a point, a soldier relies not on his courage and higher nature, but on his training and practiced skills.
I know an ex-Army Ranger, a Vietnam veteran, who was a medic in those jungles who parachuted from helicopters hundreds of times. Each time he drilled as he’d been taught, practicing his reaching for his primary cord, then the secondary, and then the release. They joked about his gestures, as though he was crossing himself; called him preacher. “Out of 240 jumps,” he told me, “seven times my primary chute did not deploy. I don’t remember pulling the secondary cord at all, not any of those seven times. But I did, and so I’m standing here.” Just like that, Jesus drilled among those olive trees for the trial that was before Him. He only wished His friends could have joined Him in His battle plan and preparation. Instead, they would do as any of us would, if so unprepared. They ran away. My ranger friend said, “In the heat of battle, you do not rise to the occasion; you sink to the level of your training.”
Joy and compassion, and putting worry aside, all sounds great, but how do you do it? Our part is two-fold. Part one is knowing the Lord is at hand. God, the invisible force behind the world, is not a distant idea, not an impersonal magnetic field, not an angry revenger, nor a kindly old grandfather. He’s not Santa Claus, Virginia. God is closer to you right now than your breath, than your heartbeat. You couldn’t live without Him. He’s so close that some mistake themselves for being god, but that’s pretty funny when you think of it. God is both transcendent and immanent, the author of galaxies and the lover of your soul. This same powerful majesty comes to rule and reign on the throne of your heart—and He’s right here. You can reach out and touch the face of God. You can see His glory reflected in the face of a child. That knowledge is part one of His cure for the terror of our lives.
Part two is prayer. “But in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.” Knowing a divine being is nearby, and that He cares about your troubles, you are invited to talk to Him, ask His help, consult His wisdom, get directions, be assured of the outcome He will give. A powerful God has told you to Ask, Seek, Knock, for “it shall be given you; ye shall find; it shall be opened unto you.” Matt 7:7 “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” John 16:24
Those two are our portion to accomplish. Know that God is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him in prayer. Heb 11:6 With this knowledge, watch yourself. If you tend to flippancy, open your heart to compassion. If you tend to worry, let in more joy.
Situations and circumstances overwhelm us. Our environment assaults us. Social stresses pull at us. People’s opinions of us push and pull at us. Advertisements and news reporters lay obligations on us to react in prescribed ways. We are social animals. We can’t help being affected by those around us. But the gage of whether you have allowed yourself too much leeway is peace. Are you at peace in yourself, and as much as you can account for, at peace with others around you? That kind of peace is rare, but it is the seal of God’s grace on the Christian. Find a man or woman of peace and see what makes them tick. Their part is knowing God and having spiritual communion with Him by prayerfully setting into His hands all that matters in their lives. His part is peace.
The Prince of peace is to be born Friday night, again, here in the stable of our souls and laid carefully into the mangers of our hearts. Circumstances and situations then – and even now – included foreign troops and evil insane kings, stinky animal stalls and curious bystanders, poverty and illogical laws, and sin. None of that touches Christmas. Knowing all of that, and the cross He was to bear and be borne up on, God entered our world to bring peace, the peace of God that passes far beyond our comprehension.
May that peace be born again in you today, and at this Christmas, and give you true and lasting joy. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice!
PFH+