kept watch. Those three words are not a bad summary of the first two seasons of the church year. The words are incredibly important for true believers and others who aren’t so sure. The life of faith is sort of like looking for fish where none are really expected. You won’t always get what you’re looking for. And you won’t always find the answer you’re seeking. But you keep watching, on tiptoe, ready for revelation.
A young scientist named Manu Prakash teaches at Stanford and grew up in India. Prakash is an advocate of what he calls “frugal science,” an attempt to make the wonders of science more accessible to poor people across the world. He invented something called the Foldscope, an actual microscope that can be mailed in a flat nine-by-twelve-inch envelope and costs very little to make. Upon arrival, one uses several simple origami-style folds and voila, a handy microscope emerges that can be used in the field. Manu Prakash has a passion for helping people see the marvels of life all around them; a passion, you might say, for keeping watch.
The angels came to shepherds with their antennae up and senses sharpened. They were outside in a field. And they heard and saw some wonderful news: God’s promises taking on flesh and blood.
“The Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). The Greek word for “lived” in this verse literally means “to live in a tent.” Here’s a pretty close paraphrase: “God became human and camped among us.” The word hearkens back to the ancient tabernacle (the portable abode for God) that accompanied the people of Israel wherever they went. Christmas is the celebration of an ongoing camping trip where Jesus chooses to pitch his tent right next to ours. He drives in his stakes, kindles a little fire, strings up a hammock, and lives among us. When we move, he moves—sharing our lot, our flesh, with his unfading glory. The gift of incarnation, from an ecological perspective, is that God’s light fills our world; specific, nameable places. It’s the message Isaiah heard one morning from other angels in the temple at the time of his calling: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa 6:3).
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“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God” (Luke 2:13) and bringing peace. One striking word for me here is “suddenly.” They were keeping watch, like all other nights, and then suddenly.
There is a directional flow in Luke’s version of the Christmas story. There is a “back-and-forth” geographical ranging between heaven and earth. It was true when Jacob used a stone for a pillow, on another night centuries before, in another field; he saw a ladder of angels (Gen 28:10–22) with traffic moving in both directions. And it’s true in the shepherds’ field. The angels were there, and then they were not there, returning to heaven. God’s glory does indeed fill this earth, but keen watchfulness might be the most important spiritual discipline for latter-day shepherds to develop in order to discern the traffic.
A couple of springs ago I was on the Blue Ridge Parkway for several days with a bicycling companion. One morning we broke camp and the fog was so thick, pea soup, that it probably wasn’t a very smart thing to be out in it on a bicycle. My friend, Kent, twenty yards ahead of me, would disappear and reappear, in and out of the cloud. It was a weird feeling—ghostly, almost as if he were passing through a door into another world with other people appearing and receding. I have a photo of another friend standing in the fog on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, a friend now dead almost two decades. I look at the picture, through the mist, and time vanishes. We’re on the trail together again and I halfway expect him to speak.
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I’ve not seen those three fish again since I saw them in that culvert pool. But I keep looking and watching every day—not because I know they’re really there, but maybe because Advent watchfulness is even more important than verification in the life of faith. We live in the fields of a wonderful world. God reveals luminous truth and light, back-and-forth, up and down; angelic traffic.
“To you is born this day…”
Any day, really.
1. Portions of this introduction first appeared in Honeycutt, “Keeping Watch.”
1. Jesus the Safecracker
“If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into” (Matthew 24:43).
Sometimes I wonder what it will be like to live the last day of my life. Ever think about the circumstances of your death? I’ve had cancer twice in my life—radiation treatments, surgery; the best health care possible and all is fine today. I suppose I’m a candidate to ponder these vexing questions more than many. Would you want to know the details and date if that were possible? Why or why not?
I remember reading an article several years ago where the author (a historian) said a curious thing. He said that in the Middle Ages the death of choice was cancer. If you were going to die, cancer was the preferred route back then. That sounds very strange to modern ears that dread the “C”-word more than most any other. But in the Middle Ages one could die pretty quickly from ailments ranging from the plague to a spear chucked through your head in battle. Cancer gave people time—time to get your affairs in order; time to settle debts; time to pass on wisdom and gather children to your bedside for conversation and prayer.
In this so-called “information age” where so many things seem to be knowable and describable, it’s refreshing in a way that some mysteries are beyond our reach. We are not in control of our debut into this world, or our exit from it. Even Jesus didn’t know everything. “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matt 24:36). He is speaking here of the end of time, of course—his own return, rather than anyone’s individual mortality. But the issues are related. Jesus was not some divine know-it-all in this regard. Even Jesus had limits to his knowledge.
But that did not keep him from giving specific advice about the unknown. He likens his return to the days of Noah when people were going about their own business—marrying, starting families, drinking toasts to the good life (“more wine, garcon!”), and a catastrophe came and swept it all away. It really doesn’t matter if you think the story of Noah’s Ark really happened or not. Don’t get stuck there. Jesus’ point with this advice is that we live in a world where things can change very quickly, overnight, neither predicted nor controlled.
I recall a pastoral visit several years ago with a couple in my parish, Al and Liz Barry. (They’ve given me permission to share this story.) Part of a pastor’s job description is that he or she will bring gospel comfort and hope to the dying, but in this case it was the other way around. Liz and I gathered there at Al’s bedside for Holy Communion on a Wednesday afternoon in December. Their faithful dog, Daisy, was there too. Liz told me that Daisy would often wake her up in the middle of the night when Al needed her.
We all gathered around Al’s bed and I read this same “end of time” passage from Matthew 24. On the way to their home I thought about choosing another passage (something a bit lighter), but I’m glad I stuck with this old Advent theme. I read the story and we talked about it. Al said, “You know, my own life has been like that. We’ve been successful in our careers—very busy and successful, running around doing lots of things. Since I’ve been sick, this time has been a gift to us. I’m sad. We’re sad. But it’s been a gift to focus on God each day, focus on his love for us each day. I have grown so much in my own faith through this illness. I would never have chosen this path for my life, but in some ways it’s been a gift.”
“Keep awake,” says Jesus, not so much a coercive warning, but rather as an invitation to notice
