December 2024
While Christmas 1848 brought together families and friends to celebrate the birth of Christ and to look forward to a prosperous New Year, for Ellen and William Craft, an enslaved couple, Christmas afforded them the optimal time to implement their long-planned escape from slavery in Georgia.
Ellen was born of a mixed-raced woman and her wealthy owner, Major James Smith. Though three quarters of European descent and resembling her white half-siblings, in their eyes Ellen was nevertheless a slave. William was born in Macon, Georgia. There he met Ellen. They were 20 years of age when they married. Not wanting to raise a family in slavery, as they had experienced the pain of having loved ones separated from their families sold off and never to be seen again, they planned their escape from slavery during Christmas season 1848.
In their book, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom, published in 1860, Ellen and William relate their escape from slavery. Ellen dressed as a man. She dyed and cut her hair and bought the appropriate clothes to pass as a young white man. She posed as a plantation owner. William posed as her personal servant. Ellen feigned illness so as not to speak to anyone as they traveled on trains. She wore her right arm in a sling to hide the fact that she could not write. They stayed in the best hotels. Although the Crafts had several close calls along the way, they were successful in evading detection. On December 21, they boarded a steam ship for Philadelphia. They arrived there Christmas morning 1848. They wrote: “Freedom is a magnificent Christmas gift!”
Indeed, freedom is a magnificent Christmas gift. Freedom has many children: love is a child of freedom. Faith is a child of freedom. Hope is a child of freedom. And, so is joy. Love, faith, hope and joy are the theological virtues that are spawned when we experience freedom from sin, death and the devil.
What is a theological virtue? It is power. It is shared power. It is, first, a power that originates in God. It is, second, a power that we exert in the direction of love, faith, hope and joy. Ultimately, they build up our character to reflect that of Christ. To live in love, faith, hope and joy is to be a virtuously powerful person. The Advent candles on the Advent Wreath, moreover, symbolize the theological virtues that freedom produces. Though the Advent Wreath is an old tradition, what it represents is most contemporary, as the theological virtues are ever relevant in these precarious times.
In Isaiah 61, the prophet says, “My soul shall exalt in my God, for he has
clothed me with the garments of salvation; he has covered me with the
robe of righteousness.” Who is the one who exults in the Lord, rejoices
in the Lord? The one who rejoices in the Lord is the one who was
enslaved and who is now free. Freedom is the byproduct of salvation.
Salvation is the Lord’s righteousness. The prophet does not seek the
righteousness of humans, for humans always let you down. Their
righteousness cannot be trusted, as it is limited.
The historical context of Isaiah 61, moreover, is the chaotic situation after the return of the Babylonian exiles to Jerusalem 540 BC. Ten percent of the Judeans went into Babylonian exile in 586 BC. Ninety percent of the Judean population remained. The ten percent that went into exile and returned were the elites. In the chaotic situation of the return, some promoted their own brand of righteousness. And, they foisted it on others through force. In stark contrast, the prophet yearns to be clothed with the righteousness of God and not the righteousness of power-hungry humans. The righteousness of humans is based on human laws, rules and regulations that are oppressive; they enslave.
God’s righteousness, however, is true freedom, the end of the law. In Galatians 4, Paul tells us how the law comes to an end. God sent forth his Son, born under the law to redeem those under the law. Through his redemption, we become sons and daughters of Jesus’ Father. God put his Spirit into us, so that we are no longer slaves, for the Spirit cries in our spirits, “Abba.” Abba signifies our intimate connection to the Father. This is a radical thought from St. Paul, the former Pharisee. The Pharisees were the masters at piety rules and regulations that enslaved people for the purpose of their controlling them. You do not articulate a radical thought like St. Paul’s without a profound experience that fundamentally altered your life.
St. Paul had such an experience on the road to Damascus. The living Christ knocked him off his high horse. Freedom through Christ became the optimal way to live.
In Luke 2:22-40, we see hope, faith and love on display. The reading begins with the phrase: “When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses.” The reading ends with the phrase: “When they had performed everything according to the law of the Lord.”
Look at what happens between those two phrases: There is Simeon. He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Having beheld the Christ Child, he now dies in peace, having fulfilled his hope, the thing for which he prayed incessantly: the Christ. Simeon epitomizes hope.
Anna, moreover, the prophetess, epitomizes faith. She was filled with the Spirit. Through the Spirit she experiences perfect synchronicity in her faithful waiting.
In the middle of the law, there is the Son of God. The Son of God spoke the law, which humans fail to fulfill. The Son of God fulfills the law for us, so that he can give us the Spirit, the source of freedom.
St. Mary, the virgin mother, epitomizes love, for she treasured in her heart what she heard and saw in Simeon and Anna. She held such experiences in her heart and then she relayed them to St. Luke, who wrote the Gospel, using St. Mary as a source for his grand epic. She lovingly retained all these experience for our good and edification. This is what love does: it never relinquishes a treasure; it shares it with others.
This Christmas, may we grow in the theological virtues of faith, hope, love and joy. Such growth comes on the heels of a profound experience of freedom from sin, death and the devil. We were once enslaved to sin, death and the devil; now, however, we are free.
October 2024
The story is told of Timmy, a precocious five-year-old who told his father that he wanted a baby brother. He offered to help his father however he could. His father paused for a moment, thinking about his son’s request. He, then, said, “If you pray every day for two months, I’m sure that God will give you a baby brother.”
Timmy responded eagerly to his father’s challenge. That very night before going to bed, he prayed fervently for a baby brother. For a couple weeks, Timmy prayed with alacrity: sometimes he prayed three times a day. About the third week, however, Timmy had grown skeptical. He was convinced that his prayers were not working. He did some research around the neighborhood and found out that it never occurred in the history of the world that a boy prayed for a baby brother and then got it. So, Timmy quit praying.
About a month later, Timmy’s mother went to the hospital. When she returned home, Timmy’s parents called him into their bedroom. He walked cautiously into the bedroom not expecting to see anything. Then he saw a little bundle lying next to his mother. His father pulled back the blanket and there was not one baby brother, but two! His mother had twins!
Timmy’s father looked down at him and said, “Now aren’t you glad you prayed? Look what God gave you—two baby brothers!”
Timmy hesitated a little. He, then, looked up at his father and said, “Yes, but aren’t you glad I quit when I did.”
Indeed, prayer changes things. Chiefly, prayer changes us. How does prayer change us?
Prayer puts you in rhythm with Jesus. In John 17, we see Jesus in his role as the ascended Lord seated at the right hand of the Father. There, he has been granted the power to fulfill what he promises: Jesus promises to be present where two or three are gathered in his name; Jesus promises to be present in the Eucharist; Jesus promises to be your Good Shepherd at death.
At the right hand of the Father, moreover, Jesus is performing his high priestly role of praying. Priests pray. By virtue of Baptism, we have been ordained as priests, given such unction through the Holy Spirit. As priests, we pray together with our High Priest.
When we pray, we are in rhythm with Jesus. First, you experience rhythm with Christ when you let go and let God. You solve something without solving it by getting self out of the way. In prayer, you surrender your devices, your strategies to figure things out and entrust yourself and your petitions to Christ.
Second, you experience rhythm with Christ when you sit in silence. Christ is seated in the heavenlies at the right hand of his Father. Through faith, we have been seated with Christ in the heavenlies and experience all the spiritual blessings that Christ has to offer us as the exalted lord. Those blessings are best contemplated in silence. They are marvels that contemplation opens up to us. Prayer, then, is more than talking with God; it is also sitting in silence. “Be still and know that I am God.”
Third, we are in rhythm with Jesus, our High Priest, when we love. “God is love,” Jesus teaches. Those who love are born of God (1John 4:7).
Prayer is being in rhythm with Jesus. Caught up into the rhythm of Jesus, we change. Prayer, then, changes us. Laurel Rubalcava, the captain of the Prayer Chain, periodically texts the members of the chain inspirational thoughts about prayer. She texted one by Martin Luther that wonderfully bespeaks the rhythm of prayer. Luther said, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.”
The month of October is conducive to prayer, as it is the month of renewal. October’s orange, red and golden hues invite us to fundamentally change, so that we reflect the spiritual beauty that we are in Baptism. Getting in rhythm with Christ through prayer is key to that spiritual renewal. Moreover, significant saint days are celebrated in October: St. Luke, our namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Theresa D’Avila. And, on October 31, Martin Luther nailed his ninety five theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. They are all people who model prayer for us, prayer as being in rhythm with Jesus, our High Priest. As priests under his auspices, he follow Jesus. We do what Jesus is now doing—we pray.