Advent Defies Death

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that [you] may have life, and have it abundantly. [John 10:10].

It is now Advent, the beginning of another Christian year.

Advent is a time of joyful and expectant waiting-- for baby Jesus to be born.

Perhaps you remember those feelings of excitement, at a time when a new baby came into your family. I certainly remember my overwhelming emotion at the birth of my son. I could barely contain my joy! I felt like a kid at Christmas, only this was infinitely better.

Life IS a miracle. I want to hold those feelings of inutterable joy in my heart, forever.

And YET, we live in a Culture of Death.

And I wonder if we even notice how Death pervades our everyday life? How jaded have we become, that we toss off words like, 'Oh, yeah. . . . that guy died.'

Consider some headlines from the past year:

The New York Post just this week published a front page photo of a man who had been thrown from a subway platform, in front of an oncoming subway train. The caption read, "DOOMED. Pushed on the subway track, this man is about to die."

A woman in China was taken away by force, and made to undergo an abortion. We in the United States claim to react with horror; and yet, in America, we call a woman's decision to abort her fetus a matter of her "human rights".

A peaceful government is in threat of being overthrown by rebels. And so, the government decides to bomb its own civilians and threatens to release chemical weapons.

A man invades a home and murders an entire family. Our response is to sentence the killer to death.

A recent headline:  "Man fires gun at pregnant woman who is smoking a cigarette." And just who is the one devaluing life here?

You may declare, 'You are taking this "Culture of Death thing" very personally.'

Yes-- of course I am!  You see, I almost died in utero, before I was even born. Then, when I was about 4 or 5, I almost drowned in a neighbor's pool; I was sinking down, down and I knew I was drowning.. When I was in high school, there was an intruder in the neighborhood when I was home alone; the police found an overturned trash can underneath a first story window in my back yard. When I was  14, a member of my extended family committed suicide. When I was in my early twenties, I was the victim of a home invasion; I almost died that day and I could feel my life slipping away. When I was a young mother, I was on the way home from the park with my young son, when a huge tree toppled over and came within feet of crushing us. A few years later, I was out in the yard, gardening. As soon as I came in, a giant ash tree came crashing down, precisely where I had just been standing.  I have had episodes, with my chronic lung disease, when I could not breathe. In a two year span recently, my father, best friend, mother-in-law and my mother have all died.

I fear that the world has lost the capacity to love life. . . . Is everyone so inured to war and violence and torture and abuse, that death no longer has any meaning? Are we that numb to it all, that we no longer even recognize threats to life when we see them?

The more I have experienced the threat of death, the more I have longed to shed anything that remotely resembles death in my life. In order to more fully embrace life, I have died to anxiety, anger, violence, crisis, war, weaponry, abuse or trauma. I wish everyone in the whole world would cherish life as much as I do!

What would the world be like if we did not try to justify abortion by dismissing the fetus as just a bunch of random cells?

What if we all loved life so much that we refused to watch violent, gory movies that are passed off as "entertainment?"

What if our leaders called war "inevitable and necessary", and we dared to say that they are WRONG?

What if we loved even those whom society rejects -- the unborn, the imprisoned, the homeless, the terminally ill-- and we dared to notice them and value their lives?

I love peace, I love justice, I love gentleness, I love mercy, I love hope, I love compassion, I love the light, I love laughter and joy. These are Life. These come from Jesus.

As for hate, violence, war, abuse, trauma, weapons of destruction, abuses of power -- these are not Life. These are not Jesus.

I pray that we all look forward, with eager anticipation, to the birth of The Prince of Peace, who brings Life:  the gifts of Truth, Peace, Joy, Hope, and above all, Love.

(c) Spiritual Devotional 2012. All Rights Reserved.