Ignite. Again.
‘Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left. Therefore, stay awake!’(Matt. 24:41, 42)
Advent asks us to burn again, to start over, to be born again AGAIN as we await Jesus’ birth. No Hallmark movie this, no happy ending—dull and drowsy ‘Christians’ who do not recognize Him now won’t know Him when He returns.
I would rather prepare now than be left behind. Advent gives us four weeks to get ready. That has little to do with buying gifts and partying with friends. It’s about examining our hearts and how 2016 may well have made us worse, not better.
One gauge for me is how I and others respond to the ‘evolving’ understanding of gender and sexuality today. I just read about a ‘Christian’ blogger—Glennon Doyle Melton–hooking up happily and to the acclaim of thousands (if virtual ‘likes’ count)—with soccer star Abby Wambach who proudly hailed her ‘gay marriage’ to another woman at 2015’s World Cup victory by smooching her ‘spouse’ for the world to see in the glow of the US Supreme Court decision, an iconic union that soon fell apart when Abby disintegrated from drug and alcohol abuse.
Melton left husband for newly available Abby, an infatuation lived loudly before Melton’s kids. (‘We grant adults any kind of sexual liberty they want and insist that children take whatever these adults want to give them.’ Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse) The virtual world lauds these selfish, unstable women as ‘courageous.’
Many women like Melton who profess faith and frustration with men will follow her lead into a sexually fluid, ‘gender-does-not-matter-but-love-does’ mindset. What say you? Is your mind changing in regards to God’s clear mandate (Gen. 1, 2; Matt: 19; Eph. 5) for sexual unions? Are you ‘evolving’?
Wake up. Light the fire again. How else will you be able to hold out the Word of Life for a generation of women morphing into little boys and guys into glamour queens? Do you want them to be left behind? Do you want to be left behind?
Fr. Alfred Delp: ‘Advent is a time when we ought to be shaken into renouncing the presumptuous attitudes and alluring dreams by which we build ourselves imaginary worlds…Being shattered, being awakened—only with these is life made capable of Advent.’
‘The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber…the night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us act decently, as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in lust and sexual immorality, not in rivalry and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves in the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.’ (Romans 13: 11-14)
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