On November 1^st and 2^nd, the Rev. Jim Williams and I traveled north to Cedarbrake Catholic Retreat Center in Belton for our regular (well, it is becoming a norm!) period of silence, worship, sacred conversation and planning. This "time away" is crucial to my ability to think deeply, to practice the disciplines of prayer and study and to share my priestly concerns with a fellow priest. Jim is a dear friend and profound support.

What does Jesus see?

I spent a goodly amount of time in silence – pondering the life and mission of Jesus. In a world seemingly enslaved to sin, division, and war on nearly every continent, what is the will of God as manifested in the Word of God, who is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Man and Son of God, whose life and mission is faithfully recorded in the New Testament and whose Risen presence has been sustenance and guidance for the church for over 2,000 years? Long question. Important question. The catch phrase - "What would Jesus do?" - is not unhelpful. I would choose a different question to ponder the question of "God’s will in Jesus", my question is this – "what does Jesus see"? I have come to the place where I best understand Jesus as a "visionary" – a seer of a New World – a world freed from sin, division and war that he called in Greek basilea or Kingdom, better translated as "reign".

The Reign of God

In the Reign of God, human beings see and understand life differently. In our contemporary way of thinking, almost all of life is reduced to divisive issues, winning and losing, personal and family success, moral superiority, economic security and advancement, superficial beauty, and other "evidences" that one individual, family, state or nation has surpassed others in power, holiness, successfulness or worthiness. Our nation seems to be caught up in this struggle for meaning and power. We now have the metaphor of "red states and blue states" and each is absolutely convinced that the other is wrong, even diabolical. If I were to be caught up into the Kingdom or Reign of God, and permitted the glory of seeing what Jesus sees, what might I see? I pondered this question as I prayed and studied at Cedarbrake on All Saints Day, 2004.

And the honest answer is I don’t exactly know. I do know that Our Lord saw blessedness and honor in the humble, the poor in spirit, the meek, the hopeless and the peacemakers. I do know that his life was an answer to human sin and that he saw life with a passionate vision fired by his inner love for God and the love of God that swept him up into the New World he called the Reign of God. I am suggesting that Jesus lived "in the moment" and attempted to receive each person as a Child of God in the circumstances that he found them. Jesus, it seemed to me, had the greatest conflict with those persons he encountered that needed to classify and control others. These would be the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Roman authorities, those persons who showed little interest in his mystical vision of human cooperation and its concurrent relief of suffering and division, because they were the recipients of life’s seemingly good gifts of prestige, wealth, honor and power.

How does Jesus see me?

"How does Jesus see me?" - I wonder – "am I contributing to the spreading of his vision for a new earth, or am I contributing to further division in the church and the world?" Heaven help me, and heaven help us all as we dare to dream Jesus’ big dream, as he taught us to pray, … "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

These are, of course, Advent reflections. Advent is a time of pondering deep questions. Is God with us? Does God enter this enslaved world and take action for healing of the nations? What does God see? The Advent and Christmas Seasons focus our attention on the Vision of the Reign of God and the coming King, first in the powerful preaching of the prophets and John the Baptist, and then the glorious appearing of a vulnerable child. God chose to take on and redeem our flesh in Jesus of Nazareth. God still comes among us in Christ Jesus and human sin and division cannot have the final word. The Word, Jesus, will pronounce the final word, and we can wait for his coming in power and great glory with joy! Can we not dare to imagine, see differently, that there is more to life than "red and blue states" and all the dreariness that that metaphor implies?

Have a wonderful and blessed Advent and Christmas!

Faithfully, Merrill Wade