To Foil Thy Foes With Joy

Detail of Serbian fresco of the Nativity of Jesus from Kosovo

In just a few more days we, in the West will be celebrating the birth of our Savior at Christmas.  One of the things I love to do during the Christmas season is to listen to Benjamin Britten's 'A Ceremony of Carols'. He composed it in 1942, during the darkest year of World War II, while he was crossing the Atlantic from the United States to England.   

My favorite movement in the entire piece is based on the fifth stanza from the poem "New Heaven, New War" by 16th century the Jesuit saint and martyr, Fr.Robert Southwell. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTyIP7m8Btg

These are the concluding stanzas of the poem:

5.   
This little babe, a few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake,
For in this weak, unarmed wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.

6.
With tears he fights and wins the field;
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows looks of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior's stead.

7.
His camp is pitched in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall,
His crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus, as sure his foe to wound,
The angels' trumps alarum sound. 

8. 
My soul, with Christ join thou in fight;
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil they foes with joy,
Then flit not from this heavenly boy.

Jesus was born into our world, not armed with the power to coerce and compel our obedience.  Rather, he came to us disarmed, wielding only the weapons of mercy and love, forgiveness and reconciliation, communion and peace.
  

As our world reckons power, Jesus had none to speak of.  Yet he overcame the power of sin in our lives and in our world with a different and deeper kind of power, the power of God’s unconditional, self-giving love and the inner transformation that love makes possible.

The  Russian Orthodox bishop, Anthony Bloom, wrote that those whose love is not defeated by suffering acquire the only power that matters: the unconditional power of forgiving those

who inflicted  suffering on them. 

This is the authentic power revealed to us in this tiny baby whose birth we celebrate.

Come, Lord Jesus!

Let Us With Confidence Come Before the Throne of Grace

 

Its been fifteen years this Sunday since the terrible events of September 11th, 2001.  The anniversary falls on a Sunday this year, which means that for us as Christians we will be gathered at the altar on that heart-breaking anniversary.  Yet the altar is such an appropriate place to gather, a place where God, who loves us with such infinite compassion and mercy, wants us to confidently lay down our deepest fears and hopes, joys and sorrows before the throne of grace. 

We gather to celebrate the Eucharist, which is the sign and the reality of the measure of God’s love for us, revealed in Jesus who offered himself completely and without holding back for our sake.  Having lived a life for others, his body was broken for us and his and his lifeblood was poured out to break down once and for all the walls of hatred and malice that separate us from God and from each other.    

Remembering this anniversary, it is impossible to ignore the human family’s alienation from God: the fire and smoke only made visible the anger and hatred burning in the hearts of those who would do such a thing to their brothers and sisters.    

Yet in those same places and on that same day, we saw too the creative power of love.  For me,  the image of those doomed firefighters dragging their hoses up the steps of the World Trade Tower as they passed those fleeing the building,  is such a profound image of the Eucharist.  Do this, in memory of me, meant then and continues to mean for us, to be men and women for others, to live lives poured out in loving service without counting the cost. 

Jesus, in the simple acts of eating and drinking revealed God’s power to heal us.  In Jesus, at the Eucharist, enemies become friends, injuries are forgiven and peace is possible.  The Eucharist reveals to us our power in Christ to cast out hatred, to forgive and be forgiven, and to love even our enemies.  The sacrificial love of Jesus, which appears to be weakness itself, is always more powerful than hatred and killing, of violence and revenge.  

May we open our hearts to the mystery of the mercy of God revealed to us in the One who forgave his executioners from the Cross, confident that each day that we will be transformed more and more profoundly into the image and the pattern of Jesus.