Maybe the God of Advent is a God who loves us too deeply to be anything but angry and hurt when we build our lives on nothing. A God who grieves when we turn from the offer of God’s selfless love and build false selves for the sake of a world that says, “Sure I’ll love you if it’s in my interest to do so. Knock yourself out proving you’re worth my attention.” Maybe Malachi rages like a jilted lover because God won’t let us settle for lives built on such fickle, conditional loves instead of on the one great Love that will never let us go.
Advent, and life for that matter, are not only about Jesus coming to us. They are also about us coming to him. Are we willing to draw near to him in faith? Are we willing to acknowledge and to accept help beyond what we can do for ourselves?
The Very Rev. Ian S. Markham, Ph.D., is dean and president of Virginia Theological Seminary.
In fact, trusting the Bible may be a lot like trusting another person. The person you trust most is not the one you’re willing to bring only your best self and your unquestioning loyalty, but the one you’ll entrust with all of your complicated self. To trust someone deeply is to trust her not just with your hopes and joys, but with your doubts and your fears, your anxieties and vexations. So it is with the Bible.
Our real lives are intertwined with the kingdom and the saints. We don’t leave one world and enter another when we walk into or out of church or the woods or our homes or our offices or our classrooms. It’s not separate, none of it. The boundaries are not fixed – in fact, there might not be any boundaries at all. Because it’s all real. Nothing is separate. The home of God is among mortals. This is real.