Second Friday of Advent
Scripture Reading for Today:
Fighting, Feasting . . . and Simply Foot-slogging
by John Bowen
I love Lord of the Rings. Over the years, I have read it (or listened to it being read) more than any other novel, and it still continues to engage and feed me.
Not long ago, I was asked to do a devotional for a group of young people just coming off a year-long intensive mission program. What to say? I remember that kind of transition in my own life as a student, and how hard it was to switch from mission life to “normal” life. And my mind went to a conversation I once had with my wife about Lord of the Rings.
That Many Battles?
We had seen the three movies together, and she, being a peace-loving soul, and not having read the books, asked, “Are there really that many battles in the book?” The question took me aback because Peter Jackson did not invent any of the battles he portrayed. And in any case, I had kinda enjoyed them. But she was right: when I had read the book, there seemed to be lots more that happened in between the battles.
In the books, there are, for instance, many detailed descriptions of the scenery, particularly the trees, and lots of songs which (for the philistines among us) just hold the story back. There are also many days which are—well, let’s just say it—boring. “They got up in the morning. Once again it was raining, so they couldn’t light a fire. They ate some more lembas, though their stocks were running low. All day they trudged through the wilderness, with Gollum complaining all the way. That evening, finding no better shelter, they slept fitfully for a few hours under a thorn bush.” OK, I exaggerate, but not much. You get the point.
In other words, yes, there are battles, and indeed there are also banquets, but the vast majority of days were neither. They were days for simply putting one foot in front of the other, over and over and over again—over the mountains, through the Dead Marshes, and through the ravaged lands of Mordor. The battles intensify the difficulties, and the banquets celebrate the victories. But, as Tolkien well knew, the majority of life is neither battle nor banquet but keeping on keeping on. Unfortunately, though, those days don’t make for great cinema.
This is what I shared with those young people. They had experienced battles and banquets—fighting and feasting—many high points in their Christian journey over the previous ten months. Now they were going back to daily plodding. But this did not mean that the adventure was at an end, merely that it was entering a new phase, just as much under the loving hand of God. Life has its rhythms. In a Peanuts strip, Charlie Brown was once warned by Lucy that life has its ups and down. He protested, “But I just want ups and ups!” But it doesn’t work that way.
Divine action, human action
The Psalmist in today’s reading gives his own twist to this contrast. In verse 4, he says, “Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb.” The Negeb (or Negev) Desert is one of the driest places in the world—but when the rain does fall, it is heavy, and the dry riverbeds fill up suddenly and violently, the banks overflow and there is flooding. Then, with equal suddenness, the rains stop and the drought returns. It’s a picture of God’s direct intervention—sudden and dramatic, totally outside human control. That’s what the Psalmist longs for. Habakkuk agrees: “O Lord, I have heard of your renown, and I stand in awe, O Lord, of your work. In our own time revive it!”
But then, in verses 5 and 6, there is a quite different image, one Sam and Frodo would have identified with: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.” It begins with the timeless picture of farmers with bent backs, working steadily through the heat of the day, in a field which looks almost identical at the end of the day to the way it looked in the morning. Have they really achieved anything? Was it all worth it? But they know that, if they persevere, that field will change in the coming weeks and months, and in due time there will be a harvest. Indeed, there will be a Harvest Festival—a party, a banquet, a feast—to celebrate the successful completion of their work. Frodo and Sam knew that reality too.
What’s Ordinary Time for?
There are two periods in the church’s year called Ordinary Time. This is not “ordinary” in the sense of the opposite of extraordinary, but the original sense of “numbered.” The first comes between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday. The second is much longer: it begins after the Day of Pentecost and runs until Advent. What are these long periods of uneventful time for? For C. S. Lewis, they were his favourite time of the church’s year, because you could get into the regular rhythm of worship without constantly being interrupted by festivals! But is there more to it than that?
At its simplest, Ordinary Time is for putting into practice the things we have learned through the festivals. To return to Tolkien, this is the time for daily walking, for making progress one undramatic step at a time, in between the battles and the banquets. Or, to use the psalmist’s image, a time for sowing and watering—and waiting in hope.
Travelling hopefully
Now we are in Advent, also a time of waiting, but now the expectancy is mounting because we know what is coming: the drama of God’s sovereign intervention in history. In answer to a character (in The Great Divorce) who quotes the proverb “To travel hopefully is better than to arrive,” Lewis replies, “If that were true, and known to be true, how could anyone travel hopefully? There would be nothing to hope for.” But followers of Jesus can travel forward with hope, step by step, day by day, because we know it will truly be better to arrive.
Paul had had his share of God’s direct interventions in his life—his own conversion, and then the miracles that happened through him as he travelled and shared the Gospel. But in today’s reading, that’s not his concern. Here he is simply “pressing on” and “straining forward.” Scholars tell us the words probably refer to running rather than walking—but they still mean putting one foot in front of the other. Paul is determined to reach his goal—the prize of God, which is Christ himself.
We know the wonderful end that is just out of sight—the Incarnation. If it’s not mixing metaphors too much (blame the psalmist, not me), the patient sowing and watering of the farmer will soon be followed by the flash flood of God’s love.
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