Advent Day 13: The Notorious Sinner

“This is a statement you can trust, and you should make note of it: Jesus Christ came here to save sinners, and I am the most notorious sinner of all. But that’s exactly why he showed me grace, so that in me, the Notorious Sinner, Jesus might display his love.”

     Sometimes I am quite certain that God has a sense of humor that is infinitely funnier than ours.

And other times I think His actions are intentionally poignant and purposeful. Like tonight.

I started going to church when I was 8 years old and have been there ever since. I graduated from the world’s foremost evangelical university with a bachelor’s degree in religion. I’m in Seminary right now. In those 42 years of Faith, there have been questions that have occasionally been asked and asked and asked again. Each time, no answer is found but that only fuels the fire curiosity even more.

One of those questions –innocuous as it seems- is “What kind of body do we have in Heaven? If we die as an elderly person, are we elderly? Are we children again?”

I don’t know why this mattered but it has been asked forever. Maybe it’s because we wonder if we’ll recognize those we love when we get where they are.

Tonight, I got my answer, at least in part.

About 1 a.m, as I peeled back another leather door on the mystical Advent Calendar Wick Radcliffe had given me, another visitor has arrived. I recognize him ...by his snow-white eyebrows.

He is a new arrival this Christmas. He left the bonds of Earth only this past April, and the world is sadder for his leaving. But we are infinitely better for his having been here in the first place. He touched countless lives with words of Grace and Love. He is the original Ragamuffin.

Brennan Manning has come to see His friend, the Baby Jesus.

Of all the visitors on this long, wondrous night, it is this man I most wish I could interact with. I wish I could speak to him. I wish I could throw my arms around his neck and tell him how I love him and how his battles and his honesty saved my life. Somehow, I think he knows.

Brennan is not bent, broken and crippled. His eyes are clear. The effects of the alcoholism he hid from millions is buried in the grave. The Brennan who lives in Christ is all that remains. His smile is bright, his hands free from the tremors. His hair is the dark brown it was when he was a young priest with the Little Brothers of Jesus in France. But his eyebrows...his eyebrows are the same snowy white they were for half his life.

I chuckle at this. I think it’s just God winking at me. “This is so you understand once and for all that you will recognize each other.” I imagine Him saying.

Brennan crawls to the side of the manger. Where others hesitate or halter, Brennan wastes not a moment. He scoops Jesus into his arms and kisses his sweet, precious face over and over. Jesus smiles and drools on Brennan, but the beloved old Ragamuffin never notices. He is living what he believed for all those years. For the first time in his life, he is experiencing Jesus without a twinge of guilt or the ghost of a drinking binge pricking at his soul. He is free of the bonds of humanity. “Those who would worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth...” the Bible says. And tonight, Brennan is a free spirit. Free from the limits of flesh. Free from the lies we all tell to cover what we do.

Watching this man who I love so dearly, I am reminded of a story he told in one of his books. Brennan was waiting for a flight in the busiest airport in America: Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. It was late, it was cold, it was snowing a blizzard outside. It was a mere two days until Christmas and O’Hare was a madhouse of people trying to get home and growing more aggravated each minute at the weather and the delays. Right in the middle of the hustle and bustle, Brennan noticed a black woman holding her infant son and making funny faces at him. She was blowing on his face and making little “motorboat” noises and running her fingers on her lips and making her son laugh and laugh...and in return he made her laugh as well. Brennan walked over to the woman and asked her how she could be so silly and carefree in the middle of a blizzard in Chicago, two days before Christmas. Her response is really what Christmas is about. She looked up at Brennan and said: “It’s Christmas, and dat baby Jesus he sho’ makes me laugh”

I think of that story as I watch Brennan, because he is essentially doing the same thing with Jesus.

Brennan Manning is laughing. He is making funny noises and making Jesus smile. And the smile of his baby-savior makes Brennan laugh. Brennan is finally resting in the truth of something he so frequently said: “The Father of Jesus is very fond of me.”

Merry Christmas, Ragamuffin. And welcome home.

“Though we’re strangers, still I love you. I love you more than your mask. And I know you’ll have to trust this to be true.

...and I know that’s much to ask”
       --Rich Mullins
             “Peace”

Advent Day Seven...Born in a Cave

“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn…”

I open today's little leather door on the advent calendar and I see...a cave. A cave?

Having grown up with the usual, stable-oriented nativity scene, I never once thought to question its accuracy. It's a 3D version of bumper sticker theology, I suppose, accepting that tradition as fact. But I never had reason to doubt it and to be honest, it doesn't change much about the scandal of this event in history. But for today, it will be explored.

Jesus was not born in a stable as we have been taught. It wasn't somehow warm and welcoming and full of nice clean straw and a smattering of animals gazing lovingly at the infant Son of God. They didn't just come off the set of "Charlotte's Web" and the big sheep wasn't speaking with the voice of Dave Madden. Farm animals are basically spooky and reticent. They don't come and eat out of your hand like a puppy. And they aren't remotely clean.

But the real fact here is that Jesus wasn't born in a stable at all. It was a cave. If you go to Bethlehem they have a cathedral built on the site, but the archaeologists will tell you that it wasn't anything as ornate or beautiful. It was a cave. A hole in a hill with one very low doorway. In those times, shepherds would round up all their sheep at night and run them into a cave. Then they would lie down in the low entryway so no predators could enter without first awakening them. It is the image Jesus presents when he talks about “My sheep hear my voice..." He describes

Himself as the Good Shepherd who lies down in the gate and if the thieves try to break in and lure away the sheep, they must do so by coming in some other way.

Such was the case here. The cave was probably big enough for maybe 30 sheep so it was somewhat roomy for only two people. But it was low, because sheep are small. Mary and Joseph probably could not stand up inside the cave. The doorway was only big enough for a couple of sheep to enter at a time...or one adult who was willing to bow down and probably crawl in on all fours.

It was dark and damp, as caves are. And it certainly hadn't been properly prepared for childbirth. It probably smelled like sheep. Sheep smell terribly because they are a notoriously dirty animal. Their long coats collect everything from everywhere they have been. They need to be sheared twice a year not only for the value of the wool, but because the filth that clings to sheep wool -particularly around certain parts of the sheep- is disgusting. They have bugs. They have lice and ticks. They are sloppy eaters and the little trough that Mary used for a crib was probably a disgusting mess.

Before my daughter was born, her mom went on a cleaning frenzy in our apartment. The place smelled like Clorox and Lysol for about 4 straight months. It's common with pregnant moms-to-be, they call it “nesting” Imagine poor Mary, she is just a teenager of probably no more than

16. She is technically unmarried because the Jewish

custom took a year from betrothal to actual consummation and she had gotten pregnant during that period. They were poor. It took a dream from God Himself to convince her husband that this whole Messiah story was true.

Now she was about to give birth, a scared kid in a strange town under scandalous circumstances, and she finds out only hours before delivery that the place is a disgusting mess. What could she do? We forget sometimes that all the players in this grand plan of redemption were real humans and they felt all the things we feel. Sometimes, because we read about them in Scripture for all of our lives, we remove their humanity. But they were real people.

I remember how scared I was when I found out we were going to be parents. I wanted to be a dad. I looked forward to children, yet when the little test strip turned blue, I was petrified. So was my wife. Why would I think Mary and Joseph were any less?

Most moms have a special bond with their unborn child. Sometimes I have been guilty of removing that emotion from Mary. I see her sometimes as a player in this play and not as a young girl who carried a baby for nine months and felt all the same attachments that all other moms feel.

By this moment in time Mary was in love with her little baby and she was fully engulfed in the nesting thing and I imagine that when she crawled into that cave on her hands and knees and saw a dark, dank, smelly hole in the wall with dirty, soiled straw everywhere and a trough with some stagnant sheep-drooled water laying in it, she must have broken down in tears. “Oh Joseph...we can't have Him here!" she might have said. A poor, meager carpenter, Joseph must have tried to force a smile and convince his young bride that everything would be alright. He probably tried to fix it like a man would and his best efforts only put an exclamation point on how bad this place really was.

Maybe Joseph finally took Mary into his arms and kissed her head and said "I know it's bad...but it's all there is Mary. We have a promise from God and our child will be okay." Maybe as he held her, he hid his own embarrassed tears. I know how he felt.

The really amazing thing here is that this was the place God chose for His son to enter the world stage. This stinking, nasty hole in the side of a hill. This cold, dreary, dark, smelly cave. Probably as far removed from a hospital maternity room as ever could be.

This is where God's great plan of redemption would begin. Why? Why was Jesus born this poor? Why was He so rejected by men that He even had to be born in a cave like this? Why? And why a baby in the first place? Because one glimpse at these humble beginnings and no one can feel threatened by this Savior. He wasn't rich, He wasn't powerful (in the worlds eyes) He wasn't intimidating or daunting. He didn't demand the accolades due Him (Phil 2:5-8). He was a "Man of No Reputation.” He "became nothing" (again, Phil 2:5-8). He wasn't a name-it claim-it carnie huckster selling some promise of riches and wealth as we determine it. He was lowly, broken, and humble. He was frightened. He intimidated nobody. He wanted what all babies want in those first few hours and days, He wanted to receive love, and more than that, He wanted to penetrate our hearts with love as only holding a newborn can do. That is why He came as He did.

To gain access you have to be willing to bow down. Maybe even get on your hands and knees if you are tall like me. There is only one way into this cave and only one way to see this King. There is only one entrance and it requires you to leave everything behind and bow. You won't be impressed by the surroundings. He did that on purpose. When you get here you will feel like a welcome guest because few people will make this journey and come to this humble place. But those that do...those that allow themselves to be humbled at this place will walk away changed to their very core. By a baby in a feed trough, in a cave in Bethlehem.

No room for the Baby in Bethlehem's inn, Only a cattle shed! No room on this earth for the dear Son of God, Nowhere to lay His head…

          Unknown (A child's Christmas Hymn)

How do you write a book like this?

How do you write a book like this?

I’ve been asked that more than a couple of times since 2011 when I first bundled those 24 short stories I had written the year prior and made them into a book. “How do you imagine yourself in the Nativity, holding Jesus?” The answer is…”It’s a mystery.” I don’t know. The train of thought went like this.

I was homeless. I had lost my job in March of 2008 when the mortgage company I worked for pulled up stakes and closed down its Tennessee offices. I had my own branch of the largest privately-funded mortgage company in the world, and I had done nicely for myself.  I was nationally recognized as a leader in my business, a leader in my community, and manager of a model office for production, compliance, and customer service. After 5 years in the business, I had finally earned the right to have an office with these folks, (Allied Home Mortgage was the jewel of the industry back then. You had to be very good at your job just to be considered for a branch) I had mastered the business, and I was rebuilding my life after a crushing divorce in 1999.

All I really ever wanted was to be a husband and a father. I became a husband in February 1997. I became a dad in May, 1998.  In December 1999 I became a divorcee.  To say my heart was broken would be to say the Titanic was a “boating incident.” I was devastated. I lived for my family. I pushed myself to become the best at my job so that they’d be proud of me. Before I had ever really tasted the fruits of the early success I had, they were gone. I had no wife and I had part-time fatherhood. For me it was like losing a limb. You don’t turn off your fatherhood and then turn it back on again, once a week and every other weekend.  The pain became part of who I was. I learned to succeed in business, despite the loss of the single motivating factor behind that success. I became a zombie.

But there was always Christmas.

I am a Christmas guy. I am Clark Griswold in “Christmas Vacation.” I would have enough lights on my house to divert aircraft and have them land in my front yard.  My daughter was 18 months old when her mom and I divorced.  From the first Christmas until Christmas 2010, I had traditions that she and I kept. We always watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (and I always cry when Linus says “Lights please” and begins to quote the Nativity story from the Gospel of Luke) we watch “A Christmas Carol” (The 1951 version starring Alistair Sim as Scrooge) and we baked Italian Christmas cookies, like ricotta cheese, strawberry thumbprints, and, of course, Pizzelles. (Italian waffle cookies that taste like licorice)

The other tradition we had, was that every Christmas Eve, just as she was falling to sleep, I would sneak up on the roof of our house and stomp around, jingling sleigh bells and bellowing “Ho Ho Ho! I would call out to imaginary reindeer and do my best to make my voice sound like I was fading into the distance as I drove my sleigh off into the night.

I took Morgan home every Christmas season to experience the Christmas Season as I did in my native Philadelphia. We went to the old Wannamaker store and saw the antiquated light show in the grand terrace. We put some money in the Salvation Army kettle and listened as the band played their Christmas hymns. I told her about my grandmother – her namesake- and how she loved Christmas, We went to Uncle Franny’s house for “Feast of Seven Fishes” each Christmas Eve.

Maybe the most special tradition we kept every Christmas was the Advent Calendar.

I had one every year as a kid, and when she was old enough, I got two identical Advent calendars and she would keep one at my house and one at her mom’s. Each night, if she was at her mom’s house, I would get her on the phone and we would open the door for that day and discuss the scene behind it. If she was at my house we opened it together. The Advent Calendar had a place of prominence on the kitchen counter, alongside whatever recent drawing she had made me.

This worked well for ten Christmases.

In 2008 I had lost my job, then my career, as the industry imploded upon itself. By May, I was homeless. I slept in my car, tucked behind a church in Nashville until November when I got hired as a sales rep for a heating and air conditioning company. I managed to get an apartment and that first Christmas I wasn’t actually homeless.

But the economy kept getting worse and by February, the company folded. By May, 2009 I was homeless again. This time…I had the feeling it would be long term. The economy wasn’t getting better; I was 46 and had two years of a bachelor’s degree under my belt. I had been a great success, but in an industry that had all but vanished. I was lost.

I spent that year trying to put out resume after resume and finding that my age, recent work experience, and lack of an address, conspired against me. By August I decided to enroll in college to complete my degree, hoping that would turn the tide and at least make my resume look better. By November, I had been sleeping in my car again for six months, doing classwork online at local restaurants, showering at the County Rec center, and –in my quiet moments- wondering if I would ever-again feel whole.

In the middle of this was my now-ten-year-old daughter. I was able to conceal my homelessness from her for about six months, but that fall of 2009, she figured it out. She worried about me. She cried. I cried even more. I recall one day driving along with my friend Creig Soeder, and the dam burst. He’d asked me how she was doing and I said she was okay. Then the thought hit me…”What if one of her friends find out I’m homeless and they tease her because of it?” I said this to Creig as my heart shattered all over again and I sobbed in his truck for a very long five minutes.

By November, I was planning on traveling home to Philadelphia for the Holidays again. Morgan and I were talking at McDonalds. We could no longer have every other weekend together. She lived with her mom full time now and I would spend Saturdays with her, but I had not been able to hear her bedtime prayers, or tuck her in for almost two years now. Our home in the country was gone. Our beloved pets were gone. It was all gone except for memories. I asked her one night about going home. “What do you want Santa to bring?” I asked. She grew quiet and said “Daddy…I know about Santa now.” I was devastated. I was hoping for one more Christmas like we’d had before this nightmare began.  I just wanted my little girl to remain my little girl.

I needed Christmas.

So I asked her about the Advent Calendar. She lowered her eyes. I knew already. She didn’t want to do those this year either.

She struggled to tell me so I just said it for her. I wasn’t trying to make this hard for her. “I guess so” she said…”But not really.” Was her response when I asked her if she wanted to do the Advent Calendars again.  A few years later, she would tell me this was because we no longer had a kitchen counter to place it on. She was trying to spare me the embarrassment. But that night, she was just growing up too soon at the very time I needed her to remain little for just a while longer.

I remember driving her to her moms’ that evening and kissing her on the forehead and saying goodnight. I cried the rest of the way back to Franklin. I can’t say “the rest of the way home,” because I didn’t have one. I probably went to the local Panera and did some school work. But inside I was dying.

The Advent Calendar was the end.  I had lost everything that identified me professionally. I’d lost my little country house and my garden and my two beautiful Springer Spaniels and my cat. I lost the house that felt like a home every other weekend when my daughter was there with me.

Now…I was losing Christmas too.

The Advent calendar was the final blow. I remember walking to my car. At the time I was driving a 1995 Volvo 850. That’s what I slept in every night, bundled against the winter cold in two sleeping bags. I drove to Oak Hill Assembly of God in Nashville, and nudged my car into the high weeds behind the sanctuary. I thought about all that had happened. I thought about my home. My career. I thought about my daughter and that Advent Calendar.  I remembered the night my daughter was born. How holding her changed everything that was, or would ever be. Now she was ten years old. Already gone was her innocent belief in Santa. I needed her to be little for just a while longer. I needed her to open those Advent Calendar doors one more time.  Then it hit me…

I needed an Advent.

I was lying in the passenger seat of that Volvo, and I started thinking about how that night in May changed everything. Holding my baby changed my life. I started to think about Brennan Manning’s book, “Relentless Tenderness” and I thought about Jesus coming as a baby. He came as a scandalous, illegitimate, poor, unnoticed baby born to a carpenter and his teen aged wife. I wondered what emotions might have gone through Mary and Joseph’s heart as they held him. Were they emotions like mine were when Morgan was born?

Then it hit me. What if I had been there? What if I had held him when he was just a few minutes old?

I fell asleep that night with the image of Jesus in my arms. An image that would not leave my soul.

The next day, I wrote an article on my blog about what I had been thinking the night before. The day after that I wrote one story about Santa Claus coming to the manger and kneeling next to Jesus and worshiping him. The next day I think it was Joseph, and my image of what thoughts might have been running through his troubled soul as he held God in the flesh and called him “son.”

After a week, the stories became more special. More inspired. I wound up writing one story per day for the entire Advent season in 2009. That was the genesis of “The Ragamuffin’s Christmas.” Characters presented themselves at the manger in Bethlehem. A murderer and his victims. The Roman soldier who watched Jesus die on the cross. The inn keeper who had no room. My grandfather.  Mother Teresa. Every story opened a floodgate of emotions and drew me to the tiny baby of Bethlehem.

There is healing here. There is an amazing, mystical encounter with Jesus as it might have been.

There is innocence, and the unassuming, disarming presence of a baby.

…who just happens to be God in the flesh.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Ragamuffins-Christmas-Craig-Daliessio/dp/0984533672