Advent 5 Another Doorway

[HKHaugan]

Part of my self-survival training in New York City during my high school years was getting a job. I don't remember any of the other guys on the block doing that but I knew it was important for me. I had several. One was walking polo ponies at a local indoor arena off Park Ave. (That's a story in itself). Two others were as a delivery boy for a drug store and a luggage shop. In those my deliveries involved customers who lived in exclusive high rises on Park and 5th Avenues. I learned very quickly that you never could go in the main entrance to any of those buildings. The fancy uniformed doormen made sure of that. You had to go down the side alley to the service entrance where there was a service elevator. When I got to the right floor I was always greeted by either a maid, a butler or a cook at the back door of the customer's apartment. Sometimes I would get a tip, a couple of dimes or a quarter, which added on to my 50 cents an hour. I was rolling in money (sure!). At least it was better than the nickels I got when as 10 year old I primed tobacco down the road outside of Greensboro or got a free watermelon. Anyway that's how I got started in earning money for myself.

The gist of the above vignette centers on having to enter through the door of being someone's servant, having to be screened by other servants whose service was to keep us in our place making sure we never came in contact with their employers. To those people who lived there I was part of 'the great unwashed,' the tenement 'waifery' (my word) that was considered too low class to go in the main entrance. While no one ever came out and said that there was no question as to its reality. I developed a resentment to being put in that category and looked for ways to overcome the social distance it created, the invisible bars in a prison called the city, the society, the world, the invisible 'we's' and 'they's.' Getting out and away became an imperative for me. I wasn't low class, subservient and, from what I saw of servants, I certainly didn't want to inherit their sad plight. When high school was over I got out and never went back except a couple of times in later life when I was in control of coming and going and the city was no longer a threat.

All of this is leading to the point I want to make here and that's how Jesus' attitude is totally opposite of mine as I was growing up. He chose to be a servant and delighted in going in the 'servant's entrance.' He didn't resent being a servant. He didn't take offense at being looked at as a Jewish provincial, a low class worker, born into a family whose status was socially, politically, religiously and ethnically faced with instantaneous prejudice. For Jesus being a servant meant to start with where He was and enjoy the people He met along the way. For Jesus it was all about the heart in people. He had a heart for their heart. He could feel what they felt, see what the eyes of their hearts saw, hear the ticking of their emotions and grasp the frustrations and anxieties rising from their sense of aloneness and alienation both from God and others. It is the hearts separated from His Father that he had to touch to give them hope and assurance and confidence that they had meaning and purpose, each one personally.

When Jesus came His whole goal was to be a servant. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of being and having a servant's attitude, His Fathers' attitude. It's the attitude of the heart that, left to the world's influence, makes being a servant something negative. Jesus' heart was such that to please His Father was His first service. His Father's will defined His service. The Holy Spirit was for Him His power to serve. When Jesus entered the world He left His status as God the Son in order to serve. The circumstance of His birth was through the servant's entrance in the back of the world at its lowest level. There He remained right through His death on the Cross, the punishment designed to illustrate the supremacy of Rome's assumption that it alone had the power to define human life. Any presumption to the opposite faced that consequence. Strew the highway with crosses to visualize the hopeless consequences for any who would even suggest there is something else.

Jesus' servanthood was the ultimate definition of what it meant to serve. He bore this reality not by rebellion, or by political manipulation or organizing ethnic and emotional conflict but simply by being the ultimate servant who offered eternal truth, love and grace in relationship with Him. For that He bore death in our place. While dying He gave a place to a thief, forgiveness for His tormentors, concern and care for His mother and final commitment of His Spirit to His Father. From birth to death His was life of faith. Faith was His service, His door that opened to us eternal life in the here and now.

Thus He turned the Cross around from complete humiliation to eternal exaltation. It was dying in faith to resentment, ethnic bias, class distinction, physical power, intimidation, fear, and rejection. If this would please His Father then to serve Him was His pleasure as well. From a position of complete and utter obscurity by every world definition of weakness, His Cross lifted “the hopes and fears of all the years” into the majesty of God's eternity. Because of Jesus death became the tool of hope that every day had new meaning and purpose. It was a new kind of dying, dying to sin and its ego-driven frustrations. That's why He told us to take up our cross, the cross of faith for every next moment. When Jesus rose from the dead the world became the “nothing-can-separate-us-from-the-love-of-God” reality so fervently voiced by Paul. Before Jesus, death was the world's bargaining chip over everyone. He made it clear that life, His life, eternal life, was what He brought to the world's hearts where the devil as the world's commander-in-chief ruled with his fear. No longer.

While this may sound more like we are preparing for Easter it really is preparation for Christmas. Just like each of us has a birthday celebration it's not about our birth but what our birth has resulted in right now. We really celebrate where we are in light of where we have been and what we have done with what we have experienced since birth. Birthday celebrations recognize not only our past but also the moment we look forward to continuing on the path the Lord has put us. It's like when everyone makes a fuss over New Year's Eve. We may sing “Auld Lang Syne” but the emphasis is on the word “New.” It's a 'new' year. What a great adventure lies ahead. It's the door to the future in Jesus the Christ.

In Jesus we celebrate His birth as we look forward to every next moment in the maturity of the Cross and Resurrection. If you think about it we celebrate His birth into the world because of what His life, death and resurrection accomplished for each of us where we find the reality of life in our mind, heart and spirit. It's what He recovered for each of us so personally that causes us to sing in praise and adoration the great hymns about His Lordship. We don't celebrate His being a baby. Rather we celebrate His servanthood, His maturing humanity for us to see and the faith He so lovingly gave us.

Jesus is the King, the ultimate King who came in the servant's entrance, lived life as a servant, died as a servant and rose as a servant that made servanthood royal because now we know the difference between a king in the world and the King of Heaven.

When the mother of Zebedee's sons James and John came to Jesus asking Him to put her sons on His right and left when He came into His Kingdom. He told her it was His Father who would make that choice. Then He turned to His disciples and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mt.20:25-28).”