Advent 9 Aw, C'mon, Have a Heart!

[HKHaugan]

Years ago on the Grand Ol' Opry there was a comedian named Stringbean. In his good old Tennessee drawl he'd let go a few rural wisdom remarks and end up his short skit by saying “Heart, heart, heart, heart” his voice fading to end it. Just being a good old country boy, obviously loved by all his Opry pals, led you to look forward to seeing him again. It seemed he had a warm and engaging heart.

Now shift.

I'm sure you've had the feeling when walking down a dark road that your senses are on the alert more than in the daylight. You tend to avoid dark alleys and night time walks through questionable neighborhoods. Even in daylight you may find a stroll through a narrow passageway elicits a certain amount of apprehension. Fear is a nagging pilot fish when uncertainty arises. You may find it hangs on with a tenacity you can't shake. The bravest know its suction and the cowardly know its panic. For those who have it in balance it is a welcome attendant. Out of balance is another thing.

President Franklin Roosevelt said “The greatest thing we have to fear Is fear itself.” Diagnosing the effects of fear takes us to what it is and where it comes from, the unsettled lonely heart. Probably the bottom line is physical death and pain that the heart tries to process. You avoid or are cautious around things that cause them like a hot stove, cliffs, a near miss with another car, a stubbed toe, a bloody nose, a splinter and a sharp knife.

But the dark alleys, the questionable neighborhoods and narrow passageways have parallels. There are other pains that seem to build cobwebs in the corners of our memories and lie forgotten until some kindred present experience nudges a fear response. Perhaps it was the first time something emotionally unpleasant happened as child or the rejection when you weren't chosen to be a friend or were insulted or made to feel inferior or wrongly accused. It came in the learned responses to what was perceived as an attitude, an expression, a look on someone's face, the sounds directed at you, the things you felt were humiliating, being chosen last for a sand lot team and the evaluations right or wrong you know were taking place around you. Those were the dark alleys, questionable neighborhoods and narrow passageways that had to be maneuvered for survival.

What you began experiencing as a child was something that has plagued man since Adam and that is being a unique individual with a heart no one seems to understand. No one feels what you feel and no one has the same way of dealing with life. You are alone and so is everyone else. Aloneness even in the midst of a family and friends. You can feel it. Carson McCullers in her book “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” captures this condition when she says, “The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.” She elaborates further, “The heart is a lonely hunter with only one desire! To find some lasting comfort in the arms of another's desire...driven by a desperate hunger to the arms of a neon light, the heart is a lonely hunter when there's no sign of love in sight.” For her the opposite of lonely fear is some misty poetic mystery that humans use to describe love.

For the disciple of Jesus the opposite of lonely fear is faith through which God's love shortens relational and spiritual distance by offering Himself in a personal relationship with His Son Jesus, a love that breaks all human boundaries of definition because it is a heart experience, a heart-to-heart encounter.

Revisiting the above pains, both physical and emotional that bounce from heart to mind to spirit, are bricks in the walls we build to protect that part of our image of God we call the heart. All of them come from the spirit of fear that sin has lodged in that highly sensitive interior. Fear is the launching pad for the personal responses we habitually use to fend off what we perceive as possible threatening circumstances. They threaten us because of our aloneness. Aloneness is the sand we build upon outside of God and fear is its binding mortar.

Fear has a companion, pride. Pride is the big brother the little brother chooses to depend on for protection from outside. The brothers are the devil's children isolating us and sin their spirit. Unless we have a means to deal with aloneness with its sin, fear and pride we continually add bricks to a wall of responses built on a foundation of sand thinking the bricks are the foundation. Later we find that the rains come and the rivers rise and everything sinks as the bricks come apart and are washed away in the currents of our disillusionment.

Now, right here stop for a moment. Turn to Genesis 11 and The Tower of Babel. Man decides to build a tower that would signify they don't need God only themselves. “They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth (vs.3-4).” Sound familiar to what is being said here? They used bricks instead of stone, sand instead of rock for a foundation. The strongholds of self-protection point to the need for one stronghold, God the Son, Jesus, the rock who made faith in Him a two beamed stronghold called the Cross which He endured through faith. Faith is the cure for fear. The Cross made that statement and the Resurrection secured it.

Jesus talks about this at the end of the Sermon on the Mount when He says, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash (Mt.7:24-27).”

The choices we make, all of them, are founded in the heart. It's at this point Jeremiah makes this observation “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (Jer.17:9)” It's that lack of understanding that throws the mind and spirit out of balance. It can only be brought back by the maker of the heart, the Lord God. Whatever drives the heart drives the mind and the same is true of the spirit. The mind justifies and the spirit ignites. The heart is the source of what lies behind the choices and decisions we make. Where our treasure is there will our heart be also (Mt.6:21). If Jesus is in us then His heart is in us and His Spirit is in us and we are at one with Him. No longer a misunderstood heart but a heart learning from God's heart it is never alone, that sin and pride only point to their opposites, faith and humility, through which His life of love finds an eternal resting place in each heart.

Advent lets us prepare for the the return of Jesus by clearing the past strongholds that surround the heart. They may feel like impassable mountain ranges and deep impenetrable valleys. Perhaps if we recognize our strongholds as part of our personal 'Tower of Babel' we built along the way we can let the Holy Spirit take it apart brick by brick and see every person we meet, believer and non-believer alike, as an opportunity to displace them. We discover that's the best way to prepare to meet Him. Advent opens the pathway to overcome the long distance between one heart and another, especially the one who has yet to meet the “Heart Man.” Heart, heart, heart, heart....