A rare weather phenomenon for North Texas as today began: mist so thick that the visible world was circumscribed to a few, immediate, cubic feet.
The view from my window, usually a dramatic dawn display of color unfurling beyond the treetops in the park across the street, was small and gray.
I could not see beyond my own back fence, and even the space of my teensy back garden itself was blurred by tendrils of fog.
I drank my coffee, pondering the strangeness of knowing that my eyes were deceiving me.
What I saw – seemingly solid pillows of gray – was just water-rich air; what I did not see – the houses across the alley, the trees in the park, the sunrise – was the tangible, material, true reality.
The real world, obscured by ephemeral phenomena that will evaporate: That IS the message of Advent!
Trompe l’oeil Truth
Trompe l’œil is a French term used in art criticism. It means “trick of the eye,” and usually refers to paintings which create the illusion of three-dimensionality so successfully that viewers “see” depth where there is only a flat surface.
In many ways, the visible world is itself a masterpiece of trompe l’oeil…
What we see – the brokenness and sadness and stuckness and dark – tricks our eyes and is leveraged by our enemy to keep us stumbling around in smoke-and-mirror pits.
What we cannot see – the Incarnate God, who came for us and who is coming back for us – eludes our vision but is the reality that will endure eternally, long after the fog of this worldly war vanishes.
The Apostle Paul is uniquely equipped to comment on matters of vision, as one who was literally blinded by Jesus so that Jesus could make the scales fall from his eyes. And Paul put it like this:
“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.” 1 Corinthians 13:12
Advent Sighting
Advent pushes us to look past what is in plain view… to take Paul’s word that the Word is more with us than the world, that the Logos is more alive than the loud liars who deny Him.
Advent insists that we focus on the promises of God. And we only get it half right when we keep our eyes fixed on the babe in the manger, because the coming of Christ was the first in a two-part series… as surely as He kept the promise to come as the Messiah, He will also keep the promise to return as the conquering King of Kings.
These promises – the one already fulfilled, the other certain to be fulfilled someday (today? tomorrow?) – provide complete covering for all Christians. Nothing in the past, nothing in the present, nothing in the future can happen to children of God that is not subject to the over-arching Truth of God already come for us, of God coming back for us. Nothing!
But we have to choose to keep those promises ever before the eyes of our hearts, because most of what we can see contradicts, cancels, or distorts them.
The Lies of Today
It’s easy for us to assume that what we can see – a global pandemic dragging on and on, heads of state near and far babbling nonsense or issuing threats, human nature itself being redefined by plutocrats wielding digital devices – is uniquely powerful in its refutation of Advent, of the gospel.
But scripture tells a different story. Jesus Himself, frustrated with religious leaders’ attempts to explain away a miracle of healing (Jesus had given sight to a middle-aged man, born blind), laid out the terms of seeing according to Truth:
“Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” … Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”
John 9:39 & 41
Humankind has always been tempted to trust what we can see, touch, and taste over what God tells us. Since the apple in the Garden trumped loyalty to the One Who, in love, said not to take a bite – we have fought (and frequently lost) the same old battle. Our contemporary culture may offer us new ways to fall for the same lies, but the deception itself is as old as sin… and the sole, soul solution remains salvation.
Son, shining
As I finish typing this, sunshine is pouring over my desk with such intensity that I had to partially close the blinds to be able to see the computer screen.
And that’s an Advent truth, too: on the other side of the fog, the Son’s risen glory is so much more than we can imagine!
The glimpses we catch between the slats of our worldly confines, our limited perception, our finite brains – those glimpses of radiance and goodness and hope are foretastes of His Presence the way pretty pebbles are foretastes of the monumental gorgeousness of the Grand Canyon.
What can we do, then, to see the world through Advent eyes even as we acknowledge all the obstacles (out there and in here) to succeeding in seeing Truth?
Paul, again, offers us wise counsel:
“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.”
Ephesians 1:17 – 19
There are so many lights, all around us, during this season. Let’s allow all of them to cue us to recall the Light. If we determine to walk through Advent with “the eyes of our hearts enlightened,” we will truly be able to declare – with the shepherds, the Wise Men, the disciples on the way to Emmaus – “We have seen the Lord!”
Amen!
