While Facebook and blogs and online news outlets have been full of posts regarding the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last Friday, I was not ready to say or write anything. The horror and overwhelming grief were too much to process while trying to figure out how to say something coherent. Even though my daughters are both in college, this is the kind of nightmare every parent is afraid of and knows is possible while trying to believe it will never happen. Is there a parent anywhere who doesn’t empathize to the point of imagining what it would be like if it were their child? Is there a parent anywhere who has already experienced the death of a child who doesn’t go through a fresh wave of grief?
Because I am a pastor and because Sunday morning comes just after Friday, I knew when I woke up yesterday morning that I would need to say something when I stood before the 250 people gathered. What made it more difficult was that yesterday we were celebrating the third Sunday of Advent and the word was Joy. Oh my. Not only was it the Sunday we celebrate Joy, but it was also the Sunday when our Adult Choir was singing Handel’s “Messiah.” In the depths of my being all I could think about was wanting to be silent. Sitting in silence and lighting candles sounded like a good idea to me as I continued to feel God’s broken heart and my broken heart. Knowing that silence was not going to happen, I prayed and the word that came to me was “paradox.” We were gathering to listen to one of the most glorious pieces of music ever written and to celebrate Joy and paradox is the only way to understand why we would do that in spite of the chaos.
Paradox is the word that describes how we can feel deep joy and deep grief all at once. Paradox is how we can feel the chaos of the world and hold on to deep hope that this world is not all there is and that transformation is ongoing. Paradox is how we can love someone so much that we give them permission to die in peace. Paradox is how we can love our children so completely and allow them to make their own mistakes and eventually leave home to become adults. Paradox is how we can believe Christ comes into the world, becomes incarnate, every time someone shares a coat or food or a home or helps the widows and children and those who are ill, while at the same time believing Christ is still coming. Paradox is the season of Advent. The days are short and chaos is all around us and yet we are hopeful because the Christ child is about to be born in a stable. It’s a birth we celebrate over and over again. Every time we celebrate it we proclaim again that with the birth comes hope. Hope that peace and justice will replace chaos and injustice.
The recent events and the ongoing violence that continues to plague our cities (more than 120 people have died by gun violence in the city of Oakland in 2012, many of them young, black males), certainly challenge the hope we proclaim.
Paradox is realizing that the Christ is born anew in US. We are the ones we have been waiting for and we are the ones in whom the Christ becomes incarnate in this world. It is up to us to continue to work for peace and justice. May we encourage one another on the long road toward peace. May we continue to pray for the newly brokenhearted and for those whose hearts are breaking again.