Advent as Resistance

Today's post comes from Brethren Contemplative. Jason Barnhart blogs regularly on faith, Brethrenism, and culture at Brethren Contemplative.


I’m often asked why celebrating Advent is so important. Indeed, low church Protestants have great disdain for liturgy fearing that such a concept is a Catholic idea. The word “liturgy,” however, comes from the Greek term leitourgia which literally translated means “the work of the people.”


Christian worship is a common work that we share with fellow spiritual travelers who have realized that Christ followers operate in a different time zone. Our year does not start with New Years but with Advent. Our year starts with a waiting for our God to break into mundaneness of our existence. Time becomes space. Space becomes a container to be filled by the presence of our Lord and Savior. The Sabbath of Advent reminds us of the need for space in our space to allow the presence of Christ to be known.


In his marvelous book, The Sabbath, the Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel describes the Sabbath as a “cathedral in time” (Heschel 2005a, 3). Cathedrals connote sacred presence and worship. Heschel remarks, “One of the most distinguished words in the Bible is the word qadosh, holy; a word which more than any other is representative of the mystery and majesty of the divine” (Heschel 2005a, 9).


Now what was the first holy object in the history of the world? Was it a mountain? Was it an altar? It is, indeed, a unique occasion at which the distinguished word qadosh is used for the first time: in the Book of Genesis at the end of the story of creation. How extremely significant is the fact that it is applied to time: “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy.” The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world. (Heschel 2005b, 10)


The Sabbath becomes our counter-cultural and holy pushback to a world that refuses to rest and stubbornly disavows all limitations. Seasons like Advent invite us to realize that the containers of our lives (individually and corporately) can only be truly filled by the eternal presence of Christ. Everything else is but sand in a sieve.


Following Heschel’s lead, the Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggeman, in his book, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to a Culture of Now, writes, “Those who remember and keep Sabbath find they are less driven, less coerced, less frantic to meet deadlines, free to be, rather than to do. Sabbath is not simply a pause. It is an occasion for reimagining all of social life away from coercion and competition to compassionate solidarity” (Brueggeman 2014, 45). Sabbath as resistance is intentional simplicity. It is swimming against the stream. It’s not always popular, but it is the only cure for a dog-eat-dog world that insists that we are more than human. Such a journey is challenging, demanding, and, above all, intentional


Sabbath seasons like Advent remind us to be human (not more than human or super-human) because our God becomes human. We wait for the rest (Sabbath) he brings to our lives. Our God breaks into our time and transforms it.


There are two Greek concepts of time: chronos and kairos. Chronos (from which we get the word “chronology”) is clock time: minutes, decades, centuries—past, present, and future. Kairos is time as substance.


If you ask me how much time I spend with my children, I can answer with chronos time. I spent two hours with them. I can also give you a kairos time answer—I spent time coloring with them, telling jokes, watching movies, and cuddling in the recliner.


God calls himself “I Am” in Scripture—he is eternally present. It is God’s “is-ness” that is kairos time. Kairos is God’s time. Chronos is human time.
Most of us spend our lives serving chronos time where the second hand determines the movement. There is no drivenness to kairos time. It never looks back and wishes it had achieved more.


Mythologically, Chronos was the name of a short Greek god whose legs were muscular and whose heels were winged. He moved quickly. He was bald and slick at the back of his head. The implication was that if you could grab him as he came toward you, you could take hold of him and make him respond to your wish. But, if you allowed him to pass, and then tried to catch him, your hands would slide off. Chronos is time as we embrace and control it. Kairos is that time that embraces us.


Advent is meant to be a kairos season for the world. Christmas, however, has become a chronos season with accumulations of stuff and anxiety about chronos time. We were made for both and Advent celebrates that our God knows both intimately.



Churches have already rushed by Advent declaring God has come. Indeed, some churches haven’t even celebrated Christ’s birth for a hot minute before they rush off to crucify him in their worship. Christ exists in three senses to the people of God— the historical person of Jesus, transcendent Christ, and mediated, immanent Christ (kairos). This Advent season, may the kairos of Christ fill the container of your heart. Wait…long…cherish the Christ child. Our God has come to us. May he disrupt your chronos schedule and offer you a lasting kairos moment.

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By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired shot heard round the world. “Concord Hymn,” Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1836. This is true. The American Revolution was transformative. One hundred years later, poet James Russell Lowell celebrated the modest span as “era-parting.” As the Concord militia ran across the bridge chasing retreating redcoats, they ran from one era into another. This is also true. The United States was the first government founded on the principle that “all men are created equally.” To be sure, this noble concept was very imperfectly implemented, but nobody else, certainly not European monarchies, even pretended to believe it. On April 19 we rightly celebrate the 250th anniversary of Concord, the beginning of a war that led to American independence. But there’s more. The first shots were not fired across Emerson’s “rude bridge” but on Lexington Common. Here three British companies faced the village militia. Major John Pitcairn, the British commander, ordered the Massachusetts men to disperse. The militia captain, John Parker, seeing that his men were significantly outnumbered, ordered them to break ranks and leave. But before they could, somebody—we still don’t know who—shot, and the British spontaneously responded with heavy fire. Then, again without orders, they charged, shooting and bayoneting, including the wounded. Historians disagree over whether British officers encouraged the melee or futilely screamed for order. Almost certainly, however, redcoats cut down fleeing militiamen. It was more massacre than battle. This atrocity, not Emerson’s “shot heard round the world,” inaugurated a lengthy, difficult, brutal war. The War for Independence lasted eight years, the longest conflict in American history until Vietnam and now fourth behind Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam. Civilians were targeted, casualties high, and prisoners, when taken, treated inhumanely. Lexington wasn’t the only time in the war when wounded and surrendering soldiers were assaulted; both sides did it, but more often the British. As people of faith remember Lexington and Concord, they can find three takeaways. 1. Injustice creates conflict. Identifying wrongs inflicted upon us comes naturally, but the call is to recognize injustice felt by others. The colonists had legitimate grievances: They were unrepresented in Parliament and taxed without their consent, a fundamental injustice. Logically, they demanded self-government. For ignoring American complaints, Imperial leadership lost some of its most valuable colonies, and its military endured high casualties. The lesson is that release for the captives and freedom for the oppressed are both the right thing to do—"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness”—and pragmatic because of the problems they solve. 2. Similarly, bad things happen when people stop listening to each other. Mostly, this falls again on the British. Even a few months after Lexington and Concord, independence was still not mainstream among Americans, who probably would have accepted something short of full sovereignty. How might the history of the British Empire evolved if it had listened and applied the Golden Rule? Tone-deafness cost the British severely. Likewise, may we remember that most arguments have two sides. The Empire’s anger over the extensive property damage caused by the Boston Tea Party feels legitimate. Refusal to concede that the other side has a point or two often has significant practical cost, in this case further widening the breach between the Empire and its seaboard colonies. This is not to say that Jesus compromised his values, but he lunched with tax collectors and sinners and, presumably, listened. 3. Wars are easier to start than to stop. This includes labor (strikes) and trade wars. The great conflict that started on Lexington Green lasted much longer than anybody thought. In fact, there was little deliberation. Tensions escalated and anger boiled until violence erupted, and once the floodgates of war opened, it took eight years and rivers of blood spilled before they closed. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are not only the children of God but, in practice, they rescue society and, especially, innocents from the suffering of war. In the long run society is best served by peace (and justice). Do justice, listen, and make peace: Put together, these lessons from Lexington are foundation stones of Christian behavior, and they equip Brethren to be the salt of the earth in tumultuous times. Steve Longenecker is Professor of History, emeritus, at Bridgewater College (VA). Photo by Donovan Reeves on Unsplash
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