Not Even Fools

This past Sunday evening was the 33rd (or 34th, depending on who you ask) Annual Festival of Lessons and Carols at St. John's Church. It was marvelous! A packed congregation heard delightful music from a joint choir of Good Shepherd Church and St. John's, with superb stringed accompaniment, a masterful director (Lauren Cantrell Salerno), and even an average sounding organist (I kid Foster Bailey). This service was a rarity for me, as my only responsibility was to read the first lesson, which meant I was able to sit in the congregation with my wife enjoying the festivities from there.

Right before the service I was sitting on the aisle, doing my best to look pious, and waiting on my wife to arrive when all of a sudden there arose such a clatter. Okay, it was not that clattery, but one of the acolyte servers went to get the processional cross and in the process the flowers attached to the front of it fell askew. The server looked around in distress, and I went up to help him repair the disheveled looking ornamentation. As I left my seat, I put my bulletin down to reserve my place.

After a few minutes of three sets of hands holding the cross, steadying the arrangement, and twisting some pipe cleaners into place the cross' decoration looked as good as new! I walked back around to where I had been sitting only to discover that not only was my seat missing, but there were no longer any aisle seats to be found in the whole church. No good deed goes unpunished! The apologetic parishioner who had accidentally sat down where I had been had not seen my bulletin and this kind person offered to get up, but there was not room enough for both my wife and myself there as the rest of the pew had been filled.

Usually I am a pretty well balanced person, but in this moment I kind of lost my cool. I went to the very back of the church and sat fuming for a few moments until my wife arrived. When she did I expressed what had happened, and I found myself getting more upset, not at anyone in particular, but irrationally I huffed and puffed over the situation. How foolish I can be!

Fortunately, the service started and the opening anthem drew me ever so slightly away from my frustration. Then, when the appointed time came I walked all the way up the side aisle to read Isaiah 35:1-10, which was not only the first reading at Lessons and Carols, but is the first lesson for this coming Sunday. This beautiful passage with vivid images of a crocus blooming, deer leaping, and springs of water bubbling up depicts how God will make even the deserts lush, even the fearful strong, and even the blind sighted! And yet, what convicted me this past Sunday night causing me to question my own silly behavior jumped off the page when the prophet described the Holy Highway.

"A highway shall be there, 

and it shall be called the Holy Way;
the unclean shall not travel on it,

but it shall be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray." 

(emboldened for emphasis)

As the service continued my own foolishness kept on nagging at my soul. Isaiah's passage describes not only when Christ came in the person of Jesus bringing healing to the deaf, lame, and blind, but also how Christ will come in the future to fulfill all things. On Sunday evening, as the beauty of the service unfurled and the words of the hymns kept sticking in my throat as the loveliness of the music struck me mute, I saw Christ coming in the present. Mostly telling me to let go of my foolish ways!

Advent is a season when God may just slow us down enough to remind us of how foolish we are, and yet even as fools we shall not go astray! Jesus came to claim not only the deaf, lame, blind, fearful, and poor, but also all of us fools who think that somehow we are better than those with different needs than our own. As you prepare your heart for the coming of Christ enjoy the music and celebrations that are planned and executed so well, but even if or when everything falls apart know that Christ is still there guiding all us foolish travelers on the Holy Way that leads us home to God!