In the Christian tradition, the four weeks before Christmas are the Advent season where we focus on waiting for the coming of Immanuel, the Christ Child. Waiting can be very difficult, especially if we find ourselves in situations beyond our control. Waiting in this context means we have to surrender to the flow of our life. What makes this waiting bearable, manageable? Let me suggest an answer. When we see signs of Immanuel in our waiting, signs of “God with us”, which is what Immanuel means, these signs tell us that we are part of God’s greater plan for our life, despite our life being beyond our control. When we realize this, suddenly our attitude toward what is happening to us changes. We are now willing to wait, to go with the flow of our life for we believe that this flow is part of God’s plan for our life. In this blog, I want to explore how signs of Immanuel help us surrender and trust the flow of life that is happening to us. One of the core Bible stories (Matt. 1: 18-25) read during the Advent season involves a man name Joseph having an Immanuel experience. When Joseph found out that his fiancé Mary was pregnant, and not with his child, he struggled immensely in his waiting. His life was now out of control. He was filled with anxiety, fear. We read that Joseph had plans of quietly ending his engagement with Mary. This was the only way he could bring personal control back into his life, but then this happened. In a dream, God revealed to Joseph that he should not be afraid to take Mary as his wife. He learned that this child within her was a special child, and that this child would be part of God’s plan for healing people and the world. Through this dream, Joseph realized that he was part of God’s plan, that God had chosen him to be the father of this child and together God wanted Joseph and Mary to raise this special child. This sign from God changed everything for Joseph. Knowing that he was part of God’s plan, Joseph was now willing to live with his fear caused by his life being outside his control. He willingly accepted his God-given role as Mary’s husband and Jesus’ father. Due to this sign of Immanuel in the dream, Joseph was willing to surrender to and trust the flow of God’s plan and spirit in his life. In this blog, I will explore how signs of Immanuel in two different contexts help us live with our fear to the seemingly uncontrollable aspects of life, that of pregnancy and that of living with the reality of illness and death. What does it mean to watch for signs of Immanuel…within ourselves, within other, within the broader world? And how do those signs help us to wait in a place of surrender where we realize that we are part of the flow of God’s spirit? Watching for Signs of Immanuel in Pregnancy I think it is fair to say that the mother’s journey of pregnancy is one of constant surrender. So much of their life is outside their control: the changing experience of their body, their emotions, and life. Only by surrendering can mothers, and fathers too, experience the flow of God’s spirit within their life. Erin MacPherson, in her blog “What God taught me during pregnancy?”, describes her pregnancy this way, “Pregnancy is exhausting, exciting, exhilarating, and stressful all at once, which means that you’re going to be exhausted, excited, exhilarated, and stressed for the next nine months. Not an easy thing to be — especially when you’re gaining weight at a rate of three pounds per week.” She continues, “When I first got pregnant, I was giddy with excitement. And who wouldn’t be? I was going to have a baby. I couldn’t stop thinking (or talking) about it. But then I got tired. And sick. And bloated. And suddenly I wasn’t so giddy anymore. In fact, once those pregnancy symptoms kicked in, I turned into a whiney, moaning, self-pitying mess. I resented my baby for making me feel so bad and resented everyone else because they didn’t feel as bad as I did. I resented my job because I had to go to it. I resented my husband because he could sleep and I couldn’t. I even resented my dog because she could spend the entire day basking in the sunshine while I had to actually get up and function.” She continues, “That resentment I felt because I was sick, tired, and fat quickly turned to guilt. I felt guilty for resenting my baby, who was supposed to be my pride and joy. I felt guilty for resenting my husband, who was honestly trying to help me as much as he could. Mostly, I felt guilty that I wasn’t thrilled to be pregnant. I started to wonder if God didn’t approve of my pregnancy and my baby. Crazy talk, right? I know that now, but at the time, I felt so awful and so confused that I started to doubt God’s providence” (https://www.faithgateway.com/what-god-taught-me-during-pregnancy/#.Xfjzi2RKhPY). Erin provides a good description of the different ways mothers feel they are losing control of their bodies, their emotions, and their life. I am sure I could have found stories of future fathers too on the internet, stories like Joseph, where they also wrestle with their fears of the unknown and life being outside their control during the times of pregnancy. To live with this feeling of losing control, and the anxiety and fears that go with this lost of control, mothers and fathers need to learn the pathway of surrender and acceptance of what is happening to them. This is the role of faith, and a major part of this faith involves watching for signs of Immanuel, signs of God with us in the midst of this life journey where we have little to no control, signs of God with us that help us let go of control and go with the flow like Mary and Joseph did. If you are a mother or father, what were some of the Immanuel experiences that helped you surrender and go with the flow of life during your time of pregnancy and delivery? Here are some of the key signs of Immanuel for my wife and I as we went three times through the uncontrollable journey of pregnancy.
Watching for Signs of Immanuel in the reality of aging and health We all know we are aging and that we are going to die someday. These are parts of our life that are uncontrollable. And yet, these realities of life we keep in the background of our awareness until life forces us to deal with them. And when that happens, we struggle for the circumstances of our life and our emotions seem outside our control. In fact, we often fight with God, and often fight with life trying to keep it under our control. When this happens, this is when we need our faith, when we need to look for signs of Immanuel with us, like Joseph did when his life felt out of control. In a previous blog, I might have described my battle with God around the death of my first brother Jamie more than 25 years ago. I was very upset with God for not answering my prayers by healing my brother Jamie from HIV/AIDS. I remember preaching a sermon at First Mennonite Church in Kitchener in July of 1992 expressing my anger at God due to what was happening to my brother Jamie. I could not see any signs of Immanuel, God with us, at that time. Three-four weeks later, Jamie died. (My brother Jamie is in back row on the left side behind me) With his death, it was like my faith in God had died too. I remember being emotionally numb for the next few days as I endured 4 times of visitations. But something happened when I entered the sanctuary with my family at the beginning of my funeral. I noticed the sanctuary full of people, many of them in tears. Then, the veil over my heart split in two, and I realized that God was crying with me in my pain, and I began to sob. I finally let go of control. Those crying people in the pew were my sign of Immanuel, God with me, and suddenly my brother’s funeral transformed from a day of painful sadness to a sadness that also coexisted with gratitude for my brother who I loved and admired in my life. That experience of Immanuel at Jamie’s funeral began a journey for me, a slow journey of learning to let go and trust God in the flow of life. When I became pastor of Hagerman Mennonite Church a year later, it was a part-time role and so I found myself looking for other part-time work. At first, I volunteered as a volunteer chaplain for the AIDS Committee of York Region and ran a peer support group out of Hagerman for families living with HIV/AIDS. Here I found myself ministering to people who found their life out of their control. My pastoral role was to help people practice living a life of faith and surrender in the midst of the AIDS. In many ways, I was helping people watch for signs of Immanuel so that they could join what God was doing in their life, despite the reality of AIDS in their life. Through visitation, the peer support group, and officiating many funerals, people received grace, love, compassion, strength, and insights from God’s spirit that help them live with their fears of what was happening. They had many moments of Immanuel as they practiced the skill of letting go to the flow of their life so that God’s spirit could minister to them. This volunteer work led me to be invited to be pastoral counsellor for the Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) of York Region, what is now called the Local Integrated Health Network (LIHN). And here I found myself doing the same thing, helping people let go of control and watch for signs of Immanuel in the midst of living with cancer, living in palliative care until their death, or mental health. Earlier in my blog, we explored about how signs of Immanuel appear during pregnancy and birth. But as an on-call chaplain for Markham-Stouffville Hospital, I also had to help people see signs of Immanuel in the midst of delivering a stillborn child, a painful tragedy beyond the parents’ control. The spiritual practices of prayer and ritual were key to help parents surrender for a moment so they can experience Immanuel experiences in this context. A year after my youngest brother died from HIV/AIDS in 1992, my middle brother Kevin began to show signs of HIV/AIDS. Like Jamie, he got infected from the contaminated blood products he took for his blood condition hemophilia. My brother Kevin is on the far right of picture Unlike Jamie’s death, I knew that fighting Kevin’s death would only made my suffering and grief worst. I knew I needed to surrender to the flow of these difficult dynamics of life for me to experience signs of Immanuel. But it was not easy for I still experienced Kevin’s death as painful, maybe even more painful for I was closer to Kevin in age, and I had a deeper relationship with him than my younger brother. And, yet Kevin’s funeral was another profound Immanuel moment for me and all who attended. It was funeral involving many tears but also much laughter and gratitude. My brother Kevin had a great sense of humor that came out in his funeral. This dynamic of surrender is an ongoing challenge in my life and I suspect in your lives too. It is far more comfortable to live a life where we seek to control everything that feels uncomfortable to us. But when we live our life in this way, we really limit how God’s spirit can minister to us, especially in our moments of pain and negative emotions. It is during those times when we seek to control our life the most. But, it is also in those times when we feel most separate from God. This is where Joseph found himself, in the place where he wanted to take control of his destiny and quietly divorce Mary, his pregnant girlfriend. But then an Immanuel experience happened for him…and that changed everything. Questions to Ponder 1. What causes you to take control in your life? What were those experiences like? 2. When have you found yourself in experiences beyond your control? What were those experiences like? What helped you surrender your control and accept and join the flow of what was happening in your life? 3. When have your experienced Emmanuel-type moments in your life? How did those moments help you surrender and go with the flow of your life? What did learn about God and life through these moments?
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