Through Stained Glass: Advent Word A Day-Power

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

Power.

What came to mind when you read that word?

He-Man. Flags. Weights. Buttons. Lightning. Snap!

Today when I was pondering power, I couldn’t help but think about the majestic windmills that speckle the cornfields in my county. When I lived out of state and would come home for the holidays, I would always be mesmerized by their prevailing stature. To this day, I light up like a kid in a candy store when I see them rotating in unison, and I am comforted by their synchronized red lights that flash in the night.

From what I understand about wind turbines, they work on a simple principle: instead of using electricity to make wind—like a fan—wind turbines use the wind to produce electricity. The wind turns the propeller-like blades of a turbine around a rotor, which spins a generator, which creates power. Wind power. Wind energy.

Powerful stuff.

So is the scripture lesson for today.

Look at 2 Peter 1.3—“His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

‘His’ in this case, is Christ. In Christ, we have received everything needed for life and godliness. That’s good stuff, friends.

But the powerful piece of this section of scripture is in verse 4—"Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature.”

We need not wait to live in union with God. Jesus reveals the purpose and fullness of humanity, which is “that we can share in the divine nature,” even in this wounded and wounding world. God is in all things, through all things, with all things. Christ is present in us now. Like the wind that is readily available and waiting to be transformed into wind power, so is the invitation for us to participate in the divine nature.

Powerful stuff. So is the Love of God, which is in all things. This is the Christ. It is the Divine Nature we share in—it is what was revealed in Jesus. This Advent season, forget what Augustine said about ‘original sin,’ forget what Calvin said about ‘total depravity,’ and forget what Luther said about humanity, ‘humans are like piles of manure, covered over by Christ.’ Instead, remember that when we speak of the Advent or waiting for Christmas or preparing for Christmas, we're not talking about waiting for a little baby Jesus to be born. That already happened 2000 years ago. We're in fact welcoming the Universal Christ, the Cosmic Christ, the Christ that is forever being born in the human soul and into history. I love those words from Richard Rohr.

We aren’t simply observants of God’s power, but we are participants in the very energy that created everything in the beginning. I guess it makes sense then, “…brothers and sisters, be all the more eager to confirm your call and election, for if you do this, you will never stumble.”