Divine Activity

There are essentially two schools of thought as it pertains to theology, that which defines the relationship between the Lord and man. One suggests that the Almighty is far removed from humanity and does not get actively involved in our day-to-day activity. The other holds that the Lord is this huge cosmic force who manipulates nature and even the hearts and minds of mankind to achieve a particular end. Both have merit to a degree but like anything pertaining to the Lord and to the study of theology, neither can be definitively proved one way or the other.

To suggest that the Lord does not get directly involved with humanity is to dismiss so much by which the Lord has revealed Himself to us. We have the covenant with Noah, we have the Exodus, we have David being chosen as king out of all his older brothers, and we have Christmas. And lest we forget, we have the promise of the Holy Spirit to be with us as we endeavor to live and work and worship. Each of these and so many more instances shows us a God who is hardly removed from our lives. Yet there is rarely a day that passes in which we do not directly or indirectly witness evil in our midst. We see children starving around the world or being emotionally or physically abused in other ways, we see refugees running to escape the horrors of war, we see people even right here in America living under bridges for lack of other shelter. Those who witness such things and who lack faith ask what to them is a legitimate question: how can this “good” God allow such things to happen?

We must also remember that if we are talking about a God who is actively manipulating these cosmic forces by which man and nature are set to act in conflict with perhaps how we are predisposed to act, we are dismissing the concept - if REALITY - of free will. But if free will is indeed a reality, how can we read such a text as Exodus 7:3 in which Moses is fulfilling his calling to confront the pharaoh and work to get Israel released from her bondage and pharaoh is resisting because the Lord “hardened his heart”. By what is written, Moses has had a direct encounter with the Almighty and is doing what he was sent to do. Yet it would also seem that the Lord is manipulating the minds and hearts of man by intentionally “hardening” pharaoh’s heart thus making Moses’ journey even more difficult than it already was.

So what? Did the writer have a direct encounter in which he had inside knowledge of the intent and mind of the Lord, or was he reporting something that would simply be incidental? If pharaoh released the Hebrews, Egypt would suffer because a lot of work was being done for cheap. All pharaoh had to do was keep the Hebrew slaves well fed as any good rancher would do with his live stock. So did the Lord become actively involved with the mind of the pharaoh, or was the pharaoh simply of his own greedy mind and had made a free will decision to resist Moses’ call to release Israel? After all, he had a lot to lose!

Advent is a relatively constricted period of time in which we are called to prepare ourselves, but what are we to prepare for during this time aside from what we should be preparing for during the other eleven months of the year? In Advent we are encouraged to pray – are we to pray less during any other time? In Advent we are encouraged to fast – should we fast more than during any other time? In Advent we are encouraged to be generous with everything we have – are people only hungry or naked or homeless during the month of December?

John the Baptist calls on the people now just as he did during his own time to “make straight the path of the Lord”, to prepare for His coming. Well, we know that John and Jesus were about the same age, so John could not have been talking about the impending birth of the Messiah. We can also see from various texts in which John seems genuinely surprised when Jesus shows up even as he has proclaimed that “there is one coming after me Who is greater than I, Whose sandals I am not worthy to loose…” We can’t say that John never saw it coming, yet he seemed somehow unprepared for the encounter, a DIRECT ENCOUNTER with the Divine which changed everything not only for himself but also for the entire human race.

The Lord is coming but not necessarily in early January which would necessitate that we prepare ourselves only in December. Let this be a time when we are mindful of the needs of those around us for the need is great. Let us be mindful that even if we cannot agree on the fundamental tenets of Advent, we can surely agree that preparation for that Day – whenever it may come – is a never-ending task that requires much but blesses in abundance and far beyond the day.