Second Sunday of Advent

Lectionary: 6

I am confident of this,
that the one who began a good work in you
will continue to complete it 
until the day of Christ Jesus.


I have known this fellow in the VA hospital for several years. When I met him he was quite athletic despite his periodic crashes with alcohol. He has always insisted he would not let that happen again. Repeatedly. Every few months. He says the same thing. He intends to control his drinking. 
Recently he declared he would not drink again. He cannot walk. He cannot live alone. He is dying. 
He will drink again, of course, because he has resigned his life and will to alcohol. It is a higher power, greater than himself. 
And yet, he says, he believes in God. Who else might have created the universe? But he doesn't believe that God can or should save him. He will do that for himself.
The Gospel of Christmas challenges us with the fundamental problem of our human nature, we cannot save ourselves. We need God. 
At Christmastime Christians celebrate the birth of "our savior."  After twenty centuries, the phrase is laden with history. For many people, it has a quaint, vaguely ridiculous sound, like something out of melodramatic 19th century plays. When our hero Dudley Do Right arrives with his white hat and white horse to save Nell Fenwick, our fair damsel, from the dastardly Snidely Whiplash, she cries. "My savior!"  
It's easy to laugh at these old cartoons. It's not so easy to look squarely at our helplessness. How long ago was it that our scientists, who pioneered new technologies and led us into the Industrial Revolution, warned us that we are destroying our planet? Our industrial and automobile wastes pollute the air; we trash the oceans with plastics and chemicals; we contaminate earth and rivers with toxic poisons. Many species of plants and animals have disappeared before our eyes. We were delighted to practice an ever-improving way of life; we're not so happy to see the consequences.
We know we must stop doing these things. Like my alcoholic patient, we know what we must do. We don't want to and cannot. 
We suffer the supreme irony: we must be saved from ourselves. Who could do that?

...the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it... 

We cannot undue what we have done. As my Veterans tell me, you can't unshoot a gun. But we can go from here with faith and in obedience to the only God who cares about us. "The Economy" doesn't care; Power doesn't care; the Planet might care but we know it did fine for billions of years without us. 
We turn to God who formed and called us from the Earth. With God all things are possible.