On this fourth Sunday of Advent, churches around the world lit candles for peace on earth, good will to all.
Try to think of the special moments in your life when you felt overwhelmed by the glory and joy of inner peace in the fullest. If you’re like me, you’ve experienced it in those times when a doctor or nurse handed off the blood of your blood into your arms.
There is nothing like a baby to melt down all our fears and worries and stress and strains. Nothing like the innocent softness of a child to tear down our defenses and make us equal to that child in vulnerability.
The way to inner peace is through vulnerability. Jesus was an extraordinarily vulnerable newborn, being the refugee that he was in a place far and very far from the warmth and security of a home.
He grew up to be a man who was secure enough in his manhood that he wasn’t ashamed to show his vulnerability to the world.
“Jesus wept.”
A lot of men today want to make Jesus out to be a manly man, more of a Marvel comic hero than a Mr. Rogers or a Jean Vanier, the great Christian thinker and humanitarian who founded the worldwide L’Arch Communities for the [severely] Handicapped.
Vanier, who died this year at age 90, wrote:
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“Our societies push down weakness because we’re in a competitive society. And so we’re not allowing people to be themselves.
“You only have to develop the strong part, only have to develop the mind, only have to develop the power inside of you, because if you have power you’ll have money, you’ll have prestige, you’ll have all that.
“But then we’re denying something inside of ourselves. We’re killing a part of our being–the child inside of us, the child which is called to trust, to sing, to dance, to look at other people without fear and without wanting to control them. . . .
“But we’re frightened of the child. So it’s true, our society is killing children.”
Vulnerability is not a weakness; it’s a facet of inner strength and peace.
American government is dominated by leaders today who, while never letting us forget how much they love Jesus, are all about bullying.
A bully is someone who has been deeply hurt.
And hurt people hurt people.
A therapist once told me that all the bullies he ever counseled were quite scared and “insecure about walking across the street,” as he put it.
To have inner strength is to have inner peace.
To have inner peace is to have inner strength.
It was this kind of inner strength and peace that enabled Paul and Silas to sing songs of joy in prison.
It was this kind of inner strength and peace that enabled Anne Frank to cope with equilibrium and even happiness through so much trial and tribulation.
Jesus was the strongest, most secure, most peaceful person who ever lived.
And not because he was some kind of Macho Camacho man.
Grace & peace & Happy Holidays!
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* More about Jean Vanier’s remarkable life here.
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