Platitudes

Like several of my friends (hi, Patricia!), I am a quote person. It's always gratifying to find someone who can express themselves in a pithy or memorable manner, particularly if they can in the process make us look at the world in a fresh way.

One of the best quotes I've discovered this year is from an interview the novelist Walker Percy did toward the end of his life, collected in the book Signposts in a Strange Land. He was asked the secret of the success of his marriage. His answer strikes me as capturing something critical about the way the world is:

There is no secret. Or rather, the secrets are buried in platitudes. That is to say, it has something to do with love, commitment, and family.

In the case of marriage, I expect Percy was saying something about the necessity of the grace and hard work of a committed love for another person, which is now treated as a secret (or a scandal) in a free-love-at-first-sight culture. (But that's a topic for another time and place.)

What Percy is also reminding us of is the concept of the open secret, something so patently obvious that we overlook it. And this is a part of what Advent is about. We come to know our stories so well that they become platitudes. But buried in the platitudes about mangers and shepherds and wise men and babies and stars and presents and sermons and camels and greetings and holly . . . is a pretty big secret.

In this case, not only is the secret so obvious that we tend to overlook it, the platitudes are actually a help—a means of approaching something so inconceivable, so truly scandalous, that it is hard to get our minds around it. That's why we start with the stories. Stories can help us keep the open secret in our brains long enough for its meaning to start to get through.

We're talking, really, about a total upheaval of the way the world is run. We are talking about a change in the physics and chemistry of the universe. Another universe, another reality, another time is breaking in. It won't be like anything you expect or imagine. You begin to see, on reflection, why the Old Testament prophets and John's Revelation start to use some extravagant metaphors, because language itself breaks down in the face of something this weird. Think too about all the different metaphors and parables Jesus uses to explain the Kingdom of Heaven. Dorothy L. Sayers in a 1954 lecture on the limitations of language gives a brilliant list of them:

“The Kingdom of Heaven,” said the Lord Christ, “is among you.” But what, precisely, is the Kingdom of Heaven? You cannot point to existing specimens, saying, “Lo, here!” or “Lo, there!” You can only experience it. But what is it like, so that when we experience it we may recognize it? Well, it is a change, like being born again and re-learning everything from the start. It is secret, living power—like yeast. It is something that grows, like seed. It is precious like buried treasure, like a rich pearl, and you have to pay for it. It is a sharp cleavage through the rich jumble of things which life presents: like fish and rubbish in a draw-net, like wheat and tares; like wisdom and folly; and it carries with it a kind of menacing finality; it is new, yet in a sense it was always there—like turning out a cupboard and finding there your own childhood as well as your present self; it makes demands, it is like an invitation to a royal banquet—gratifying, but not to be disregarded, and you have to live up to it; where it is equal, it seems unjust, where it is just it is clearly not equal—as with the single pound, the diverse talents, the laborers in the vineyard, you have what you bargained for; it knows no compromise between an uncalculating mercy and a terrible justice—like the unmerciful servant, you get what you give; it is helpless in your hands like the King’s Son, but if you slay it, it will judge you; it was from the foundations of the world; it is to come; it is here and now; it is within you. It is recorded that the multitude sometimes failed to understand.

I love that last line.

So, we start small. With a baby. And he was—no question—a real baby. (My friend Dan Russ up at Gordon College has a new book out called Flesh-and-Blood Jesus. Later this month I'll link to his chapter on the Incarnation titled “Manger-Wetter.”) This baby sets the DNA, the pattern, the trajectory, for the kingdom. We should pay attention.

But the baby is just the start. He is coming again. It won't be like what you're expecting. But it has something to do with love.