Advent As Echo Chamber: Essay I--Romans 13:8-14

"Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet”; and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. 11 Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; 12 the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; 13 let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires."

I. Introduction

It seems to me that one reason why Advent is special for people, both in good and bad ways, is that it tends to heighten our senses. We are, as it were, placed in an echo chamber, where our slightest whisper is magnified manifold, and our clumsy clomping becomes almost unbearably loud. But unlike an echo chamber, Advent heightens all the senses. We see a red sweater, and torrents of Christmas memories are unleashed; we smell the alluring scent of fir, and we are placed in another world; we hear the sound of one bar of music and we begin to play mental tapes of entire Christmas carols or Handel's Messiah; we taste a Christmas cookie and the juices in our mouth are activitated as if they were from a childhood long ago. For me, Advent especially triggers my aural sense. I see people gathered together, and immediately I begin humming "We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing." I look out at the cool, gray and rainy late Oregon Fall and my soul intones, "In the Bleak Midwinter, Frosty Wind Made Moan..." Here is Sarah Brightman's YouTube rendition of that classic.

As I was working through the text for this morning, instead of noticing the surface message--that we need to be ready for the coming of Christ (a message with which you can only do so much), I tended to notice the way Paul uses his words. Upon reading and re-reading the Greek text, I realized that this entire passage is built upon deep and familiar words from the earliest Christian writings. It was as if this text in Romans, then, is a sort of verbal echo chamber, a feast of words that should trigger memories and stimulate thought and commitment among his hearers.

The purpose of this and the next essay is to introduce you to five words or brief phrases from these verses which trigger other early Christian "memories." My desire is not only to bring these thoughts to your consciousness but to encourage you to think of the ways that Advent heightens your senses and memories, and to become more intentional with your classes or congregations on how it does so also for them.

II. Reading Romans 13

Our passage for the day appears in a section of Romans (12-15) dedicated to moral exhortation. Paul has spent the first part of the letter laying out the human need for the Gospel (1-4), the basic doctrines of justification by faith and union with Christ (5-8) and the knotty problem of Israel's apparent refusal to respond to the message of the Gospel (9-11). Then, when this doctrinal section is complete, Paul turns to the ethical implications of it all. He begins with that famous but all-encompassing verse:

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect," Rom. 12:1-2.

Then he turns to a number of exhorations, before speaking of the Christian responsibility to the civil authorities and, finally, to our text. In the few verses for this morning are five special words or concepts which deserve mention: (1) the notion of "summing up" in v. 9; (2) the words "now is the moment" in v. 11; (3) the words "the day draws near" in v. 12; (4) the idea of putting on the armor in v. 12; and finally (5), the idea of clothing oneself with Christ in v. 14. Each one of these words ought to explode in our mouths like a theological cherry tomato.

III. Summing it all Up (v. 9)

Paul begins the passage with some pretty sophisticated ruminations on the nature of the Jewish law and its obligations for Christians. Such an idea is beyond the scope of my reflections today, even though it was a knotty theological problem in Paul's day. Suffice it to say that Paul took the more "liberal" stance on the question--that the law's "spiritual content," rather than minute commands, needed to be observed. In getting to that point, he mentions that all the commandments are summed up in "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (v. 9; Lev. 19:18). The Greek word behind "sum up" is the long word anakephalaiosis. It might be Greek to you, but let me explain. In the theory of Greek rhetoric, the culmination of an argument was crucial for a few reasons: the speaker could repeat his points "with a twist," so to speak and thus, could arouse the crowd to action and emotion. This culmination was called, in Greek, the anakephalaiosis or, in Latin, the enumeratio or recapitulans (we see English words here, though we have no English cognate for the Greek word).

The only other place in the NT where the word anakephalaiosis is used is in Ephesians 1. There, the Apostle argues as follows:

"With all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth."

Christ, then, is the summation all things. In some way all things are "gathered up" in Christ. The picture created by this Greek word is of a person coming to the end of a speech and "summing it all up," but instead of repeating points or making emotional appeals, the word is simply: Christ. Not a bad thought for Advent...

The next essay completes my thoughts.

3059