The Hugs Really Are Free

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Today we went out onto the streets of Chicago to give free hugs to strangers. We were stationed next to a train stop, and a tall fellow with tie-dyed hair and a long trench coat in praise of John Lennon stepped through the doors and lit up at the sight of our "FREE HUGS" sign. He hugged us all at least once. And on his second time through, he asked, "What's this for? Why are you guys doing this?" It was only 7 words into the explanation that he heard the word "God" and his countenance changed. He said, "God?" and took one step back. He bummed a cigarette off the girl at the bus stop, then hung out with one beer in his hand, leaning up against a post like he was waiting for someone. We were 30 feet from him giving hugs away, embracing strangers to acknowledge their humanity and give them personal contact.

Acknowledgement. Contact. Affirmation. Love.

For free.

But this guy was talking cynically to the CTA attendant sweeping up trash. "Yeah, they give the hugs away for free now, but they take you to church and make you pay later." The man with the broom shook his head and gave a slow, "Yeahhh," as if this had happened to everybody.

I walked to the corner, trying to get Joshua's attention across the street, to tell him that we had to head back. I turned around and there again was this same fellow with the blond and orange hair dressed in a trench coat. His said his name was Max. He motioned to two guys next to him and asked me,

"Do you wanna forsake Jesus and get f***ed up with me and my friends?"

"No," I told him. "I'm in it to win it," I said with a laugh.

But my heart wanted to say,

If you knew what He has done for me, you would know why I cannot forsake Him. And if you knew Jesus, you wouldn't want to leave Him, either. 

A crowd from the crosswalk pressed in to our corner and the three of them were leaving, but Max had a question first: "What does God think about pot?" His friend was lighting a joint as I was passing out hugs. "What's God's judgment about pot, huh?" He looked above me, past me, looking at the others with an air of challenge. "What does God think about pot?"

I caught his eyes and told him, "God has something to say about pot, but He cares more about other things, like love, mercy, and justice."

We were impressed

We were impressed by the burning bush and the pillar of fire. We thought God was close in the Angel and in the Shekinah. But He wanted to be closer still. 

God-nearby-us wasn't good enough for Him. He gave Himself to become God-with-us. Yet that too was for something more: God-in-us! 

Isn't the Christ child the best gift we never could have expected?

I Love To Hear My Husband Sing

I love to hear my husband sing,
   because he sings like he lives:
   straightforwardly, honestly,
   without pretense, without effort to impress.

I used to be bothered when we stood in the congregation
and he didn't sing along or even mouth the words.
He would stand, sometimes shift uncomfortably,
sometimes close his eyes.

And I was beside him, singing with extra volume
to make up for his very rude silence,
and to protest his apparent protest.
But now I realize that he will sing
only when he means it
and he always means it when he sings.

I love to hear my husband's honest songs to God.

Like a Bat in the Kingdom of Men

But we see Jesus, 

  who was made a little lower than the angels

     for the suffering of death, 

crowned with glory and honor

that, apart from God, 

  he should taste death for everyone.*

…Christ Jesus, who

  being in very nature God, 

did not consider equality with God

  something to be held onto;

rather, he made himself nothing, 

   taking on the very nature of a servant, 

      being made in human likeness. 

   And being found in appearance as a man, 

      he humbled himself,

          becoming obedient to death,

              even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place…**

We ourselves are creatures longing always for glory and exaltation. When we receive the promises of God, we receive their glory: eternal rest, neverending day, ceaseless joy. We grasp the hand of God in faith that we may be pulled up to higher planes. We are climbing Jacob's ladder, up, up, up. We envision ourselves as swallows, flying higher and still higher out of darkness and into glory---where we belong.

But we see the crucified demonstration of Godness is expressed in words like

Nothingness, Deadness, Apartness, Lowness.

Sin flipped the world, and into that inverted darkness came the Son of God, swooping down like a bat, that upside down creature for whom up is down and down is up. The end of a bat's journey is hanging upside down in darkness.

He placed himself as a sinner among sinners.

He placed himself fully under the judgment under which the world stands.

He placed himself there where God can only be present as a questioning after God.

At his highest, at the goal of his journey, He is a purely negative entity:

  by no means a genius, by no means one of occult psychic power,

  by no means a hero, leader, poet, or thinker: and precisely in this negation

("my God, my God, why have You forsaken me?")...***

Christ was nailed to a cross. His head was toward heaven and his feet were toward earth, but as he hung there, everything was upside down. Glory was ignominy, shame was exaltation, forsakeness was redemption, separation was reconciliation, lastness was firstness, lowness was highness. He hung like a bat in the kingdom of men.

midnight moon

*Hebrews 2:9

**Philippians 2:5-9

***Karl Barth, "Der Romerbrief," (Rom 3:22)