Disruption
Six years ago, on a warm, rainy Christmas Eve, our family experienced a traumatic medical event that forever divided the family narrative into segments of before and after.
Through the years, we’ve experienced other, more private, forms of disruption: loss of a job, loss of an unborn child, and, in the darkest chapters of our story, loss of hope. We are different people as a result.
Disruption changes us.
Although deeply personal, our story is not unique —it reflects eternal truths of the universe. Change is most likely to occur when the status quo is disrupted. Individually, in an organization, across a community, and throughout the world.
The chapter in history entitled 2021 tells yet another version of the old, old, story. A quick scroll through social media provides glimpses of the current subplots: refugees fleeing their homeland, families and churches divided over masks and vaccines, and high-profile trials reflecting social unrest. The Great Resignation, a term coined by economists to describe the unprecedented phenomenon of workers voluntarily quitting their jobs this year, has left both large and small businesses frantically trying to retain workers. Mental health challenges permeate our schools and our souls.
The past few years have left us bone-tired and weary.
Yet indeed, there is nothing new under the sun.
“...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a letter written from jail shortly before his execution
More than 2,000 years ago, the world experienced a quiet disruption in the unlikely form of a newborn infant. That single event, taking place in a particular place at a specific point in time marked by intense social and political unrest, forever divided the world’s narrative into before and after.
The resulting impact is still rippling throughout history and will continue until, one glorious day, the New Kingdom will be established and all will be made right. Every sad thing becomes untrue. All injustices made right. Each glimpse of a dream, reality. When we come face-to-face with our Maker and the realest of realities is finally realized for all of eternity.
Whatever disruption you’ve experienced this year, dare to hope. Let it do the hard, important work of change —in your vocation, your relationships, your heart.
Whatever disruption you’ve experienced this year, take courage. There is more to the story than what we can see or imagine.
The Author has been at work from the beginning of time, weaving all the subplots, including yours and mine and those scrolling across your social media feed, into His larger story. One that ends with justice and beauty and wholeness and harmony and redemption of every broken body and heart.
O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him,
O come let us adore him,
Christ the Lord.