Empathy. I never really thought of the word until the spring of 2008 when Judy McDaniel used it in a sermon. She talked about the importance of empathy and respect in community, using a quote from Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird."

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view-- until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”

Immediately after hearing the sermon I looked up the meaning of empathy: "The capability to share and understand another's emotions and feelings. It is often characterized as the ability to 'put oneself into another's shoes.'"

I’ll be honest, when I read that I wasn’t acting the saint, thinking of empathizing with the homeless or with my friends. I just thought how nice it sounded to be able to feel whatever I was honestly feeling and to have people trying to understand or put themselves in my shoes.

Also, I thought about how un-American middle class Christian the word is. Ivan Illich calls it the American myth that denies suffering and eliminates the sense of pain. "We aren’t supposed to feel," so how can we allow others feel? And thus began the journey that brought me to this article.

“How can you enter someone else’s world when you have not entered your own?” asks Peter Scazzero in "The Emotionally Healthy Church."

My first thought is to take apart the stoic or emotionally constipated state of the Western church. We in error define emotional and spiritual health to look like a straight line. Unwavering, unfeeling, sucking it up.

Consider how people react to a death in the family. If someone is in touch with his grief it's said of them, “They aren’t taking it very well.” If someone shows little emotion, you hear, “They are doing well.”

The problem with this line of thought is that it's often a sign of death. Not to mention it's not how Jesus was on earth. A true study of the scriptures shows Jesus not as an "emotionally frozen messiah" (a Scazzero term) but as a Being fully alive in the gamut of emotions. Being made in the image of God means we will feel the whole gamut of emotions because they are of God.

Emotions aren’t to be stuffed or denied but laid out before God and shared with trusted people. God meets us in the honesty of our pain, anger, confusion, disappointment and grief. Denial is just a form of lying. It brings death. 

I walked both aspects out in my 20s. I won’t go into the whole story here but you can read it in the testimony section on this Web site.

During that period of my life, I spent most of my time in denial. Emotions were something to avoid or be wary of. Even though I had lived through some harrowing situations, I acted and told myself that nothing had affected me. But God started making it clear that it had affected me. Even worse, He wanted those parts of me that were so hidden I didn’t even know they existed. But I fought it.

As I began to view my life, past and present, from an honest perspective God met me there. Through it I learned to have a healthy respect for the emotional process. Pain and suffering are a necessary part of sanctification.

The Truth did in fact set me free, not just the truth of Christ’s salvation but the truth of my existence, my limits as merely human in the face of devastation. The truth that the effects of this fallen world, the sin of others and my own had shaped me into a barely adjusted adult.

I have found that God uses me more now than before because of my willingness to go into those depths with Him. When I lived in denial, I wouldn't know what to do when someone approached me with problems, frustrations or heartaches. I would say something pat, or sit wide-eyed, unsure of what to do.

Now it’s a different story. I can look at another’s devastation and allow them that humanity, knowing God can and will meet them there much like He does with me.

In Romans 12:15 Paul writes, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those that weep." This is the epitome of empathy. The rejoicing part is easy most of the time; it’s the weeping that's difficult but also simple. There is no inserting our opinions, our timelines or our need to look at the bright side. For that person in that moment there is no bright side. There is nothing else required of us when someone comes to us with grief.

I am fortunate to have friends that have emotional and spiritual depth. When I've had distress, my friends may not have actually cried with me (some did), but they showed me empathy by creating space for me to grieve. They were physically present with me, praying make sure my physical needs were taken care of and most importantly listening. Author David Augsburger wisely says, "Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.”

Christmas is coming.

For most of us, those three words unleash a mob of varied emotions. Anxiety over to-do lists, travel and finances; the joy of celebrating with friends and family; anger, sorrow or bitterness over the loss of loved ones or broken relationships—there’s a lot we think about and feel this time of year. It can be overwhelming, to say the least.

All of this busyness and complexity tends to obscure the most important aspect of the holiday season: as Christians, we’re on a journey to the birth of Christ. The startling fact is that we’ll arrive at our destination whether our hearts are ready to receive Him or not. 

The Church’s name for this journey is Advent—four weeks of preparation before Christmas that also mark the beginning of the Church’s calendar year. It’s a time of anticipation and watchfulness, simultaneously remembering the miracle of Jesus’ birth and looking forward to His second coming.

Since the 4^th Century, the Church has prepared for its feasts with periods of fasting and prayer, and Christmas is no exception. This is why Advent has been called “the Small Lent” in the west or “the Nativity Fast” in the east (though it lasts longer there). Like Lent in Easter, Christians throughout the centuries have fasted from certain foods and drinks. It’s a time for prayer and service to others.

Why fast during Advent? One writer puts it this way:

“We do not tremble when we think of Christmas, we are not always struck with the wonder of the Nativity. Instead, we buy gifts and plan parties, catching a glimpse of the joy of the Feast, but without a heart immersed in its wonder.” (1)

Fasting helps retrain our focus on the central mystery of our faith: God became man. Think about that for a moment—I mean, really think about it. The One without beginning entered a virgin’s womb, took of her flesh, and was born. He who made the world was held in the hands of His creation. He became what we are, so that we might become like Him and be saved.

Are we bored by this story? Does it lack power in our lives? If I’m honest, I’ve felt that way before. Our culture doesn’t make it easy to focus on Jesus at any time, let alone during the commercialized season Advent has become. But it’s easy to blame others. The responsibility to subvert that tendency belongs to you and me.

The Orthodox writer and radio host Steve Robinson has this to say about our journey to Christ’s birth: Through fasting,

“We are called to see that the Nativity is not only about God's coming down to us, but about our rising up to Him… We abandon those things which bind us, weigh us down and hinder our walk, in order that a focus on God as 'all in all' might become ever more real and central to daily life. This is the purpose of fasting … We voluntarily lay aside anything which holds the slightest power over us that we might bring ourselves to be obedient to God and not our flesh. This is the seed of virtue, to willfully lay aside the passions of the flesh to make clear a path to God.” (2)

Over the last several years at Trinity, I’ve heard countless people marvel at how much more Easter has meant to them because of their Lenten fasting. The same is possible for us as a community by observing the ancient traditions of Advent. What better way to remove the clutter and trappings of our consumer culture from the wonderful mystery of Jesus’ birth—the very foundation of our faith? On Christmas morning, I don’t want it to feel like any other day. And I’m sure you feel the same.

So, in the words of an eastern hymn, Come, O ye faithful, and let us behold where Christ is born. Let us join the Magi, kings from the east, and follow the guiding star.

(1) On the Nativity Fast – The Preparation of the Soul
www.monachos.net/content/liturgics/liturgical-reflections/97-on-the-nativity-fast-the-preparation-of-the-soul

(2) The Nativity Fast
www.ourlifeinchrist.com/Program%20Notes/nativityfast_112104.htm

As Christians, we seem to know that we ought to worship.  Whether we are new to the church or grew up in it, we are pretty aware that “worshipping” is part of the Christian life.  We figure that’s mostly accomplished through singing and praying at church.  But since church occupies a comparatively small amount of time throughout the week, many may wonder if our worship is supposed to go beyond that.  How do we worship outside of church, though?  What does that entail?  Driving around with Trinity’s latest worship album on repeat?

Before exploring what worship looks like in our daily lives, we should consider what worship actually is.  The Bible is full of examples, not just of humans worshipping God, but also angels, animals, plants, and even mountains and stars.  Everything that has been created is capable of worshipping its Creator.  The wide spectrum of creation returns a broad scope of worship to God.  Creation worships God best when it is being what it was made to be; creation worships God by being what is was created to be.  Worship is linked with “created purpose.”  As humans, our specific purpose is to rule over creation wisely, to tend the garden, and to “fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion … over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen 1:28).  

We see man beginning to fulfill that role by naming the animals.  Man named things that God had created.  This wasn’t just a way to tell things apart, but the recognition and, indeed, thanksgiving that this-and-that creature had been created with a special value and a special function within the world.  Nature worships God by being exactly what He made it to be, glorifying Him in its created splendor.  We recognize that God is worthy, not only because of who He is, but for what He has done.  We see this image in Revelation 4, where the creatures praise God with their song, and then mankind declares that God is worthy to receive this praise, for He created and sustains all things.

Just our awareness of this vocation is a good first step toward beginning to live it.  In a sense, it’s natural.  We assign value to things every day.  We “tend our gardens” if not literally, then metaphorically through organizing our houses, cooking meals, writing songs and poetry.  We name our vehicles, our pets, and of course, our children.  Nonetheless, we are a fallen race, imperfect and impure.  Only through our identity in Jesus Christ, the perfect human, can we glorify God through any of these things.  The wonderful weekly gathering for corporate worship can never be replaced by any effort at detached, solo worship.  But, likewise, having gathered to worship on Sunday, we must not fail to offer up our every work as a praise and thanksgiving to God for His work of creation.  Try being intentional – look for things to praise God for, look for ways to be a “wise steward.”  As we grow in our awareness of vocation and our awareness of the worthiness of God, we will live to return thanks and praise to the Creator.  Our whole lives will become worship.

Stephen Brannen is Worship & Arts Pastor at The Advent Church in midtown Atlanta. For more info on The Advent church plant visit their website at: http://www.theadventatlanta.org/