Slouching Toward Clearwater

Anton DeWet

John 1:19-28 & Slouching Toward Bethlehem by William Butler Yeats

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

The great poet, William Yeats, certainly had a way with words.

The desert prophet, John the Baptist, spoke of this so-called “rough beast” — as follows:

“A person you don’t recognize has taken his stand in your midst. He comes after me, but he is not in second place to me. I’m not even worthy to hold his coat for him.”

Cultural narratives, and this includes religious narratives, tend to have a plot that goes something like this; just when it seems that a people/a person/a civilization is threatened with overwhelming hopelessness, a figure emerges from the depths of history to save them from their fate.

Yeats lived in a time of deep pessimism. The world had barely recovered from the shattering experience of the First World War when tensions began building toward the possibility of yet another World War. The world economies lay shattered as the great depression swept across the globe dumping humanity into chaos. And he does what so many poets, philosophers, and religious visionaries have done before. He dreams of a world where a savior, a Messiah, will step out of the shadows of pain and lead us to a place of peace and hope.

Just as John the Baptist dreamed of the day when this One he had been announcing, would step into a new history of God’s presence in this world. A presence that would transform the world and would bring hope to the hopeless.

And Yeats, remembers the birth of Christ and longs for this “rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouch[ing] towards Bethlehem to be born…” he longs for a new Christ-person to be born into his world of chaos.”

In the same way John proclaims Jesus as the ultimate prophet of all times…the one that is much greater than him.

I wish we could simply look at the world through the eyes of a child and see the tinsel and the blinking lights of Christmas. I wish we could still enjoy the innocent joy of Santa…and expect the magic of a sock filled with gifts, to fill our minds with laughter and fun, and block out the rest.

But we don’t live in the world of a Peter Pan do we? We struggle mostly to find our footing in this world which again, appears to be in crisis mode.

We feel the threat of terror every time we take off our shoes at the airport check-in line. We are reminded by the scab of the Twin Towers that all is not rosy. We think of our troops in harms way with deep pain as we imagine the impact of such violence on their minds—and the devastation of their injuries and deaths on the lives of their loved ones.

We wonder whether our financial challenges will ever make way for stability again as we see the debt of our nation skyrocket, and our own financial situations head south.

We cannot imagine how we will ever find an answer to the moral question of providing health care to the citizens of this land.

We doubt the relevance of our votes as we see how big business manipulates our politics and place profit before people.

Some of us find the holidays a time of deep pain as these joyous family time reminds us of loved ones now gone forever. Christmas Eve last year our family received the news of the death of our nephew who was but five years old. This will be a different Christmas Eve for our family. Many of you have told me of the effect of the holidays on your lives.

Do you not also dream and wish for a dear and wonderful “rough beast, its hour come round at last, [to begin its] slouch towards Clearwater to be born?”

Is it not a time when we all crave a word—a vision—a message of hope that can lift us from this place we find ourselves in and raise us above the pain and the uncertainty and the loneliness and sometimes, hopelessness that creeps into our own lives?

Well folks, perhaps it is time for us to reminded again that there is always the promise of Jesus Christ slouching toward not only Clearwater at this time of Christmas, but slouching toward your and my heart and that includes all of our experiences—all of our anxieties—and all of our fears.

Jesus Christ broke into the world as God-in-action, calling us from our lives of uncertainty and pain to a place of light and hope. If we open our spiritual ears we will hear his call coming to us through the ancient stories of our faith. We will see him before us as one who hugs us in the form of a grand-child loving arms—or a spouse, or a partner, or a friend, or a grandmother.

We will hear his voice in the songs of the birds and the notes of the music that stir our souls.

We will know him in the hands of the physician healing our body and the nurse applying the dressing.

We will find his grace and blessing in the meal we enjoy and the glass of wine we twirl around in our hand.

Perhaps what we need most of all this Christmas is not gifts or parties or even a lotto win—although that may be fun, but we need to relearn the art of seeing with our spiritual eyes, recognizing the magnificence of God’s love for us and for this world in the signs around us…to hear the voice of God through the sounds that fill our days…to experience the assurance of God’s presence in the presence of the natural world and all of its creatures.

And yes…we also need to learn to see the light of Christ and the love of God not only in our loved ones…but also in our enemies face, for that is what Jesus taught us. Perhaps when we do we will not hate so easily.

Perhaps we need to learn to see the face of Christ in the face of the homeless person we so easily despise remembering that Jesus said: “in so much as you do it for one of the least among you…you do it for me”

Perhaps when we think of our accumulated IRA’s and Pensions funds as not only ours to use for ourselves—but as a blessing to be shared where we can…will we be able to understand that giving is much healthier than receiving. That sharing is an act of grace that will fill us with joy as opposed to accumulating more and more and always more.

Yeats speaks of a falconer who looses touch with the falcon that has flown in ever widening circles until it has gone too far to hear the call of the falconer.

When our life-choices force us into ever-widening gyres, increasing the distance between us and the Source of all being, we become overwhelmed and lost.

Its time, friends…its time to find the falconer—the Source of our lives again, and for that to happen we need to make the first move. We have the freedom to fly but that freedom could carry us away from the Source.

Its time to search out the child of Bethlehem, not for shallow, sentimental reasons, but because we know we will loose our way if we have not lost it already.

Joseph Stowell writes the following story.[1]

“We were on our annual Christmas trek to Chicago. Each year we brought our family to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma and visit the museums. This year we decided to finish our Christmas shopping at suburban Woodfield Mall. In the midst of all the fun and excitement, one of us noticed that little three-and-a-half- year-old Matthew was gone. Terror immediately struck our hearts. We had heard the horror stories: little children kidnapped in malls, rushed to a rest room, donned in different clothes and altered hairstyle, and then swiftly smuggled out, never to be seen again…We split up, each taking an assigned location. Mine was the parking lot. I’ll never forget that night–kicking through the newly fallen snow, calling out his name at the top of my lungs. I felt like an abject fool, yet my concern for his safety outweighed all other feelings.

Unsuccessful, I trudged back to our meeting point. My wife, Martie, had not found him, nor had my mother. And then my dad appeared, holding little Matthew by the hand. Our hearts leapt for joy.

Interestingly enough, Matthew was  not traumatized. He hadn’t been crying.”

In fact, Matthew was found at a candy store marveling at all the candy. His grandfather said that when he found him, Matthew didn’t look lost. He didn’t even know he was lost.

Perhaps our gravest danger is not knowing that we have lost touch with Jesus. Is it time for us to seek out ways to welcome this child of hope back into our lives this Christmas?

An interesting map is on display in the British Museum in London. It’s an old mariner’s chart, drawn in 1525, outlining the North American coastline and adjacent waters. The cartographer made some intriguing notations on areas of the map that represented regions not yet explored. He wrote: “Here be giants,” “Here be fiery scorpions,” and “Here be dragons.” Eventually, the map came into the possession of Sir John Franklin, a British explorer in the early 1800s. Scratching out the fearful inscriptions, he wrote these words across the map: “Here is God.”[2]

Even as we imagine Jesus Christ to be slouching toward Clearwater this Christmas Season, we know in our heart of hearts, that here in our midst and here in our hearts—“here is God.”

Let us celebrate the true joy of Christmas as we welcome into our troubled hearts the Light of the World. Amen.

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[1] Joseph M. Stowell, Moody Monthly, December, 1989, p. 4.
[2] Unknown