Who is coming to save you?

There's a wonderful moment, at the end of Philip Pullman's novel The Golden Compass, when Lyra, this young child, is standing at the precipice of a new world. Her father has determined a way to break through the time space continuum and opened a portal to another universe. Lyra is standing at the edge, and for a moment, she looks behind her to see if any of the companions who have rescued her thus far are once again coming to save her.

She finds that she is alone: no armoured polar bear, no witches on broomsticks, no hot air balloon. She has only her “daemon” - an animal every person in Lyra's world is born with, a daemon a kind of physical manifestation of the human soul, and, an “alethiometer”: a compass of sorts that Lyra has the ability to read. 

So it is, with her destiny in her own hands, that Lyra steps out into this brave new world.

I wonder, when you are facing a new reality, a change in circumstance, perhaps especially an unwelcome one—a loss of a job or a home, a death or illness in the family—who is it that you look to to save you? And, are there times when you've faced an unwelcome change and found that actually the companions, maybe even the Messiahs who have rescued you in the past, aren't there this time? That this next chapter is one you'll face alone?

I ask this because in our gospel reading today, we find two disciples, James and John, who are coming to terms with exactly this. They've encountered a brave new world, a frightening one, which this strange, unorthodox teacher named Jesus has introduced them to. It's a world where they must speak truth to power and risk their lives doing so. And, as they stand at the precipice of this new realm, they look to Jesus who has rescued them thus far and they say to him, something along the lines of, “So, we'll be on your left and on your right, then, yeah?”

Jesus replies, prophesying his death. He tells them that, no, they won't be on either side as though seated next to a powerful ruler in an armed chariot. Following Jesus’ death and resurrection, they will be very much in the driver's seat, taking the reins into this new reality. 

This reminds me of a revelation I had just yesterday, when Andi and I were called in unexpectedly to deal with a flood at the church. I received a phone call at 4 am on Saturday morning. Truth be told, I'd been awake for hours with jet lag. I'd already baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and made a spaghetti bolognese! Why not, right? 

I picked up the phone and learned from the the caller that our newly installed floor sensor (thanks, Beth!) had set off the alarm, meaning there was enough water coming into the building for it to be an emergency. I was also #4 on the call out list, which meant it really had to be serious if they were calling me! 

I woke Andi and told her about the situation. She got dressed immediately and we drove to the church. We struggled for a while, hauling water with dust pans and whatever we could find. I was keenly aware how little I knew about the drainage—the sanctuary beneath the sanctuary in our beloved church. I was also aware how alone we were without our St Clement’s drainage guild, who had rescued us on more than one occasion in the past! 

Thankfully, I only had to stand on the precipice of this brave new world for a whole three quarts of an hour because Dave and Joanne Graham, saints that they are, picked up my call at last at the respectable hour of 4:45 am. With Joanne's broken ankle taking her out of commission, Dave drove over from Burnaby straight away while Andi went and got us all a coffee from Tim Horton's. 

Needless to say, it was an incredibly humbling experience to stand by with cell phone flashlight and umbrella in hand, while Dave, in his 80th year, climbed down into the drain in an atmospheric river to show us how to replace a sump pump.

It is always a humbling experience to come to terms with the fact that you are the one in the driver's seat of a brave new world, even one as seemingly inconsequential as drainage. What a thing to experience even a fraction of what the disciples must have experienced as they came to terms with the fact that they would be called to drink the cup that Jesus drank, a cup that was shared with outcasts and the marginalized, a cup of suffering.

What does this mean, then, for people of faith who profess to follow Jesus as Messiah, as saviour and Lord? What does it mean when we find ourselves in the driver's seat, no one coming to save us? Does it mean that God has abandoned us? 

That's certainly how it feels sometimes, when the storm waters come literally and metaphorically pouring in. When, as we know from the prayer requests that have been shared in our community as of late, you're holding your child in your hands wondering if they're going to make it through the night, or staring down a cancer diagnosis, or a renoviction, or a reduction in your activities due to a broken bone. 

Today, after church, we'll begin a six-week adult confirmation class at St Clement’s, a kind of Anglican 101 for anyone who's ever wondered what it is really that Anglicans believe. One of the things we'll be looking at is the centrality that Anglicans place on the doctrine of the incarnation: the idea that God rescued humanity by becoming human and dwelling among us in the person of Jesus. 

This is in contrast, perhaps, to some other denominations, some other traditions in the broad tent of the Christian faith, which place more of an emphasis on the crucifixion as the central tenet of the faith, the idea that God rescued humanity by dying for us and taking our place. This isn't to say that Anglicans don't believe in the crucifixion, just a difference in emphasis in terms of which of the many Christian doctrines primarily inform our belief and practice. 

So, if, in the Anglican tradition, it's the incarnation that takes centre stage, this idea that God rescued humanity not first and foremost by taking our place, but by joining our place becoming human and showing us how to live, how might that change how we view these times in our lives when we are facing a dramatic change in our circumstances?

I wonder if it means that, even though Jesus isn't literally coming from the sky on horse and chariot to save us, that God is still with us, perhaps more profoundly so, because our humanity is imbued, shot through with God's humanity, our struggles infused with God's  own incarnation? Perhaps, it means that we stand on the precipice of our brave new worlds, not with armoured bears, or Dave Grahams, or even Jesus himself leading the charge, but with God's Spirit guiding us as we are called to take the driver's seat in these new realities? Perhaps it means that, as we seek to follow a Jesus who didn't try to escape human suffering, that we are seated on either side of Jesus after all?