It seems like most things in life are contagious.
Both the good and the bad.
Both swine flu and disrespect are contagious.
Both deep hospitality and the beauty of God are contagious.
What do we catch? What do we inoculate ourselves against?
Will we catch a case of hospitality, of deep respect, of the beauty that is God?
Or are we immune to such things?
The flu season arrives. Will we catch a case of God’s kingdom?
John the Baptist is the one announcing this season of contagious grace.
But here is the thing about grace and redemption and salvation, it is all the same thing as judgment.
The arrival of Jesus into the world, the arrival of the fullness of God’s beauty in the world…it judges us.
The Advent Season and the Christmas Season are about the judgment of God beginning, Jesus is the arrival of judgment, judgment day is dawning, and it is not what we expect.
God’s judgment is contagious.
What we catch is a fruitful life.
Several things happen when we have an encounter with the beauty of God.
We are brought to a stop, we become still and silent.
We are also brought to what Elaine Scarry calls an “abrasive crash”. We are confronted by the creative generosity of God and we see how destructive and petty we are in comparison.
We are then inspired to make beauty, to become creative, to build up rather than tear down. We are exposed to beauty and we are infected and we spread the germ.
And then we are compelled to return again and again to the original and originating beauty of God and the vision of God’s kingdom, to judge, correct and inspire our lives of making our own beauty.
This is God’s judgment, a fruitful life.
It is always a work in progress.
The dawning of God’s judgment arrives in the person of Jesus.
We are confronted by the beauty of that life. We are moved to silence and stillness. Then the abrasive crash. Then the spreading contagion of making beauty. Then the constant return to Jesus to judge, inspire and correct the work of God’s art that is each and every one of our lives.
John warns of us of the wrath that is to come, the spirit and fire, the winnowing fork, the burning chaff, the unquenchable fire, and the fruitful lives.
Prepare to have your breath taken away, Jesus is coming, an epidemic of glory.