When Mattering is the Message

It's an embarrassing admission – one that feels almost shameful to make. The truth of the matter is that I fell asleep watching It's a Wonderful Life. I could chalk it up to fatigue, though that hardly seems justification. I could point to my week-and-a-half-long cold and all the medicine I've been on, but that sounds whiney and petulant. The truth of the matter has more to do with confidence. I didn't doubt for a moment that George Bailey's life was significant, and I had every confidence that despite his momentary business reversals he would come to see it, too. Sure, some of that confidence stems from countless viewings of the movie prior to last night. I've been watching Jimmie Stewart play this memorable role almost as long as I have been watching Bing Crosby play Bob Wallace in White Christmas. For decades I've watched Clarence, the loveable angel, interrupt George's suicide attempt and lead him through an examination of what the world would be like had George never existed. In my own playful way I have tried to imagine the same with regard to me – what if I had never been born? I know how the movie comes out. In that sense I didn't need to stay awake through the closing credits.

But I also like to think that confidence of a deeper sort gave me unspoken permission to close my eyes.

This is, after all, the advent season. This is the season of confident expectation for what God is doing in our midst and already making plain. This is the season, not merely for getting ready for Christmas, but for sharpening the senses for all that God intends and is determinedly bringing about. This is the season for tracing the lines of God's affirmation and new creation and recognizing the patterns for myself. This, in other words, is the season for seeing all of life through God's own eyes and pronouncing God's ultimate estimation: "very, very good."

Which isn't to deny the problems that exist – the gap between "is" and "ought to be" – but it is to be re-grounded in the faith that the brokenness of creation is not the final word. George's life mattered – was "wonderful" – alright, but I didn't need to watch the end of the movie to comprehend that truth. It's advent, after all – when the "mattering" of men and women, no matter how ordinary, is the loudest message of all.