Hey all,
So there are a few things I want to say here at the end of
the semester: some is simply reiterating things I have already said; some is
somewhat new. I usually try to write individual letters to students but that
proved impossible this semester. I promise to be more individualized in the
spring.
First of all, I want to tell each of you how much I enjoyed
this semester. I love teaching juniors because you guys have reached this stage
where you are becoming more emotionally and intellectually mature. Teaching
freshmen is garbage. This is the prime year of high school, I think. I have
enjoyed your willingness to talk, discuss, philosophize. I have enjoyed the
honesty with which you have approached our time together, the honesty with
which you wrote in the faith poetry unit. I appreciate the clarity of thought I
have seen developing over the semester. And I look forward very much to our
time together in the spring. We know each other a bit better now and we will be
able to build on that going forward.
Second, I want you to know how much I deeply care for you
all in every respect of your life: intellectual, spiritual, emotional. I want
each of you to know Christ and to seek him and savor him in your life. From
what I have seen, that is the surest path to fulfillment in all three of those
arenas of life. And I fully know and gladly acknowledge that for some of you
that is not a reality or a possibility. I hope you don’t feel like I am ever
too forceful in the way I talk about faith in the classroom; mostly I try to
confine what I say to that which is overflowing out of my life. I don’t try to
manufacture spiritual feeling or emotion for the benefit of the class. In other
words, I try to be real with you guys. I hope that is the way it is perceived
by each of you. I hope you trust, too, that I want this school to become a
better place—a place that meets your spiritual needs (or at least attempts to
do so) and answers the burning questions you have about life. I hope to do this
more explicitly with some of our class time in the spring. But I want you to
know that despite its problems I do love this school. I am happy to be here and
happy, too, that each of you is here.
Third, I want to one more time encourage you (especially if
you are a Christian) to geek out about the Christmas season upon us. Stare at a
baby (in a non-creepy way) and contemplate God becoming man; find your way into
a barn and smell the smells and imagine that
is the place God decided to be born; go check out the crew waiting for work
outside of a Home Depot or collecting your trash and imagine that the
equivalent cohort is whom God first declared his presence in the world to (the
shepherds). Sing songs, drink egg-nog (un-spiked, of course), eat sugar cookies
cut into Christmas trees and angels and candy canes. Write a letter to someone
you love. One thing I have been thinking a lot about this advent is Christ’s
promise to return again, about the fact that I will one day see Christ face to
face. It blows my mind (and I don’t understand it at all), but it is the future
that I believe in, the end of the cosmos that is actually a beginning. The
Bible tells us that when Christ comes back he will wipe away every tear from
every eye and make all things broken, degraded, and destroyed brand new. And
because of Christ’s first coming—the advent, Christmas—we can look forward to
this second coming because we know now that we can be made right with God.
There is a song I wanted to play for you all, but I lost
track of time and we never got to it. I will print the words below.
O Holy Night
O Holy Night, the
stars are brightly shining
It is the night of our
dear Savior’s birth;
Long lay the world in
sin and error pining,
Till he appeared and
the soul felts its worth
A thrill of hope the
weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a
new and glorious morn
Fall on your knees, O
hear the angels’ voices
O night divine, O
night when Christ was born
O night divine, O
night, O night divine
Truly he taught us to
love one another
His law is love and
his gospel is peace
Chains shall he break
for the slave is our brother
And in his name all
oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in
grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us
praise his holy name
Christ is the Lord! O
praise his name forever!
His power and glory
evermore proclaim
I love the whole song, but the second verse is what sticks
out to me, because for most of my life the reality of Christianity has diverged
from what this verse promises: that in Christ the chains with which we bind
each other and ourselves have been broken by Christ and because of his triumph
all oppression—all evil, malice, judgment, deceit—will end. Forever. I long for
that day. Long for it with me, friends.
Have a great Christmas.
Cheers,
Coffman
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