A decade ago I wrote a booklet of Advent meditations and recently I have been being nudged to do some editing and share them again. So, it is my intention to post a short essay/meditation each day. Today's will be longer than the others simply to set up the theme of the meditations which is to me, the p
rayer we say as we recognize and agree to God's creative power entering our lives: 'how can this be?'
So, if you are interested, please enjoy ...and I apologize in advance for today's being a bit long and promise that the others will bemuch shorter.
The Christmas story of the birth of Jesus is one of the most beloved stories the western world has in it's possession, in fact so beloved that we have devised all kinds of celebrations in it's honor. The only problem with a story that has been told for so long and contains so many yearly cultural rituals, is that emotionally and spiritually we 'know' the story. More importantly, culturally we celebrate the end of the story and so, our tendency is to not pay much attention to all the flavor of the story.
The germination of the seed for this story took a very long time to bloom.The people of God had been promised a Messiah and for centuries they sat in circles and in temples telling stories of how their God acted in their lives and tried to find clues to how they might recognize this Messiah when he appeared.
All the waiting, all the imagining of what a Messiah might be and for heaven's sake, they had forgotten that the beginning of the story would be a baby; not a royal baby but an ordinary, everyday, born of regular folk, baby. Regular folk who had not planned on this baby and who had not - according to the story - conceived of this baby in the normal way. And who had certainly not planned their lives to be the ones who birthed, nourished and cared for a baby who would become the Messiah and so, regular folk who were left (I believe) asking themselves, as their lives became the creative chaos of God's love: how can this be?
First person in this narrative of inconvenience is Mary, a young girl probably all of about 14 who had been preparing herself for a life she probably assumed would be like her mother's. Down through the centuries artist have painted pretty pictures of the beginning of Mary's life journey: glorious angel standing next to a beautiful young girl, eyes demurely downcast, hands politely folded as she serenely answers yes to the request to bring God's child into the world.
I have always longed to see a painting of Mary shown after her yes, leaning against a wall, headdress askew, her body limp and a stunned look on her face.
My guess is that although Mary's yes came from her deepest being; the part of her that psalm 139 tells us is the 'inmost self created by God', there was nothing particularly serene about a yes that turned her life into chaos for she was now pregnant, unmarried and faced the task of telling her betrothed, Joseph, that he was about to become a father but uh, by way of God's creative power.
God's creative power is not particularly tidy. If we read the story that unfolds carefully we will discover that each person in the narrative said yes to the creative power of God only to be left looking at the resulting chaos and asking, how can this be?
Poor Joseph is startled to discover his beloved is pregnant and who tells him this news with a crazy story about an angel who asks her to bring God's child into the world. And Joseph struggles with God's creative power that has turned his understanding of how life behaves upside down, and despite his confusion must have offered his how can this be in faith for an answer comes in darkness while he sleeps.
And then there is Elizabeth, Mary's cousin who has been barren all of her life and now, when she is 'past the time of life for conceiving' discovers that she is pregnant. How can this be, she asks and then tells her husband Zechariah her husband who not only asks how can this be, but turns his back on her in anger. According to the story, his angry 'how can this be' causes him to be left mute: his voice is taken away for several months - until he turns and accepts that although he does not understand this movement of God's creative power, he accepts the chaos God's creative power created in faith that recognizes, it is good.
Keep reading this ancient story and you will discover shepherds, inn keepers and wise men who are startled out of their normal lives by the creative power of God leading them to leave what brings them comfort and their sense of place in the world as they say 'yes' to something much bigger than they alone could conceive.
One of my favorite writers wrote the following words which I meditate on each Advent:
This is the season,
where love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been full of reason,
there'd have been no room for the child
How might God be asking you to release your certainties, your comfortable knowings and your expectations of how life is supposed to be in order that new life might be born?
So, if you are interested, please enjoy ...and I apologize in advance for today's being a bit long and promise that the others will bemuch shorter.
The Christmas story of the birth of Jesus is one of the most beloved stories the western world has in it's possession, in fact so beloved that we have devised all kinds of celebrations in it's honor. The only problem with a story that has been told for so long and contains so many yearly cultural rituals, is that emotionally and spiritually we 'know' the story. More importantly, culturally we celebrate the end of the story and so, our tendency is to not pay much attention to all the flavor of the story.
The germination of the seed for this story took a very long time to bloom.The people of God had been promised a Messiah and for centuries they sat in circles and in temples telling stories of how their God acted in their lives and tried to find clues to how they might recognize this Messiah when he appeared.
All the waiting, all the imagining of what a Messiah might be and for heaven's sake, they had forgotten that the beginning of the story would be a baby; not a royal baby but an ordinary, everyday, born of regular folk, baby. Regular folk who had not planned on this baby and who had not - according to the story - conceived of this baby in the normal way. And who had certainly not planned their lives to be the ones who birthed, nourished and cared for a baby who would become the Messiah and so, regular folk who were left (I believe) asking themselves, as their lives became the creative chaos of God's love: how can this be?
First person in this narrative of inconvenience is Mary, a young girl probably all of about 14 who had been preparing herself for a life she probably assumed would be like her mother's. Down through the centuries artist have painted pretty pictures of the beginning of Mary's life journey: glorious angel standing next to a beautiful young girl, eyes demurely downcast, hands politely folded as she serenely answers yes to the request to bring God's child into the world.
I have always longed to see a painting of Mary shown after her yes, leaning against a wall, headdress askew, her body limp and a stunned look on her face.
My guess is that although Mary's yes came from her deepest being; the part of her that psalm 139 tells us is the 'inmost self created by God', there was nothing particularly serene about a yes that turned her life into chaos for she was now pregnant, unmarried and faced the task of telling her betrothed, Joseph, that he was about to become a father but uh, by way of God's creative power.
God's creative power is not particularly tidy. If we read the story that unfolds carefully we will discover that each person in the narrative said yes to the creative power of God only to be left looking at the resulting chaos and asking, how can this be?
Poor Joseph is startled to discover his beloved is pregnant and who tells him this news with a crazy story about an angel who asks her to bring God's child into the world. And Joseph struggles with God's creative power that has turned his understanding of how life behaves upside down, and despite his confusion must have offered his how can this be in faith for an answer comes in darkness while he sleeps.
And then there is Elizabeth, Mary's cousin who has been barren all of her life and now, when she is 'past the time of life for conceiving' discovers that she is pregnant. How can this be, she asks and then tells her husband Zechariah her husband who not only asks how can this be, but turns his back on her in anger. According to the story, his angry 'how can this be' causes him to be left mute: his voice is taken away for several months - until he turns and accepts that although he does not understand this movement of God's creative power, he accepts the chaos God's creative power created in faith that recognizes, it is good.
Keep reading this ancient story and you will discover shepherds, inn keepers and wise men who are startled out of their normal lives by the creative power of God leading them to leave what brings them comfort and their sense of place in the world as they say 'yes' to something much bigger than they alone could conceive.
One of my favorite writers wrote the following words which I meditate on each Advent:
This is the season,
where love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been full of reason,
there'd have been no room for the child
How might God be asking you to release your certainties, your comfortable knowings and your expectations of how life is supposed to be in order that new life might be born?
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