Sunday - fourth week in Advent

Thirty years ago this moment in the Nativity narrative became deeply poignant for me: suddenly I identified with the story in a new way.  At the time I was very pregnant with my first son and when I heard this part of the story it hit me that when Mary was only a few days away from birthing, she rode on a donkey for ninety-five miles: when I was that close to birthing, sitting on a chair was painful!  The idea of settling my body on a donkey's bony back for that long of a journey was mind-boggling.

Having one's mind boggled has terrific benefits; old certainties scramble and as words and images whir around and settle into a different pattern, a newness awakens.  The new awakening for me was seeing Mary and Joseph in a very human light. What I saw was a very young couple still new in their relationship to one another and learning how to be present; how to understand and respond: how to love within their actions of living.

And, in their actions of living, oh my, the mind-boggling events that had occurred for each of them!  Mary's visitation by an angel and the announcement that not only was she 'with child' but this child was the long awaited Messiah.  Joseph's plans for a normal married life were upended by Mary's news and he also needed an angel to 'boggle' his ideas of how to respond to her.

In Matthew's gospel we are told that after Mary told him of her experience of the angel and was now "being found to be with child by the Holy Spirit" Joseph acted in a very human way. "And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away secretly." Righteousness indicates that Joseph was a good person: morally correct and law abiding which are terrific qualities for living.  However, what we discover in the layers of story was that his old ideas of goodness would need to be altered in order to live the story God had placed within his heart.

Matthew's recounting of Joseph's story continues with: "but when Joseph had considered this, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which has been conceived in her IS of the Holy Spirit ...and Joseph arose from his sleep and did as the angel commanded him." Now, in this story we have two persons awakened to new patterns of perceiving life: both carry in their heart an experience of God's touch by an angel.

When I see the picture above I am aware of their togetherness and their individuality: each had a separate experience of God awakening their heart in a new way and each was asked to trust in faith that their experience would come alive in new birth: their individual stories would slowly entwine into an experience of oneness.

Like we living today, their life unfolded day by day.  We who hear and read their story know it in it's completeness and so it is easy to forget that they also did not know how their living in faith would take shape. Like us, they did not know exactly how the words of their angels would, over time, form into their story of life.

What they did know however was an assurance the angels spoke each time love altered life: Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, Zechariah, shepherds and kings, were each told "do not be afraid."  Personally, I take great comfort and courage from this kindness of God: God's recognition that it is difficult to accept love: we need the assurance of God's personal love in order to receive the fullness of life.

Today we light the fourth candle on the Advent wreath.  This candle is called the candle of love; may you see within the hot flame of Light, the comforting words, 'do not be afraid' to accept the fullness of God's love.