…the Sunrise from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death…
Gospel of Luke 1:78-79

Blood and water covered a crying baby boy and smeared his momma’s chest as she held him close to her heart in a moment of pure exhilaration. Joseph helped her wrap him in the tunic he wasn’t wearing. The young girl said, “Yeshua, Yeshua,” again and again, her cry of joy echoing in the air as angels tended and sang with her.

Mary held the Messiah tightly as she pushed once more, delivering the placenta that had fed Jesus while he lived inside her as a fetus. She rejoiced in the relief of having brought forth her son, God’s son, in wholeness and health. Then she leaned back in the hay with Jesus, who searched her face. She stared into Jesus’ bright eyes and whispered, “Bless you, Yeshua. Bless you.” He breathed quickly, the way infants do, and moved his head toward her breast to feed, content at hearing the voice he’d learned in the darkness.

Yes, it was a holy night. No doubt about it. Angels. Stars. God with us. The miraculous, glorious scene. But there was also something quite human about the whole thing. About Jesus. About this teenage girl and her betrothed.

Deeply human. Infinitely divine. The mystery and glory of the Christ.

I’ve been having trouble finishing my final advent reflection these past few days. In fact, I’ve been having trouble reflecting on Advent (or anything) these past few weeks. I’ve longed to remember what it means to wait and hope in these darkening days, but my mind is blocked, muddled, and filled almost solely with thoughts of how best to comfort Jude’s nearly round-the-clock teething pain.

Jude’s angst this past month has been sadly reminiscent of his colic days. We thought those days and nights would never end as they lingered long and dark and lonely. In the weeks where crying and white noise were our symphony, we tended to Jude’s wounds, licked our own, and waited.

And we waited.

We never wanted to wish time away. We knew somehow those hours singing “Sweet Baby James” and “Stardust” to Jude were precious in their own messy way. We knew that taking him for long walks, putting him in the bathtub with me, or wearing him in the wrap at 3 a.m. were the stuff memories were made of. We knew the tears and the ache would be redeemed as they bound our little family together in a way it wouldn’t have been had Jude been an “easy” baby.

So we didn’t wish time away. We waited. As painful and devastating as it was, we waited. We cried Jude’s tears with him and then cried our own. We asked questions and doubted and researched and made doctor visits and talked to moms and dads who knew about colic first-hand.

And we waited.

And then, one day, an ordinary Tuesday to be exact, the waiting was over. With a ten-minute chiropractic adjustment, Jude was suddenly and gloriously free. Free from pain. Free from his undying ache. Free to be who he was born to be.

We saw his personality shine through in those post-colic days like never before. I always knew he’d be a spitfire – he was from the moment I first felt him backflipping in my womb. But he proved to have more spunk and fire, humor and tenderness than I’d ever imagined.

He smiled.
He slept.
He urgled and gurgled.
He laughed.
He drank life in with intensity, curiosity and passion.

I think that must be what happens at the end of all waiting. The truest version of a thing finally appears: uncovered, raised up, born. All the broken parts become a whole – and life begins. And, on some ordinary day, Love comes on the scene and brings Grace and Truth in His wings.

Jude was asleep in the car seat as I pulled into the parking lot this morning. In a spot of sunshine, I would wait for him to wake up in time to make it to my stroller-mommy workout.

I listened to him breathing deeply, his fingers gripping a teething ring. As I watched his motionless face, his eyes closed so tight and his mouth open in surrendered slumber, my mind traced a random line back to the final days of my pregnancy.

It was a beautiful, whole and healthy pregnancy that I loved and would do again in a heartbeat. But those last few days of waiting were torture. You see, I had it in my head that Jude would come early (so much for motherly intuition). So when he still hadn’t come by his due date, I was angry, sad and a little worried.

In the waiting days, Jason and I did all sorts of things – some crazy, some sane – to pass the time. We made rosaries and painted model cars. We took walks. We blew up an air mattress and slept in the living room with all the windows open for nearly three weeks. We watched movies and ordered gluten-free pizzas. We did our best to keep our minds off the waiting, but as each day passed without a sign of Jude’s arrival, I couldn’t ignore the growing ache.

I knew I couldn’t be pregnant forever, but as 41 weeks of pregnancy came and went, I began to wonder if I may be the world’s first perpetually pregnant woman.

For me, Advent is something like that. There’s so much promise. So much beauty. So much good just on the horizon. But it can seem to stretch on and on and on as we wait for what’s coming. And we really don’t know exactly what’s coming. We think we know. But we really don’t. And no one can tell us entirely. We just have to wait. And see. And we do all sorts of things – some crazy, some sane – to pass the time.

But there will be a birth. There must be. We – all of us – and creation cannot groan forever.

I sat in our Advent service today, my eyes a bit glazy from the days before. In a week of new sites, sounds and people in Jude’s life, he required more of my care and attention to balance out the increased stimulation. It once again made me keenly aware of his deep dependence on me. Not just for food and shelter, but for compassion and energy, gentleness and peace.

As I held a sleeping Jude next to my heart, I glanced over the hymnal again and again to be sure I was reading the words right. The helpless babe… was what the Christmastime hymn had to say about Jesus.

Helpless.
Jesus.
Really?

I looked down at Jude and thought about how helpless he is. As it stands, he is utterly dependent on the care and kindness of someone else (namely, me) for every necessity. It’s hard to imagine Jesus in the same position as an infant. I mean, think of it – the being who spoke universes and mountains into existence incapable of lifting his head without Mary’s hand behind it.

Seems that Jesus gave more than we sometimes remember. Not just in coming to save his creation, but in entrusting his strong and holy self to the likes of a teenage mother and her betrothed. It says something about Christ. It says something about us, too. That somehow he believes we weak and frail beings are worthy of holding divinity in our hands and tending to his every need.

Jason was taking artsy pictures of our nativity scene a couple days ago as we enjoyed a leisurely Advent morning.

“Look at this one,” he said, holding up the camera’s preview window. “I’m calling it, ‘Wiseman With a Missing Hand.’”

We laughed at the stub on the wooden figure and my smile lingered as I remembered how his hand had recently been broken off. Visions of my brother dancing around the living room, mimicking the dancers in the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, came to mind. And, with one hilarious flourish of my brother’s left arm, the wiseman bringing myrrh was without a right hand.

It’s funny. Every year I’ve had this nativity set, some small piece has broken. Part of Joseph’s staff. The angel’s ‘Hallelujah’ banner. Mary’s foot. I smiled as I thought of the lost pieces and how they fractured; I smiled as I walked away from the ragamuffin nativity pieces.

The memories of the breaking better by far than any pristine presentation.

This, said Joseph to himself, is the one of whom the angel spoke. He dropped to his knees beside the manger. This was the messiah.
~ Jim Bishop, “The Holy Birth”

How humbling for Joseph to kneel before the manger of this son Mary had just birthed, a son he had no part of.

How curious that Joseph should call his earthly son King, Holy, Messiah; to know Jesus from the moment of His birth and know Him as the Son of God.

How liberating for Joseph, aware for the first time as he peered over the well-worn feeding trough, that he was beholding the One who would forgive his sin and redeem his soul.

For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay.
~ Book of Habakkuk, Chapter Two & Verse Three

I am angry. Just plain angry. Fired up. Frustrated. With my unfinished self. With rude people. With the mad, mad, mad world.

And I’m weary. Weary. Beaten. Breathless. With worry. With the fight for justice. With battles that appear un-win-able.

I’m sad, too. Sad. Broken. Gut-wrenched. At the oppression in my soul. In beloved ones. In a harsh and inhumane humanity.

It seems the opposite of what I should feel this Christmasy time of year. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, after all. But I think I will embrace the reminder of crushed spirits, smoldering wicks, our great and wild need, and my fatal cut. I need to hold my breath in for a moment, hold my breath with the whole of creation, with universes, galaxies, suns, oceans, mountains, birds, trees and man.

Hold my breath. Because that is what we, all of us – stars, turtles and fetuses – are doing whether we know it or not. And we’re holding our hopeless breath for Him, for the completion of what He brought with His birth: the hope of an appointed time when all weakness and failing, striving and death will be fully redeemed.

But, for now, we are in a room where we wait – sometimes angry, weary and sad – knowing that this is the moment before the extraordinary thing will come to pass. And, as Buechner says it, the name of that moment is Advent.

“. . . He was a fugitive & a wayfarer upon this earthen ball.”
- Gene Edwards, The Birth

Lest we feel alone, misunderstood, rejected, forsaken, let us remember – however we can – that infinite perfection was born into a finite and broken world. Perfect and despised. Unwelcome amidst the ruins He came to rebuild. Hated by those He came to love.

And, in our remembering, may we know something of His presence, His acceptance, His favor, & His love.

My song is love, love unknown. And I’ve got to get that message home.
“The Message,” Coldplay

Could we grasp the sort of love the Father, Son and Spirit enjoy…

Could we know that mysterious depth of love shared only between the infinite Beings who created all things known and unknown…

Could we utter the unutterable word of love the Holy Three-in-One sings in Their divine dance of intimacy…

Could we somehow glimpse these unsearchable reaches then we would know, without doubt, that the Father’s gift to us in the advent of His Son was the greatest message of love that angel or man has ever received.

We would know that we, in all our desperation and depravity, are the beloved.