Posts Tagged ‘christmas’
quite human
…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.
No Commentsadvent: holy night
…the Sunrise from on high has visited us, to shine upon we who sit in darkness & the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of wholeness & shalom.
~ Gospel of Luke, Chapter 1
By His example, He inspired us – even commissioned us – to love one another. After all, His law is love and He displayed that by bringing us the gift of wholeness, healing and health (in other words shalom – the fullness of peace).
He also breaks every chain and comes to destroy all our oppression as well as the bondage of our brothers and sisters in every corner of the earth. In fact, the mention of His very name annihilates injustice and invites freedom.
I don’t know about you, but this makes me want to raise my voice and sing a song of gratefulness and thanksgiving. I’ve seen this breaking of chains, this shalom, this love that He brings – and it makes every part of my being respond by ascribing worth to His Divine Name.
Does it make you want to fall down on your knees? Can you hear the angels’ celestial aria? Some distant strain from ancient places? Just at the thought of that sacred night, that blessed and peculiar night, when Christ was born? Can you believe that in all the grime of a stable and a little town called Bethlehem, it was a glorious night? A holy night?
May mercy & grace, peace & love from the very heart of God be multiplied to you this Christmas. And always.
*Inspired by O Holy Night.
No Commentsragamuffin nativity
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.
No Commentsadvent: four
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.
1 Commentadvent: three
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.
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