From Advent to Christmas and beyond

This little Christmas baby came to BE the light of this world.

That means he came to change the world, and that is dangerous work.

His life would lead him not only among the hungry and the heavyhearted,

not only among the prostitutes and the prisoners,

not only among the sick and the suffering,

but also among the powerful and the proud,

among the victimizers and the crucifiers.                                                      -Ann Weems

The road he would walk leads from Bethlehem to Jerusalem,

from the cradle to the cross.

 For if there is no cross in the manger,

there is no Christmas.

If the Babe doesn’t become the Adult,

there is no Bethlehem star.

...

If we cannot go now even unto Golgotha,

there is no Christmas in us.

If Christmas is not now,

if Christ is not born into the everyday present,

then what is all the noise about?

Many people wonder indeed: what is all the noise about?

In our Advent darkness, waiting for another coming,                      

we wonder how much difference the first coming made:

For the truth is that                                                                                     

children are murdered

young girls are raped          

disease and starvation and deadly political conflicts and terrorism sweep the globe 

peoples are devastated by floods and earthquakes

parents divorce

close friends die of cancer.

Where is the Joy to the world?                                              -Jim Long

Joy can’t be layered over the top of moral corruption.

It can’t ignore justice, greed, hate.

Nor can joy forget famine, floods, fire, opioids.

Joy is not emotional raingear, like a vinyl parka.

You can’t slip joy over the shoulders

of a starving child and watch

as his hunger miraculously subsides.

Joy does not gloss political wrongs.

It doesn’t stand by bubbling bliss

as one country oppresses another

or terrorists plot mass destruction.

Joy just will not pass over the

twisted moral condition of our bizarre world.                                  

So what about joy?                                                                            

Did joy come to the world long ago,

even when the Christmas cradle gave way to Calvary’s cross?

Yes, because after that Black Friday, the quiet change began:

Life erupted out of death.

Lives were changed.

And out of the life and love of Jesus,

hope was born.

Christmas comes every time we see God in other persons.

The human and the holy meet in Bethlehem

            or in Times Square…

  Even now it comes

  in the face of hatred and warring—

            no atrocity too terrible to stop it,

            no Herod strong enough,

            no curse shocking enough,

            no disaster shattering enough.

                                                                                                                 

Into the impenetrable darkness of our night, the Child is born.                   

The Morning Star appears.

The people who walked in darkness             

see a great light.

For, as we read in Isaiah:

he was sent to preach good news to the poor,

to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives,

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

… to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for those who grieve…

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair.  .- Isaiah 61

The Christ who came among us, said

“Follow me.”

“Follow me” where hunger is real

   and misery

   and hate-filled faces.

And confrontation.

And injustice.

To his followers, the essence of Christmas is hope.

In this Advent season, and on this Advent Sunday,

we seek for that hope to be born in us anew.

Hope which tenaciously clings to the hearts of the faithful

and announces in the face

of any Herod the world can produce

and all the inn doors slammed in our faces

and all the dark nights of our souls

that with God all things are possible,   

that even now, in 2018

“unto us a Child is born!”                  -Weems

A Christmas Prayer

           

Lord, 2000 years ago you came from far beyond anything we know:

a place of dazzling glory, eternal joy, and perfect peace.

You came to all the things we know too well:

in human flesh that can hurt and bleed and die,

a land of subjugation, strife, and dirty politics,

Bethlehem where there was no room for you,

to rustic shepherds and to learned folk,

to two exhausted and bewildered people in a cattle shed,

a place not fit for human habitation, least of all Immanuel’s birth.

You came to all of us, battered and stained by sin, longing for shalom.

When you came, angels sang and a special star lit up the sky.

When you left, a few believers saw you rise beyond the clouds,

beyond anything we know, where God welcomed his beloved Son.

And those who saw and who believed went into all the world

to tell the story of your birth, your life, your death, and this:

the power of your resurrection, for our eternal bliss.

But that story has not changed the world you came to save.

The city of your birth is now the bloody center of the clash

between the ancient foes of Palestinians and Jews.

Above the children’s voices singing “Joy to the World”

we hear the gunshots and the anguished cry

of those who hold the dying in their arms.

To such a world you came, and come,

as the Good Shepherd, looking for sheep that stray and lose their way;

the Prince of Peace, who would have wars to cease

and men of every race embrace, not kill each other;

the Lamb of God to take our sin away and pay

for us the penalty of death.

Oh Lord, come to Bethlehem Ephrata,

and let us go with you to all the places in this fallen world

where there’s injustice, hunger, and abject poverty,

where hope’s been lost and innocence is dead--

there through us may your light of love and mercy shine.

Advent: the road to Bethlehem and beyond

Mary was much in need of Joseph’s love and care.

She would need that love to keep her steadfast, for there came, when least advisable, the jarring journey to Bethlehem, when birth was imminent.                

It took faith and the courage of faith to take God seriously.

It did for Abraham.  It did for Moses.  It did for Jonah.  It did for Daniel.  It did for Joseph.

And it did for Mary.

She needed God to hold her hand, and Joseph too.  

In Bethlehem, she waits while over there he knocks.  -Calvin Miller

Again refused !  ...

“There’s nowhere else to go tonight,”

he said.  She fought the burning in her eyes—

...He took her in his arms and that embrace

dissolved the desperation that they faced.

“I paid the stable rent,” he said with shame.

“Your son will come tonight,” she said.

Her son did come that night.

At the end of that taxing journey from Nazareth, Mary’s son, the Son of God,

when the time had come, was born in a barn and laid in a manger.

“God, cribb’d, cabined, and confined within the contours of a human infant. 

The infinite defined by the finite. 

The Creator of all life thirsty and abandoned.”          -L’Engle

           

When Mary held her first-born son,

she wondered and pondered in her heart,

there was so much she didn’t know...

And what about Joseph,

this God-chosen man, this man who was faithful

in spite of the gossip in Nazareth,

in spite of the danger from Herod.

This man Joseph, who listened to angels...

What was he thinking as he looked down on this Little One?

           

“Back in Nazareth I’ll make a proper bed for you...        -Ron Klug   Joseph’s Lullaby

of seasoned wood, smooth, strong, well-pegged.

A bed fit for a carpenter’s son.

Just wait till we get back to Nazareth.

I’ll teach you everything I know.

You’ll learn to choose the cedar wood, eucalyptus, and fir.

You’ll learn to use the drawshave, ax, and saw.

Your arms will grow strong, your hands rough—like these.

You will bear the pungent smell of new wood

and wear shavings and sawdust in your hair.

You’ll be a man whose whole life centers

on hammer and nails and wood.

But for now,

sleep, little Jesus, sleep.”

...a man whose life centers on hammer and nails and wood...

Yes, for in that manger is a cross.

Joy came to the world, but it was silenced

through a crude carpentry project on a barren hillside.

And in our honest moments we wonder how

joy and world find their way into the same sentence,

when so much in our world is wracked by evil.

We too need God to hold our hand as we ponder the mystery of the incarnation:

the Word made flesh, because God so loved the world.

And we wonder:

What kind of God is this?  What kind of love is this?

The Advent Journey: Joseph

What about Joseph?                                                              

That mystery man of whom the Bible tells us so little.        

Matthew’s family tree account does not list him as the father of anybody; he is simply referred to as “the husband of Mary.”

Mary pregnant while betrothed to Joseph, but Joseph was not the father.

It fills us with wonder:

Jesus as part of the human history of this world,

but he encounters us as One from the great beyond of God.

Talk about the faith and courage that Mary needed;

Joseph needed it no less.

Listen:

Once I was just a young man                                                 

who loved a lady.

I cherished a young man’s

quiet fantasies

of her unwavering adoration.

Her body bowed,

clothed in her best blue homespun,

trembles now before me

tears tumble down onto her wringing hands

as she wrenches out the words

                        “I am with child.”

My face burns with a fire;

dreams shatter loudly

like brittle crystal

in my mind.

The explanation

the annunciation—

Oh God, how can I believe?

The cruel realization

of the agony of obedience

crushes my heart.

I will be forever                                                                                 

a marked man

both blamed and mocked,

for the child

I’ve been given to love

is not my son.                                     -Joan Rae Mills  “Joseph” 

Matthew says Joseph “was minded to drop her quietly.” 

But then the angel came and explained what he needed to know.   

And the angel spoke and made an effort

with the man who clenched his fists

and murmured, “What has changed her so?”

But at that the angel cried Carpenter,

dost thou not yet see that the Lord God is acting?                           

Because thou makest boards, in thy pride,

wouldst thou really call him to account

who modestly out of the same wood

makes leaves burgeon and buds swell?

He understood.  And as he now raised his eyes

very frightened, the angel

was gone.  Joseph pushed his heavy

cap slowly off. 

Then he sang praise.     Rainer Maria Rilke, “Joseph’s Suspicion       

                                    ”

What a thrill it must’ve been for Mary to finally have Joseph’s acceptance, the assurance of his love, the comfort of his care.

            It was from Joseph first I learned                                          

            Of love.  Like me he was dismayed.

            How easily he could have turned

            Me from his house; but unafraid,

            He put me not away from him. ...

            Thus through his love was Love obeyed.

            ...

            With Joseph I was always warmed

            And cherished. Even in the stable

            I knew that I would not be harmed.

            And, though, above the angels swarmed,

            Man’s love it was that made me able

            To bear God’s Love, wild, formidable,

            To bear God’s Will, through me performed. [Madeleine L’Engle]

Mary and The Annunciation

The moment was on her unaware:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

the Angel in the room, the impossible demand,

the response without reflection.  Only one

word of curiosity, echoing Zechariah’s How?

yet innocently voiced, without request for proof.

The teen head tilted in light, the hand

trembling a little at the throat, the candid

eyes, wide with acquiescence to shame and glory—

“Be it unto me as you have said.”                  Luci Shaw  “Announcement”             

“How will this be, since I’m a virgin,” the young girl asked.                        

The angel’s answer:

            “...the power of the Most High

            will overshadow you...” (Luke 1:35)

But didn’t it seem too much to ask

of one small virgin

that she should stake shame

against the will of God?

All she had to hold to, later,

were those soft, inward

flutterings

and the remembered surprise

of a brief encounter—spirit

with flesh.

Who would think it

 more than a dream wish?

An implausible, laughable

defense.                                               Luci Shaw “Too Much to Ask”                    

            Alone again, the chosen one kneels trembling,                                

shaken to silence, stunned by blazing light,

...mesmerized by that unfolded plan, those words...

...weeks spread into months,                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

...questions festered into doubts...

Faces turned away when she stepped into rooms

or slipped into the synagogue alone on her side

across the room from Joseph....

Her parents too turned away,

not believing the unbelievable. 

What could she say?

What should she do? 

Where should she escape?                 Marie Post “Mary”                                    

Luke writes:    “At that time Mary … hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zacharia’s home and greeted Elizabeth.” (Luke 1:39-40)

She shared her feelings with Elizabeth                                 

who recognized her coming as a sign…

… Excitement filled their talk

As though each babe was calling to the other.

High dreams of Israel’s hope burst into song:

the joy, the mission granted to a mother.

Children to be prepared for great events

that those who bore them might not comprehend.

How much it meant to share the faith, the fear,

the anticipation with a trusted friend.                        Thomas John Carlisle, Beginning with Mary

                                               

If Mary had sung her song of songs

with our accustomed un-magnificence

and dearth of urgency,

all the commitment/all the charm

and all the challenge/and anticipation

would have been completely dissipated.

O sing anew/anew/anew                                                        

the simple song/which magnifies/rejoices

dares to vision/the fall of kings,

the exaltation/of the small

unviolent/ trusting and faith-full

servants/ of the spectacularly creative God.             Thomas John Carlisle

Death of an "ordinary" man

Death of an  “ordinary” man

I went to a memorial service last night.
It was a reminder that we often learn to know one too late.

And that’s a great sadness.

Reinder Prins came from Friesland to this country when he was 19.
There had been limited chance for an education.

But he took with him a curious intellect and a fine capacity for learning.

And a great love for his Fryslân and its ancient language.

He went to work in his new country, got drafted, sent to Korea, and reached the rank of corporal.  He was a good soldier; love for his adopted country grew.

And also for his sweetheart.
They married, after military service, and for 55 years shared life together.

Until death did them part.

Reinder and a brother, in time, built a business together.

The brick and stone-laying company did well, for their work was first-rate.

But life was not all business.

A growing family generated its own priority busy-ness.

And so did church, for the Lord’s work had first place in Reinder’s heart.

But his heart was large.

There was room for the deep roots of a Gardener’s passion.

He knew when to plant, how to grow, until the garden’s abundance could feed the family and be shared with friends.

But the flower garden became his specialty and love.
Ever hungry for greater expertise, he earned the title of Advanced Master Gardener through the Michigan State University extension program.

Eager to share his knowledge and his skills, he reached out to local gardening groups.

His prize-winning dahlias led him to help establish a Dahlia Society.

His love for neighbor led him to the ministry of Horticultural Therapy for released prisoners.

His reward?  Their growing sense of confidence and dignity; and their love and respect.

Much of this I had not known.

I knew Reinder only from our “Frisian lunch group.”

Though he was man of few words, I discovered that he was an avid reader.

He was a thoughtful man, calm and deliberate in speech and manner.

I learned that his emigrating family and mine had sailed on the same ship, the Veendam, in 1948, though we did not meet then.

What impressed me most were the facile use of his native tongue, and the rich store of knowledge he had accumulated about his beloved Friesland.

But there had been so much more to know.

Not long ago, this large strong man who had never been sick was laid low.

Attacked by an aggressive lymphoma, he declined rapidly.

But though his voice was nearly silenced near the end, his mind never faltered.

He knew and could bless his family as they gathered around his bed.

He could whisper of his love for them and his love for Jesus.

He was at peace, ready to meet his Savior.

Last night, in the church he had been a part of for so many years, now packed to capacity, I watched and listened as his friends and family testified.

.

I began to see a man I had not known.

A man who had fed on the writings of theologians and historians.

A man whose integrity and gentle spirit had blessed many.

A man who had been a leader in his church, active in nearly every aspect of its ministry.

A man whose delightful writing had often entertained his readers.

A man respected for his wisdom.

But especially a man whose faith, devotion, and love for the Lord had deeply touched those closest to him.

The gratitude for the life of this man and deep love shone on the faces of his children and others who spoke of him.

It was profoundly affecting.

In his death, Reinder blessed me, as I should have been in his life.

An “ordinary” man?

Is anyone “ordinary”?

It’s a great sadness when we think so.

The mystery and wonder of Advent

Advent begins in the dark, says Fleming Rutledge.

The authentically hopeful Christmas spirit does not look away from the darkness, as you will note later in the presentation, but straight into it. The true and victorious Christmas spirit does not look away from death, but directly at it. Otherwise, the message is cheap and false. - Fleming Rutledge, "Advent Begins in the Dark,"

                                                                                                         

“The season of Advent reminds us that there is something on the horizon, something holy, the likes of which we have not seen before.

It’s possible to miss it, and then to realize what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God’s back fade in the distance.

So in the Advent season, we need to stay put, to linger in the darkness, to ponder, to watch, to wonder, to wait for the light.”  [Jan L Richardson, Night Visions: Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas]

To wait, and ponder, and wonder.

 That’s what we’ll do this morning.

As John Bell put it in Westminster Collection of Christian Prayers:

You, the God of all time, Want us to wait/ For the right time in which to discover/Who we are, where we are to go,/Who will be with us, and what we must do./…

“He came down from heaven,” the creeds and hymns tell us.

It’s a journey that begins in mystery.

A Presbyterian pastor once tried to catch something of that mystery in a parable.

It goes like this:                                                         

Once upon a time, when the pain of mankind had become unbearable and the human cry could be heard all the way to the throne of God, before the presence of God a congregation of the heavenly host gathered to plead with God on behalf of the pilgrims still on earth.

They met to elect representatives on earth who had suffered most, who out of the pain they had endured could most eloquently communicate to God the terrible human dilemma and need on earth.

        “We want someone,” they said, “who can explain to God what it is to be despised and hated. 

We want someone who can describe for God what it is to be starved, beaten, tortured, robbed, maligned and killed. 

We want someone who can explain to God the loneliness of a person when he is rejected by his fellow humans.”

And so they chose a Jew….

But they decided that they also needed someone to explain to God how hard it is for human beings to do the right thing, and how easily they slip into sin.  So they chose, to accompany the Jew, a convict, a prostitute, a liar, and an unfaithful husband.

As the committee moved off toward the throne of God, a little child spoke up.

        “I am too young to argue with God,” the child said, “but I have a question for him.  Ask God if He’s ever been a child himself.”

So they took the child along too.

When they arrived at the throne, God listened to them patiently, and asked a question of his own:

        “What would you have me do?”

They held council together and agreed that God should become a man if only for a season.  And the little child said,

         “Then first he must be a child.  Let him know our dependence on others.  Let him know how it feels not to belong.”

Another member of the committee spoke up and insisted that God must be “a real man” and not just a divine being in human disguise.

         “He’s not to put on his heavenly robe when he gets tired or sick, or hurt…let him be thrown in with shady people and seedy publicans and super patriots.  Let him know human injustice.”

Then someone else shouted for attention.  It was not enough, he said, for God to live as others lived.  If he was truly to partake of the human condition, God must learn what it is like to die.

After the committee had departed, God weighed the demands carefully.

And then one day, he appeared on earth, under exactly the conditions that had been prescribed for him.  [Rev. Herbert Meza, First Presb. Church, Texas City, TX]     

It was a journey that began in mystery.

The mystery of heaven, where God saw how desperately the world needed him.

And he loved the world.

But that love had to be embodied.                                                              

God had to be embodied, or else we people with bodies would never in a million years understand about love.  (Jane Vonnegut Yarmolinsky in “Angels Without Wings”)

But it fills us with wonder, that the Power of all Creation would stoop so low as to become one of us.

With wonder, that God’s love is so immense that he wanted to come down,

to come down and touch our ground, and touch our flesh.  -Madeleine L’Engle (A Stone for a Pillow)

Launching

To launch--a universe, with constellations, planets, life, people.
At the launching pad, a Creator?  Or Nothing? 
From inanimate to animate by Mystery?  Or Science?
Eons later, still trying to figure it out.

To launch--a baby, a new-born life with heart beating, blood circulating, limbs moving.
At the launching pad, parents.
Everyone, watching in wonder.

To launch--a poem, with a dance of the imagination and the strong beat of a feeling heart.
At the launching pad, a truth-seeker, a language lover, a burden-bearer.
A few, observing, pondering, responding.

To launch--a world, a life, a poem, a story, a ship, anything.
Purpose-driven, with unknown destinations.
With unknown consequence.

To launch a book--one with much thought, hard questions, and currents of gratitude:
Talking with God...
At the launching pad, a God-seeker.
Holding to the light on Thanksgiving Day before family and friends
a volume of prayers and reflections and meditations.
Purpose-driven, with unknown destinations.
Its consequence known only to God.