God empties himself into the earth like a cloud. God takes the substance, contours of a man, and keeps them, dying, rising, walking, and still walking wherever there is motion. Annie Dillard from “Feast Days” in Tickets for a Prayer Wheel
Soon we will enter the season of Advent, an opportunity to reflect on a God who “takes the substance, contours of a man”, as He “empties himself into the earth like a cloud.”
Like drought-stricken parched ground, we prepare to respond to the drenching of the Spirit through the Son, and be ready to spring up with renewed growth.
He walked among us before His dying and subsequent rising up. He walked among us again, appearing where least expected, sharing a meal, causing our hearts to burn within us, inviting us to touch and know Him.
His invitation remains open-ended, His heart preparing us for our eternal home.
I think of that every time the clouds gather, open up, and empty. He freely falls to earth, soaking us completely, through and through and through.
AI image created for this post
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The house lights go off and the footlights come on. Even the chattiest stop chattering as they wait in darkness for the curtain to rise. In the orchestra pit, the violin bows are poised. The conductor has raised the baton.
In the silence of a midwinter dusk there is far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself. You hold your breath to listen.
You walk up the steps to the front door. The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing, or almost nothing. For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. You are aware of the beating of your heart.
The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.
Advent is the name of that moment.
The Salvation Army Santa Claus clangs his bell. The sidewalks are so crowded you can hardly move. Exhaust fumes are the chief fragrance in the air, and everybody is as bundled up against any sense of what all the fuss is really about as they are bundled up against the windchill factor.
But if you concentrate just for an instant, far off in the deeps of yourself somewhere you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its madness and lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath. ~Frederick Buechner – originally published in Whistling in the Dark and later in Beyond Words
What went up must come down. It isn’t just a law of physics. It is the reality of Christmas.
True, some houses have multicolored lights strung along their gutters year round, just not illuminated. And I’ve known some people’s artificial trees to stay up until Valentine’s Day or longer. But most of us dismantle what we so lovingly strung up, trimmed and decorated only a month or so ago.
It is a sad day taking down Christmas.
As a child I was so reluctant to see the tree come down that I’d cut a sprig of evergreen branch, complete with tinsel, and would put it in a vase of water in my bedroom in order for a small part of Christmas to linger a little longer. By April it would be crispy dry and forgotten and my mother would sneak in and toss it out, without my even missing it.
All the anticipation is spent and our energy wanes. Winter has only begun and now we’re boxing up the twinkling lights and putting away the ribbons and bows. All the fun stuff is tucked away for another year in the garage and attic. Maybe we have the timing of this celebration all wrong. Instead of the Twelve Days of Christmas it should be the Twelve Weeks–the lights should stay up until St. Patrick’s Day at least, just to keep us out of the shadows and doldrums of winter.
Today, as I swept up the last of the fir needles that had dropped to the floor, I knew, like the tree that I watered faithfully in the house for three weeks, I too have been drying up and parts of me left behind for others to sweep up. There had been the excitement of family brought together from all ends of the earth, friends gathering for meals and games, special church services, but now, some quiet time is sorely needed. The party simply can’t be sustained. The lights have to go off, and the eyes have to close.
So we will now walk into a winter replete with the startling splash of orange red that paints the skies in the evenings, the stark and gorgeous snow covered peaks surrounding us during the day, the grace of bald eagles and trumpeter swans flying overhead, the heavenly lights that twinkle every night, the shining globe that circles full above us, and the loving support of the Hand that rocks us to sleep when we need it.
We don’t need full stockings on the hearth, Christmas villages on the side table, or a blinking star on the top of the tree to know the comfort of His care and the astounding beauty of His creation, available for us without batteries, electrical plug ins, or the need of a ladder.
Instead of us pulling down Christmas, Christmas pulls us up from the doldrums, alive to possibility.
Every day. Year round. And we hold our breath, listening and waiting.
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Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, “Come; see the oxen kneel, “In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,” I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. ~Thomas Hardy “The Oxen”
Says a country legend told every year: Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see what the creatures do as that long night tips over. Down on their knees they will go, the fire of an old memory whistling through their minds!
So I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold I creaked back the barn door and peered in. From town the church bells spilled their midnight music, and the beasts listened – yet they lay in their stalls like stone.
Oh the heretics! Not to remember Bethlehem, or the star as bright as a sun, or the child born on a bed of straw! To know only of the dissolving Now!
Still they drowsed on – citizens of the pure, the physical world, they loomed in the dark: powerful of body, peaceful of mind, innocent of history.
Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas! And you are no heretics, but a miracle, immaculate still as when you thundered forth on the morning of creation! As for Bethlehem, that blazing star still sailed the dark, but only looked for me. Caught in its light, listening again to its story, I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me the best it could all night. ~Mary Oliver“Christmas Poem” from Goodness and Light
Growing up on my childhood farm, remembering the magic of Christmas eve night, I bundled myself up to stay warm in our barn, to witness an unbelievable sight.
At midnight we knew the animals knelt down, speaking words we could all understand, to worship a Child born in Bethlehem town, in a barn, long ago in a far away land.
They were there that night, to see and to hear, the blessings that came from the sky. They patiently stood watch at the manger near, in a barn, while shepherds and kings stopped by.
My trips to the barn were always too late, our cows would be chewing, our chickens asleep, our horses breathing softly, cats climbing the gate, in our barn, there was never a neigh, moo or peep.
But I knew they had done it, I just missed it again! They were plainly so calm, well-fed and at peace in the sweet smelling straw, all snug in their pens, in a barn, a mystery, once more, took place.
Even now, I still bundle to go out Christmas eve, in the hope I’ll catch them just once more this time. Though I’m older and grayer, I still firmly believe in the barn, a Birth happened amid cobwebs and grime.
Our horses sigh low as they hear me come near, that tells me the time I hope for is now, they will drop to their knees without any fear in our barn, as worship, all living things bow.
I wonder anew at God’s immense trust for His creatures so sheltered that darkening night – the mystery of why of all places, His Son must begin life in a barn: a welcoming most holy and right. ~ “In the Barn” (written Christmas Eve 1999)
I walk to the barn tonight as I do each year, Counting my blessings, knowing my flaws, Praying for family and friends so dear, And for each precious creature with hooves or paws.
Each horse is content and a witness to peace, And I wish every person could know, Sadness and worry for a moment can cease, While patting noses down a stall row.
For once I see the sky is clear And stars are shining bright The northeast wind is coming near And briskly chills this special night.
For weeks stars hid behind a cloud Of doubt, of fear, of weeping rain, Explosions at once so horrid and loud The whole world instantly felt the pain.
Like stars that glow through blackest dark Good overwhelms bad with barely left trace All owed to a Child who left His mark By giving Himself in infinite grace.
(written Christmas Eve 2001)
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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The angel said there would be no end to his kingdom. So for three hundred days I carried rivers and cedars and mountains. Stars spilled in my belly when he turned. Now I can’t stop touching his hands, the pink pebbles of his knuckles, the soft wrinkle of flesh between his forefinger and thumb. I rub his fingernails as we drift in and out of sleep. They are small and smooth, like almond petals. Forever, I will need nothing but these.
But all night, the visitors crowd around us. I press his palms to my lips in silence. They look down in anticipation, as if they expect him to suddenly spill coins from his hands or raise a gold scepter and turn swine into angels.
Isn’t this wonder enough that yesterday he was inside me, and now he nuzzles next to my heart? That he wraps his hand around my finger and holds on? ~Tania Runyan “Mary” from Nativity Suite
Now, newborn, in wide-eyed wonder he gazes up at his creation. His hand that hurled the world holds tight his mother’s finger. Holy light spills across her face and she weeps silent wondering tears to know she holds the One who has so long held her. ~Joan Rae Mills from “Mary”in the Light Upon Light Anthology by Sara Arthur
Madonna and Child detail by Pompeo Batoni
The grip of the newborn is, in fact, superhuman. It is one of the tests of natural infant reflexes that are checked medically to confirm an intact nervous system in the newborn. A new baby can hold their own weight with the power of their hand hold, and Jesus would have been no different, except in one aspect:
He also held the world in His infant hands.
We have been held from the very Beginning, and have not been let go. Try as we might to wiggle free to go our own way, He keeps a powerful grip on us.
We know the strength of the Lord whose hands “hurled the world” into being.
This is what our good God has done for us… He hangs on tight.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
Good people all, this Christmas time Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved son
With Mary holy we should pray To God with love this Christmas Day In Bethlehem upon that morn There was a blessed Messiah born
Near Bethlehem did shepherds keep Their flocks of lambs and feeding sheep To whom God’s angels did appear Which put the shepherds in great fear’
Prepare and go, ‘ the angels said ‘To Bethlehem, be not afraid For there you’ll find, this happy morn A princely babe, sweet Jesus born
With thankful heart and joyful mind The shepherds went, this babe to find And as God’s angel had foretold They did our saviour Christ behold
Within a manger he was laid And by his side the virgin maid Attending on the Lord of life Who came on earth to end all strife
Good people all, this Christmas time Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved Son
With Mary holy we should pray To God with love this Christmas day In Bethlehem upon that morn There was a blessed Messiah born
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Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God ~Elizabeth Barrett Browning from “Aurora Leigh”
(Jesus said) I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! Luke 12:49
It is difficult to undo our own damage… It is hard to desecrate a grove and change your mind. The very holy mountains are keeping mum. We doused the burning bush and cannot rekindle it; we are lighting matches in vain under every green tree. ~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone to Talk
When I drink in the stars and upward sink into the theater your words have wrought, I touch unfelt immensity and think— like Grandma used to pause in patient thought before an ordinary flower, awed by intricacies hidden in plain view, then say, You didn’t have to do that, God!— Surely a smaller universe would do!
But you have walled us in with open seas unconquerable, wild with distant shores whose raging dawns are but your filigree across our vaulted skies. This art of yours, what Grandma held and I behold, these flames, frame truth which awes us more: You know our names. ~Michael Stalcup “The Shallows”
I need to turn aside and look, to see, as if for the first and last time, the kindled fire that illuminates even the darkest day and never dies away.
We are invited by name, by no less than God Himself, through the burning bush that is never consumed: to shed our shoes, to walk barefoot and vulnerable, and approach the bright and burning dawn, even when it is the darkest midnight, even when it is a babe in a manger lighting a fire in each one of us.
Only then, only then can I say: “Here I am! Consume me!”
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
Within our darkest night, you kindle the fire that never dies away, that never dies away. Within our darkest night, you kindle the fire that never dies away, that never dies away. ~Taize
I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been; Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair. I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see. For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green. I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago and people who will see a world that I shall never know. But all the while I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door. ~J.R.R. Tolkien
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We were familiar with the night. We knew its favourite colours, its sullen silence and its small, disturbing sounds, its unprovoked rages, its savage dreams.
We slept by turns, attentive to the flock. We said little. Night after night, there was little to say. But sometimes one of us, skilled in that way, would pipe a tune of how things were for us.
They say that once, almost before time, the stars with shining voices serenaded the new born world. The night could not contain their boundless praise.
We thought that just a poem — until the night a song of solar glory, unutterable, unearthly, eclipsed the luminaries of the night, as though the world were exorcised of dark and, coming to itself, began again.
Later we returned to the flock. The night was ominously black. The stars were silent as the sheep. Nights pass, year on year. We clutch our meagre cloaks against the cold. Our aging piper’s fumbling fingers play, night after night, an earthly echo of the song that banished dark. It has stayed with us. ~Richard Bauckham “Song of the Shepherds”
There is no specific “song of the shepherds” recorded in scripture. They were unlikely people inspired to use flowery words and memorable turns of phrase. Scripture says simply they looked at each other and agreed to get to Bethlehem as fast as possible and see for themselves what they had been told by God. There was no time to waste singing out praises and thanksgiving; they “went with haste” to a dark and primitive place that served the purpose of housing animals.
It most assuredly was plain and humble, smelling of manure and urine, and animal fur. Yet it also would have smelled of the sweetness of stored forage, and there would have been the reassuring sounds of animals chewing and breathing deeply. It was truly the only place a group of scruffy shepherds could have felt welcomed without being tossed out as unsuitable visitors– they undoubtedly arrived at the threshold in bad need of a bath, smelly, dirty and terrified and yet left transformed, returning to their fields full of praise and wonder, telling all they met what they had seen.
There could not have been a more suitable place for this birth that was to change the world: the promise of cleansing hope and peace in the midst of filth. Despite our sorry state, we are welcomed into the sanctuary of the stable, sown, grown, pruned and harvested to become seed and food for others.
Witnessing an appearance of the heavenly host followed by seeing for themselves the incarnation of the living God in a manger must have been overwhelming to those who otherwise spent much time alone. They must have been simply bubbling over with everything they had heard and been shown, shocking anyone they met. At least scripture does tell us the effect the shepherds’ witnessing words had on others: “and all who heard it wondered…”
I don’t think people wondered if the shepherds were embroidering the story, or had a group hallucination, or were flat out fabricating for reasons of their own. I suspect Mary and Joseph and the townspeople who heard what the shepherds had to say were flabbergasted at the passion and excitement being shared about what had just taken place. Seeing became believing and all could see how completely the shepherds believed by how enthusiastically they shared everything they knew. If the shepherds had become a harvest of hope, then surely so can we.
We know what the shepherds had to say, minimalist conversationalists that they are. So we too should respond with similar wonder at what they have told us all.
And simply believe it was (and is) as wonderful as they say.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
We stood on the hills, Lady, Our day’s work done, Watching the frosted meadows That winter had won.
The evening was calm, Lady, The air so still, Silence more lovely than music Folded the hill.
There was a star, Lady, Shone in the night, Larger than Venus it was And bright, so bright.
Oh, a voice from the sky, Lady, It seemed to us then Telling of God being born In the world of men.
And so we have come, Lady, Our day’s work done, Our love, our hopes, ourselves, We give to your son. ~Bob Chillcott “The Shepherd’s Carol”
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The pines look black in the half- light of dawn. Stillness…
While we slept an inch of new snow simplified the field. Today of all days the sun will shine no more than is strictly necessary.
At the village church last night the boys – shepherds and wisemen – pressed close ot the manger in obedience, wishing only for time to pass; but the girl dressed as Mary trembled as she leaned over the pungent hay, and like the mother of Christ wondered why she had been chosen.
After the pageant, a ruckus of cards, presents, and homemade Christmas sweets. A few of us stayed to clear the bright scraps and ribbons from the pews, and lift the pulpit back in place.
When I opened the hundred-year-old Bible to Luke’s account of the Epiphany black dust from the binding rubbed off on my hands, and on the altar cloth. ~Jane Kenyon “At the Winter Solstice”
Today is the winter solstice. The planet tilts just so to its star, lists and holds circling in a fixed tension between veering and longing, spins helpless, exalted, in and out of that fleet blazing touch…
There is not a guarantee in the world. Oh your needs are guaranteed; your needs are absolutely guaranteed by the most stringent of warranties, in the plainest, truest words: knock; seek; ask. But you must read the fine print. “Not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” That’s the catch.
I think that the dying pray at the last not “please,” but “thank you,” as a guest thanks his host at the door… The universe was not made in jest but in solemn, incomprehensible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably secret, and holy, and fleet. There is nothing to be done about it, but ignore it, or see. ~Annie Dillard “Winter Solstice” from The Abundance
It was a time like this, War & tumult of war, a horror in the air. Hungry yawned the abyss- and yet there came the star and the child most wonderfully there.
It was time like this of fear & lust for power, license & greed and blight- and yet the Prince of bliss came into the darkest hour in quiet & silent light.
And in a time like this how celebrate his birth when all things fall apart? Ah! Wonderful it is with no room on the earth the stable is our heart. ~Madeleine L’Engle “Into the Darkest Hour”
On this winter solstice, my prayer is to remember this day turns the world away from its descent into darkness and back toward the Light.
Even when everything is falling apart, the Light will guide our way into the path of peace.
And may the Word of the Lord spill onto my hands and into the opened stable of my heart.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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He who has come to men dwells where we cannot tell nor sight reveal him, until the hour has struck when the small heart does break with hunger for him;
those who do merit least, those whom no tongue does praise the first to know him, and on the face of the earth the poorest village street blossoming for him. ~Jane Tyson Clement
In the somber dark of a near-solstice morning, when there appears no hope for sun or warmth, I hunger for solace only He can bring.
He calls me forth from my hiding place, buried face down from the troubles of the world, burrowed deep in quilt and pillows, fearing the news of the day.
Only God glues together what evil has shattered. We must hand Him the shards of our broken hearts.
His offered hand bloodied by lifting us from the darkness~ into a growing light, where together we burst
into untimely blossom.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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Down he came from up, and in from out, and here from there. A long leap, an incandescent fall from magnificent to naked, frail, small, through space, between stars, into our chill night air, shrunk, in infant grace, to our damp, cramped earthy place among all the shivering sheep.
And now, after all, there he lies, fast asleep. ~Luci Shaw “Descent” from Accompanied By Angels
The Word became flesh. Ultimate Mystery born with a skull you could crush one-handed. Incarnation. It is not tame. It is not beautiful. It is uninhabitable terror. It is unthinkable darkness riven with unbearable light. Agonized laboring led to it, vast upheavals of intergalactic space, time split apart, a wrenching and tearing of the very sinews of reality itself.
You can only cover your eyes and shudder before it, before this: “God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God… who for us and for our salvation,” as the Nicene Creed puts it, “came down from heaven.”
Came down.
Only then do we dare uncover our eyes and see what we can see. It is the Resurrection and the Life she holds in her arms. It is the bitterness of death he takes at her breast. ~Frederick Buechner from Whistling in the Dark: A Doubter’s Dictionary
He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. 1 Timothy 3:16
[The Incarnation is like] a wave of the sea which, rushing up on the flat beach, runs out, even thinner and more transparent, and does not return to its source but sinks into the sand and disappears. ~Hans Urs von Balthasar from Origen: Spirit and Fire
photo by Nate Gibson
Perhaps it is the mystery of the thing that brings us back, again and again, to read the story of how God came down and disappeared into us.
How can this be? God appearing on earth born among servant animals, then to shepherds, the most humble of humans.
How can He be? Through the will of the Father and the breath of the Spirit, the Son was, and is and yet to be.
O great mystery beyond all understanding.
Nativity by N.C. Wyeth
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum. Ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, iacentem in praesepio: Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum Alleluia
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
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Christmas sets the centre on the edge; The edge of town, the outhouse of the inn, The fringe of empire, far from privilege And power, on the edge and outer spin Of turning worlds, a margin of small stars That edge a galaxy itself light years From some unguessed at cosmic origin. Christmas sets the centre at the edge.
And from this day our world is re-aligned A tiny seed unfolding in the womb Becomes the source from which we all unfold And flower into being. We are healed, The end begins, the tomb becomes a womb, For now in him all things are re-aligned. ~Malcolm Guite “Christmas on the Edge”
When the barn doors opened on a bright frosted Advent morning, the inner darkness was illuminated by a beam of sunlight, exposing an equine escapee.
His stall door stood ajar, the door mysteriously unlatched. He meandered the unlit barn aisle lined with hay bales munching his breakfast, lunch, and dinner all of which lay strewn and ruined at his feet.
Not only did he somehow open his locked door but also chose to leave poop piles on every other horses’ breakfast, lunch, and dinner as they watched helpless from behind their stall doors.
He had the run of the place all night~ obvious from countless hoof prints amid overturned buckets, trampled halters, tangled baling twine, twisted hoses, toppled bales and general chaos.
At least he didn’t reach up and start the tractor or eat the cat food or pry open the grain barrel or chew a saddle or two, or rip horse blankets apart, but from the looks of things – I think he tried.
He nickered as the opened door highlighted his nocturnal escapade, caught red-hoofed and boldly nonchalant, proclaiming his innocence. Like a child asking for milk to go with a stolen cookie, he approached me, begging for a carrot after feasting all night.
I grabbed a fist full of mane, pulled him back to double lock him in. Surveying the mess, I was tempted to turn around, shut the barn doors and banish it back to the cover of darkness, to hide his sins now apparent in the light of day.
Instead, newly realigned in my wait for Christmas, I remember all the messes I’ve made in my life. So I clean his up, give him a hug, and forgive as I’m forgiven.
Advent 2023 theme …because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace. Luke 1: 78-79 from Zechariah’s Song
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