Tag: Advent

An Advent Paradox: The Empty Filled

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The world is filled, and filled with the Absolute. To see this is to be made free.
~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

 

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And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.
Ephesians 1:22-23

 

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My mouth will utter praise of the Lord, of the Lord through whom all things have been made and who has been made amidst all things;
who is the Revealer of His Father, Creator of His Mother;
who is the Son of God from His Father without a mother,
the Son of Man through His mother without a father.

He is as great as the Day of Angels, and as small as a day in the life of men;
He is the Word of God before all ages, and the Word made flesh at the destined time.
Maker of the sun, He is made beneath the sun.

In His Father He abides; from His mother He goes forth.
Creator of heaven and earth, under the heavens He was born upon earth.

Wise beyond all speech, as a speechless child, He is wise.
Filling the whole world, He lies in a manger.
Ruling the stars, He nurses at His mother’s breast.
He is great in the form of God and small in the form of a servant, so much so that His greatness is not diminished by His smallness, nor His smallness concealed by His greatness.
~St. Augustine

 

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How empty was the world before Christ! From Mary’s untouched womb to Joseph’s futile search for a place to sleep in Bethlehem, to the shepherds’ dismal existence on the hillsides, to Simeon’s arms aching to hold the Messiah, to Anna’s long wait in the temple.

In a million ways, seen and unseen, the empty spaces were filled, the hunger sated, the thirst quenched, the rest assured. He joined us so we shall never lack again. He became one with us–all is fulfilled and filled fully.

 

 

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An Advent Paradox: Sent Not on His Own

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newyearsice

 

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me.”
John 8:42

 

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There must have been plenty of moments when He wondered why He was sent.

There were times when He wept,
times when He was frustrated,
times when He must have felt
He would never manage to make the people around Him understand who He was.

Certainly the people of his own home town dismissed him as only the carpenter’s son.  Even His own family didn’t seem to completely understand.

Yet come He did for a people who can be
hopelessly blind to the truth,
deaf to the Word,
stumbling in the dark like the lame,
not thinking clearly like the possessed.

He was sent to dwell among us all,
opening our eyes,
whispering in our ears,
guiding us on the straight path and
exhorting us to clarity and sanity.

There should be no doubt:
He was sent from God our Father.

Be amazed that He came at all and decided to stay.

Only He knows when
the time comes to return.

 

 

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The King shall come when morning dawns
And light triumphant breaks,
When beauty gilds the eastern hill
And life to joy awakes.

Not as of old a little child,
To bear and fight and die,
But crowned with glory like the sun
That lights the morning sky.

Oh, brighter than the rising morn
When Christ, victorious, rose
And left the lonesome place of death
Despite the rage of foes.

Oh, brighter than that glorious morn
Shall dawn upon our race
The day when Christ in splendor comes
And we shall see his face.

The King shall come when morning dawns
And light and beauty brings.
Hail, Christ the Lord!
Your people pray: Come quickly, King of kings!

 

An Advent Paradox: Darkness Overwhelmed By Light

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For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
2 Corinthians 4: 6

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.

Oh what bright wind
did God walk down?
Swaying under the snow,
reeling minutely,
revels the star-moss,
pleased.
~Annie Dillard from “One or Two Things About Christmas”

On this morning after the longest night of the year, I look out the window eagerly seeking a post-solstice reprieve from interminable darkness.  I seek that promise of being led back into the light, even if it will take months to get there.  It is a promise that keeps me going even if I can barely perceive the few minutes of extra daylight today.  It is from the simple knowledge that things are changing, getting lighter and brighter, that I harvest hope.

God made light through His Word, not once but twice.  In the beginning, He created the sun and the moon to penetrate and illuminate the creation of our hearts and our souls.  In the stable He came to light the world from below as well as from above so those hearts and souls could be saved from self-destruction.

I am showered with His light even on the longest night of the year and forever more,  lit from the glory of God reflected in the many faces of Jesus: as newborn, child teacher, working carpenter, healer, itinerant preacher, unjustly condemned, dying and dead, raised and ascended Son of God.

Let the dark days come as they certainly will.  They cannot overwhelm me now,  lit from within no matter how deeply the darkness oppresses.

I know His promise.
I know His face.
He knows I know.

Let Your Light Shine

An Advent Paradox: The Poorest Blossom

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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 from No One Can Stem the Tide

 

 

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In the somber dark
of this blustery near-solstice morning,
when there seems no hope for sun or warmth,
I hunger for comfort, knowing
there is solace only He can bring.

He calls me forth from where I have hidden,
buried face down in the troubles of the world,
hiding amid my quilt and pillows,
fearing the news of the day.

Only God can glue together
what evil shatters.
He just asks us to hand Him
the pieces of our broken hearts.

If I grab hold His offered hand,
I’m lifted –
my emptiness filling–
back into the light,
reaching for a new day
bursting fully
into blossom.

 

 

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One dark night, fired with love’s urgent longings
—ah, the sheer grace!—
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.
In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
—ah, the sheer grace!—
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.
On that glad night, in secret,
for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.
– St. John of the Cross (1542-1592)

 

 

Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground. 
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth. 
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.
~James Agee

An Advent Paradox: Very God of Very God Came Down

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sunrise122016

 

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

 

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[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

 

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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. 
1Timothy 3:16

 

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 first to animals, then 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.

 

 

 

 

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!

 

An Advent Paradox: Not Only Glad Tidings

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Was certainly not winter, scholars say,
When holy habitation broke the chill
Of hearth-felt separation, icy still,
The love of life in man that Christmas day.
Was autumn, rather, if seasons speak true;
When green retreats from sight’s still ling’ring gaze,
And creeping cold numbs sense in sundry ways,
While settling silence speaks of solitude.
Hope happens when conditions are as these; 
Comes finally lock-armed with death and sin,
When deep’ning dark demands its full display.
Then fallen nature driven to her knees
Flames russet, auburn, orange fierce from within,
And brush burns brighter for the growing grey.
~David Baird “Autumn”

 

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We have become so accustomed to the idea of divine love and of God’s coming at Christmas that we no longer feel the shiver of fear that God’s coming should arouse in us. We are indifferent to the message, taking only the pleasant and agreeable out of it and forgetting the serious aspect, that the God of the world draws near to the people of our little earth and lays claim to us. The coming of God is truly not only glad tidings, but first of all frightening news for everyone who has a conscience.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Watch for the Light

 

 

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The shepherds were sore afraid.   Why aren’t we?
The reds and oranges of autumn are fading fast as we descend into winter this week.  Murderous frosts have wilted down all that was flush with life.

The babe has come like a refiner’s fire and we who have gotten too comfortable will feel the heat in the middle of the chill.

Hope happens when conditions are as these…

 

 

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Deep in the cold of winter,
Darkness and silence were eve’rywhere;
Softly and clearly, there came through the stillness a wonderful sound,
A wonderful sound to hear.

All bells in paradise I heard them ring,
Sounding in majesty the news that they bring;
All bells in paradise I heard them ring,
Welcoming our Saviour, born on earth, a heavenly King.
All bells in paradise, I heard them ring,
‘Glory to God on high’ the angel voices sing.

Lost in awe and wonder,
Doubting I asked what this sign may be;
Christ, our Messiah, revealed in a stable,
A marvelous sight, a marvelous sight to see.

Chorus

He comes down in peace,
A child in humility,
The keys to his kingdom belong to the poor;
Before him shall kneel the kings with their treasures,
Gold, incense, and myrrh.

Chorus
~John Rutter “All Bells in Paradise”

An Advent Paradox: He Who Was Rich Became Poor

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decmorn

 

No one can celebrate a genuine Christmas without being truly poor.
The self-sufficient, the proud, those who, because they have everything,
look down on others, those who have no need even of God
– for them there will be no Christmas.

Only the poor, the hungry, those who need someone to come on their behalf, will have that someone. That someone is God, Emmanuel, God-with-us.

Without poverty of spirit there can be no abundance of God.
~ Oscar Romero

 

 

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We overflow with abundance when we acknowledge our poverty of spirit ~
only filled by One rich beyond measure, but who became poor for us.

He became poor so we recognize our true need for Him.
We who are rich in so many material ways still hunger and thirst –
floundering, not flourishing.

For love’s sake He chooses poverty, humility and suffering.
He chooses us and we’re poor no longer.

 

 

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Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love’s sake becomes poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenwards by thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee. 
~Frank Houghton

 

 

An Advent Paradox: Glory in the Darkest Place

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O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
our spirits by thine advent here;
dispel the shadows of the night,
and turn our darkness into light.
~from O Come O Come Emmanuel

 

 

 

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, O Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem star may lead me
To the sight of Him who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

 

 

I leave home in darkness to go to work and come home in darkness in the late afternoon.  It seems for days on end the sun never shines as I’m tucked away with patients in clinic consult rooms hearing their own struggle against the darkness.

Where is the light that I promise to each of them if I can’t feel it myself?

Yet Glory is present in the darkest place and the Light has come.

I will remember His promise.
Even in the darkness I know His face.
He knows I know.

 

 

 

[Verse 1]
Out of the depths of silent night
Immanuel, come hear our cry
Our grief is strong, our burdens great
The night is long and hope is faint

[Verse 2]
You came to set the captives free
A Morning Star of joy and peace
Why does this darkness feel so deep?
Why can’t our weary spirits see?

[Chorus]
Glory, glory
Glory in the darkest place
Glory, glory
Glory, let Your mercy reign

[Verse 3]
Out of the depths of silent night
A Savior born, a mother’s sigh
The darkness trembled at this Star
A beam of hope for troubled hearts

[Verse 4]
You came to make Your blessings known
And bear our curse of death alone
You came to share our suffering
So in our sorrow, we could sing

[Chorus]
Glory, glory
Glory in the darkest place
Glory, glory
Glory, let Your mercy reign
Glory, glory
Glory in the darkest place
Glory, glory
Glory, let Your mercy reign
Brittany Hope

An Advent Paradox: Power Abandoned to Powerlessness

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Was there a moment, known only to God, when all the stars held their breath,
when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second,
and the Word, who had called it all into being,
went with all his love into the womb of a young girl,
and the universe started to breathe again,and the ancient harmonies resumed their song,
and the angels clapped their hands for joy?

Power. Greater power than we can imagine,
abandoned, as the Word knew the powerlessness of the unborn child,
still unformed, taking up almost no space in the great ocean of amniotic fluid,
unseeing, unhearing, unknowing.
Slowly growing, as any human embryo grows, arms and legs and a head, eyes, mouth, nose,
slowly swimming into life until the ocean in the womb is no longer large enough,
and it is time for birth.

Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity,
Christ, the Maker of the universe or perhaps many universes,
willingly and lovingly leaving all that power
and coming to this poor, sin-filled planet to live with us for a few years
to show us what we ought to be and could be.
Christ came to us as Jesus of Nazareth, wholly human and wholly divine,
to show us what it means to be made in God’s image.
~Madeline L’Engle from Bright Evening Star

 

 

 

It’s the season of grace coming out of the void
Where a man is saved by a voice in the distance
It’s the season of possible miracle cures
Where hope is currency and death is not the last unknown
Where time begins to fade
And age is welcome home

It’s the season of eyes meeting over the noise
And holding fast with sharp realization
It’s the season of cold making warmth a divine intervention
You are safe here you know now

Don’t forget
Don’t forget I love
I love
I love you

It’s the season of scars and of wounds in the heart
Of feeling the full weight of our burdens
It’s the season of bowing our heads in the wind
And knowing we are not alone in fear
Not alone in the dark

Don’t forget
Don’t forget I love
I love
I love you
~Vienna Teng “The Atheist Christmas Carol”

 

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There is no longer a void or darkness upon the face of the deep.  The stars need no longer to hold their breath.

There is unfathomed power in the powerlessness of this gift to us.

Grace has come in the face of Jesus the Son, through God the Father who moves among us, His Spirit changing everything, now and always.

Do not be afraid.
You are not alone in the dark
though wounded, though scarred.
You are loved, never forgotten.
Don’t forget.

 

 

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An Advent Paradox: Eternal Yet Not a Day Old

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O child, Creator of all! 
How humbly you lie in the manger.
You who rule powerfully in heaven!

There the heaven of heavens cannot contain you;  here, however, you are held in the narrowest manger.

There, in the beginning of the world, you decorated the earth with green grasses that produced seed, with fruit-bearing trees that produced fruit, you ornamented the heavens with the sun, the moon, and the stars, the sky with winged birds, the waters with fish, you filled the land with reptiles, draft animals, and beasts; here, however, in the end of the world, you are wrapped in swaddling clothes!

O majesty! O lowness!
O sublimity! O humility!
O immense, eternal, and Ancient of Days!
O small, temporal infant whose life is not yet one day upon the earth!

~Adam of Dryburgh from  The Roads from Bethlehem

 

 

 

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.
John Calvin

 

 

 

 

We are blinded to the Glory given to us in a narrow manger if we allow ourselves to perceive it as something routine and commonplace.  There is nothing commonplace about the gifts of Creation or the gift of His Son as Savior.

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated even a blade of grass,  given how focused I am in mowing it into conformity and submission.  Or the fruit of the trees, the birds of the air, the fish of the seas, the beasts of burden who work for us. Too often I’m not up early enough to witness the pink sunrise or I’m too busy to take time to watch the sun paint the sky red as it sets.

I miss opportunities to rejoice innumerable times a day.  It takes only a moment of recognition and appreciation to feel joy, and for that moment time stands still.  Life stretches a little longer when I stop to acknowledge the intention of creation and sending the Son of God to earth as an endless reservoir of rejoicing.

If a blade of grass, if a palette of color, if all this is made for joy, then the coming of Jesus into the world means I was made for joy as well.

Even small temporal commonplace me.