Days pass when I forget the mystery. Problems insoluble and problems offering their own ignored solutions jostle for my attention… And then once more the quiet mystery is present to me, the throng’s clamor recedes: the mystery that there is anything, anything at all, let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything, rather than void: and that, O Lord, Creator, Hallowed one, You still, hour by hour sustain it. ~Denise Levertov from “Primary Wonder” from Sands of the Well
Here is the mystery, the secret, one might almost say the cunning, of the deep love of God: that it is bound to draw upon itself the hatred and pain and shame and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world, but to draw all those things on to itself is precisely the means chosen from all eternity by the generous, loving God, by which to rid his world of the evils which have resulted from human abuse of God-given freedom. ~N.T. Wright from The Crown and The Fire
Inundated by the inevitable bad news of the world, I must cling to the mystery of His magnetism for my own weaknesses, flaws and bitterness.
I am frozen in the ice of sin, waiting to be thawed.
He willingly pulls evil onto Himself, out of me. Hatred and pain and shame and anger disappear into the vortex of His love and beauty, the mucky corners of my heart vacuumed spotless.
We are let in on a secret: He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives.
Created in His image, sustained and loved, thus a reflection of Him, it is no mystery we are washed forever clean.
photo of Mt. Baker reflected in Wiser Lake by Joel DeWaard
This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…
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After the two days he left for Galilee. (Now Jesus himself had pointed out that a prophet has no honor in his own country.)When he arrived in Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him. They had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, for they also had been there.
Once more he visited Cana in Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum. When this man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.
“Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”
The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
“Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.”
The man took Jesus at his word and departed.While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living.When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, “Yesterday, at one in the afternoon, the fever left him.”
Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he and his whole household believed.
This was the second sign Jesus performed after coming from Judea to Galilee. John 4: 43-54
Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. Hebrews 11:1
Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend.
But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face? You cannot miss that inn.
Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? They will not keep you standing at that door.
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek? Yea, beds for all who come. ~Christina Rossetti “Up-Hill”
This life of ours can be an arduous and often troubled journey.
We might feel like we are never able to reach a point of rest in our uphill climb through obstacles and hazards. It can be so dark we’re not sure we can see the road, much less where we’re headed.
When a royal official makes the 20 hour journey uphill to find Jesus to ask him to heal and save his son, he surely was at a point of desperate need. He is so convinced by the stories of Jesus’ power to heal, he would go wherever needed to make that happen for his dying son.
Yet he discovers Jesus’ power is not just in His hands, but in His words.
Our faith is not just based on what we see with our eyes, but in our trust and belief in Jesus, who is the Word.
When we are faced with that up-hill journey through troubled times, we will not be left stranded, lost and waiting by the roadside. Many have gone on before us, and those faithful are ready and waiting to help walk alongside us and give us encouragement to keep going.
There is a place waiting for wayfarers like us.
Jesus speaks the healing of the son and the royal official takes Him at His Word.
No longer is that official merely politically powerful; he descends back down the road to his home spreading the word to all around him about the far greater power of Jesus.
There is salvation through the Word to those who believe. We all are weary travelers welcomed with open arms as the uphill road points us to the best home of all.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
Lyrics by Lori McKenna:
When the road under your feet is dark and feels wrong And you find yourself lost and all your confidence gone And the stars over your head through the clouds won’t be revealed I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill
When the weight of your troubles send your knees into the dirt And all your loyal distractions only magnify the hurt When lonesome doesn’t quite define how so alone you feel I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill
Hard times and landslides are part of life I know Like they say, none of us get out alive Whatever ocean you’re swimming across However valley low Whatever mountains you climb I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill
Blessed are the times filled with sun, surrounded by your friends Those days when all the new roads wait right where the old roads end And should you wake up to Everest right outside your windowsill I’ll walk with you even if it’s uphill
Hard times and landslides are part of life God knows We all got some mountains to climb Whatever ocean you’re swimming across However valley low I’m right here, I’ve been right here all this time And I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill I’ll walk with you, even if it’s uphill
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The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places. But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater. — J. R. R. Tolkien from The Fellowship of the Ring
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Isaiah 53:3
Shut out suffering, and you see only one side of this strange and fearful thing, the life of man. Christ saw both sides. He could be glad, he could rejoice with them that rejoice; and yet the settled tone of his disposition was a peculiar and subdued sadness.
That gave the calm depth to the character of Christ; he had got the true view of life by acquainting himself with grief. ~Frederick Robertson from a 1846 sermon entitled Typified by the Man of Sorrows, the Human Race
An elderly mother/grandmother apparently kidnapped from her home is yet to be heard from.
And another school shooting takes hold of my heart and breaks it.
Our sorrows fill a chasm so deep and dark that it is a fearsome thing to even peer from the edge. We join the helplessness of countless people in human history who have lived through times which appeared unendurable.
We don’t understand why inexplicable tragedy befalls good and gracious people, taking them when they are not yet finished with their work on earth.
From the unconscionable shootings of innocents, to quakes that topple buildings burying people, to waves that wipe out whole communities sweeping away thousands, to pathogens too swift and devastating for modern medicine —
we are reminded every day: we live on perilous ground and our time here has always been finite.
We don’t have control over the amount of time, but we do have control over how extensively our compassion for others is heard and spread.
There is assurance in knowing we do not weep alone; our Lord is acquainted with grief.
Our grieving is so familiar to a suffering God who too wept at the death of a beloved friend, when He faced a city about to condemn Him to death and He was tasked with enduring the unendurable.
There is comfort in knowing He too peered into the chasm of darkness; He willingly entered its depths to come to our rescue.
His has an incomparable capacity for Light, bringing to the world a Love that lasts an eternity.
Lyrics:
Angels, where you soar Up to God’s own light Take my own lost bird On your hearts tonight; And as grief once more Mounts to heaven and sings Let my love be heard Whispering in your wings ~Alfred Noyes
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I alternate between thinking of the planet as home – dear and familiar stone hearth and garden – and as a hard land of exile in which we are all sojourners. ~Annie Dillard from Teaching a Stone To Talk
We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile. ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Wraiths of mist suddenly moving like serpents of the air would coil about them for a second. Grey damp would be around them, and the sun, a copper penny, would fade away. The wings next to their own wings would shade into vacancy, until each bird was a lonely sound in cold annihilation, a presence after uncertain. And there they would hang in chartless nothing, seemingly without speed or left or right or top or bottom, until as suddenly as ever the copper penny glowed and the serpents writhed. Then, in a moment of time, they would be in the jewelled world once more: a sea under them like turquoise and all the gorgeous palaces of heaven new created, with the dew of Eden not yet dry. ~T.H. White from The Once and Future King
The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing. I will rescue the lame; I will gather the exiles. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they have suffered shame. At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. Zephaniah 3: 17, 19-20
I, like everyone on this earth, am only a sojourner, seemingly settled, yet certainly not lasting. As a garden flourishes in the dew and then dies back, so will I.
This is exile in the wilderness until we are taken back home. He has sent His Son to fetch us.
Home. Really home. A place of no fading or withering.
Each of us etched on His heart, created in His image, held fast in His Hand, and led back home.
Lyrics:
The barren land around me lies My flame is burning low Cold and pale the winter skies And I am far from home. With my light that burns so dim, Am I visible to Him? Does He hear the fragile song of creatures here below?
He wakes the lark and bids her fly To greet the coming spring, Wakes our hearts and bids us rise Then gives our spirits wing. He speaks, and winter melts away, Hears us when we come to pray, Turns our nighttime into day – Our Light, our Life, our King.
Glorious joy of summer sun, The gentle healing rain, Banishing our tears and sighs, With beauty for our pain. Earth and sky, lay glory by- Christ the Lord is drawing nigh! All creation, bow to Him From whom all blessings flow!
Blows the wind, and soon will come The autumn of the year With its golden light of love Still shining ever clear. From the rising of the sun To the place where day is done, Peace on earth has now begun To cast away our fear. -Johanna Anderson, 2018
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Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. John 4:27-30
The woman is isolated and shunned by her community, which is why she comes to the well at noon and not in the cool of the morning or evening with the other women. She sees nothing but problems and barriers at first: the divisions of race and religion, the practical problem of the deep well, of having no buckets — and then the living presence of Jesus changes everything.
We see him through the icon, with one hand on his heart, the other on the water, himself the living connection between the two. Gazing at the icon, we see that the living water is already at the brim of the well. Has his presence drawn it up from the depths, or is it in fact flowing from him into the well, and not the other way round? Certainly, everything is reversed for the woman, and she who had to walk away from her village to find an outer source of refreshment will soon herself be a centre of renewal and be spreading good news in community. ~Malcolm Guite “Poet’s Corner” from Church Times
Some ask the world and are diminished in the receiving of it. You gave me only this small pool that the more I drink from, the more overflows me with sourceless light. ~ R. S. Thomas “Gift” from Experimenting with an Amen
..my heart leaps in wonder. Cold, fresh, deep, I feel the word water spelled in my left palm… opening the doors of the world… ~Denise Levertov from “The Well”
I approach the well with shame, in the heat of the day, not wanting to speak or be spoken to…
Yet this man, waiting there, asks for water asks for my help asks, despite of who I am and what I have done.
Then he offers to me what I could not give him: knowing my life and my shame he opens the door to the rest of my life, having no more thirst.
Could this be?
My heart leaping in wonder, now I must tell everyone I know…
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples),he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”
Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” John 4: 1-26
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, Something more of the depths—and then I lost it. Water came to rebuke the too clear water. One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness? Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something. ~Robert Frost “For Once Then Something”
Recently, we tried having a new well dug on our farm after our well water became discolored and undrinkable after a week of very heavy rains.
It is a very deep decades-old well with a protective casing that was failing. The well diggers tried to hit water in the same aquifer only a few yards from the original well – yet, despite drilling even deeper, the hole remained dry. Our effort at fresh water was futile. Instead, with no other affordable options, we did what we could to repair the original well, hoping to give it new life, along with a robust filtration system so we would have fresh water.
We are a worshiping people who peer into a well hole, expecting it to deliver what we need, when we need it. We end up worshiping our own distorted reflection, rather than what is needed to sustain life. We are lost, only looking deep into the depths of the ground, rather than seeking the depths of spirit and truth.
When we admit our own blindness and need for rescue, we are promised living water to quench our never-ending thirst.
Instead of “for once then something,” we are given “forever, now, salvation.”
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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Do you know why this world is as bad as it is? It is because people think only about their own business, and won’t trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doers to light. My doctrine is this: that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt. ~Anna Sewell from Black Beauty
We live in a time where the groaning need and dividedness of humankind is especially to be felt and recognized. Countless people are subjected to hatred, violence and oppression which go unchecked. The injustice and corruption which exist today are causing many voices to be raised to protest and cry out that something be done. Many men and women are being moved to sacrifice much in the struggle for justice, freedom, and peace. There is a movement afoot in our time, a movement which is growing, awakening.
We must recognize that we as individuals are to blame for every social injustice, every oppression, the downgrading of others and the injury that man does to man, whether personal or on a broader plane.… God must intervene with his spirit and his justice and his truth. The present misery, need, and decay must pass away and the new day of the Son of Man must dawn. This is the advent of God’s coming. ~Dwight Blough from the introduction to When the Time was Fulfilled (1965)
Be careful whom you choose to hate. The small and the vulnerable own a protection great enough, if you could but see it, to melt you into jelly. ~Leif Enger from Peace Like a River
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice that produces beggars needs restructuring. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities… ~Martin Luther King, Jr. from a speech April 4, 1967
As we walk this life, this Jericho Road together, we cannot pass by the brother, the sister, the child who lies dying in the ditch. We must stop and help.
By mere circumstances of our place of birth, it could be you or me there bleeding, beaten, abandoned until Someone, journeying along that road, comes looking for us, He who was sent to take our place, as Substitution so we can get up, be made whole again, and walk Home.
Maranatha.
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction…. The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from Strength to Love
Lyrics: At the edge of Jericho Road Beneath the street light’s yellow orange glow The feared and the fallen go In the way of predator and prey No one’s spared Because hate is too great a weight to bear
In a cage of shadows we meet Naked and bloodied in the street At the mercy, at the feet Of the way of predator and prey No one’s spared Because hate is too great a weight to bear
In the darkness on shattered pavement The better angels fade Blurred in slumber, murder by numbers Do you know my name? Do you know my name? I believe in you
Because everyone holds some part of the truth And now, I’m in your way Do we stay on Jericho Road, forever going nowhere Till hate is too great a weight to bear
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After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside, where he spent some time with them, and baptized. Now John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was plenty of water, and people were coming and being baptized. (This was before John was put in prison.) An argument developed between some of John’s disciples and a certain Jew over the matter of ceremonial washing.They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan—the one you testified about—look, he is baptizing, and everyone is going to him.”
To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete.He must become greater; I must become less.”
The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all.He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony.Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spirit without limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. John 3: 22-36
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me. ~St. Patrick
To come down and wear our skin is for you to know our frailty: our bruises and callouses, our sunburns and warts, our tears and our bleeding, our spasming backs, and toothaches.
To come down to pulse within our hearts, is for you to know our temptation for self-promotion, and our desire to fill our own emptiness before first loving and serving others.
To inhabit our souls you humbled yourself to pull together our millions of broken pieces, feeding us with yourself, your spirit becoming the adhesive to glue us back wholly, God loving us by becoming us, so we don’t simply crumble to dust.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
Humble and Human, willing to bend You are Fashioned of flesh and the fire of life, You are Not too proud to wear our skin To know this weary world we’re in Humble, humble Jesus
Humble in sorrow, You gladly carried Your cross Never refusing Your life to the weakest of us Not too proud to bear our sin To feel this brokenness we’re in Humble, humble Jesus
We bow our knees We must decrease You must increase We lift You high
Humble in greatness, born in the likeness of man Name above all names, holding our world in Your hands Not too proud to dwell with us, to live in us, to die for us Humble, humble Jesus
I arise today through the strength of heaven Light of sun, radiance of moon Splendor of fire, speed of lightning Swiftness of wind, depth of the sea Stability of earth, firmness of rock
I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me God’s eye to look before me God’s wisdom to guide me God’s way to lie before me God’s shield to protect me
From all who shall wish me ill Afar and a-near Alone and in a multitude Against every cruel, merciless power That may oppose my body and soul
Christ with me, Christ before me Christ behind me, Christ in me Christ beneath me, Christ above me Christ on my right, Christ on my left Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down Christ when I arise, Christ to shield me
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me
I arise today. ~St. Patrick’s Breastplate
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For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. John 3:16-21
The issue is now clear. It is between light and darkness and everyone must choose his side. G.K. Chesterton (on his deathbed)
The world hides God from us, or we hide ourselves from God, or for reasons of his own God hides himself from us, but however you account for it, he is often more conspicuous by his absence than by his presence, and his absence is much of what we labor under and are heavy laden by. Just as sacramental theology speaks of a doctrine of the Real Presence, maybe it should speak also of a doctrine of the Real Absence because absence can be sacramental, too, a door left open,a chamber of the heart kept ready and waiting. ~Frederick Buechner from Telling the Truth
…my faith has weathered in a holy way; it’s larger, gentler, especially as I have learned to bear the needs of others, to pour myself out at least a little bit like God does for me. In that offering, I’ve learned a lot about God’s quiet, ever-present nourishment. A larger, patient acceptance has come to me. I haven’t found every answer, I still ‘want’ so much more of God than I have, and yet, I also have learned to live with the holy hunger that is the groaning of God’s Spirit within me as I wait for the full coming of the Kingdom. ~Sarah Clarkson reflecting on Buechner’s quote above
Lord Jesus, You are my righteousness, I am your sin. You took on you what was mine; yet set on me what was yours. You became what you were not, that I might become what I was not. ~Martin Luther
…faith is keeping Christ before our eyes — Christ incarnate, Christ in his ministry, Christ giving his life on the cross for us — beholding in Christ the very heart of God poured out in love. John points to Jesus and says this is what God is like; this is God’s heart for us. ~Pastor Nathan Chambersparaphrasing John Calvin
Choosing to step through the opened door into the light is not like choosing sides on teams in grade school, numbering off one-two-one-two until everyone knows which side they stand on – the weak and the strong thrown together by random chance.
It is not like an explosive election year where choosing sides means aligning with a political candidate with whom I vehemently disagree so as to avoid supporting the even worse opponent.
This is not like a Lincoln-Douglas debate tournament where I might represent one viewpoint for the first round, and then be asked to represent the opposite viewpoint in the second half.
This is a choice of where I would rather be: in the light of God’s love and presence, or hiding from Him in the shadows.
And it isn’t only my choice, but it is being chosen, just as I am, my weakness and sin and darkness taken on by Christ’s enormous love so that I might become what I was not before.
I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.
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Deep midwinter, the dark center of the year, Wake, O earth, awake, Out of the hills a star appears, Here lies the way for pilgrim kings, Three magi on an ancient path, Black hours begin their journeyings.
Their star has risen in our hearts, Empty thrones, abandoning fears, Out on the hills their journey starts, In dazzling darkness God appears. ~Judith Bingham “Epiphany”
It might have been just someone else’s story, Some chosen people get a special king. We leave them to their own peculiar glory, We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing. But when these three arrive they bring us with them, Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours; A steady step that finds an inner rhythm, A pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars. They did not know his name but still they sought him, They came from otherwhere but still they found; In temples they found those who sold and bought him, But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground. Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice. ~Malcolm Guite “Epiphany”
…the scent of frankincense and myrrh arrives on the wind, and I long to breathe deeply, to divine its trail. But I know their uses and cannot bring myself to breathe deeply enough to know whether what comes is the fragrant welcoming of birth or simply covers the stench of death. These hands coming toward me, is it swaddling they carry or shroud? ~Jan Richardson from Night Visions –searching the shadows of Advent and Christmas
Unclench your fists Hold out your hands. Take mine. Let us hold each other. Thus is his Glory Manifest. ~Madeleine L’Engle “Epiphany” from the Weather of the Heart
All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. ~T.S. Eliot from “Journey of the Magi”
The Christmas season is a wrap, put away for another year. However, our hearts are not so easily boxed up and stored as the lights and decorations and ornaments of the season.
Our troubles and concerns go on; our frailty a daily reality. We can be distracted with holidays for a few weeks, but our time here slips away ever more quickly.
The Christmas story is not just about light and birth and joy to the world. It is about how swaddling clothes became a shroud that wrapped Him tight. There is not one without the other.
God came to be with us; Delivered so He could deliver. Planted on and in the earth. Born so He could die in our place To leave the linen strips behind, neatly folded.
Christmas: a dazzling unwrapping of glory to free us from darkness. Epiphany: the Seed of His Spirit takes root in our hearts.
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