Tag: Jesus

An Advent Threshold: Came Down

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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

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 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

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,
jacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo,
cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum.
Alleluia!

O great mystery and wondrous sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord lying in their Manger!
Blessed is the Virgin
whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!

Still Life by Zurbaran in the Norton-Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA

The composer Morten Lauridsen, is a Washington state native who was born only a few miles from where my mother grew up in the wheat fields of the Palouse, and now lives in retirement in the San Juan Islands.  He wrote about his inspiration, wanting to compose something that honored the words as much as the Still Life painted by Zurbaran (above) honored the Virgin Mary.

In Lauridsen’s own words:

“Zurbarán (1598-1664) is the painter of “Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose.” The objects in this work are symbolic offerings to the Virgin Mary. Her love, purity and chastity are signified by the rose and the cup of water. The lemons are an Easter fruit that, along with the oranges with blossoms, indicate renewed life. The table is a symbolic altar. The objects on it are set off in sharp contrast to the dark, blurred backdrop and radiate with clarity and luminosity against the shadows.

In composing music to these inspirational words about Christ’s birth and the veneration of the Virgin Mary, I sought to impart, as Zurbarán did before me, a transforming spiritual experience within what I call “a quiet song of profound inner joy.” I wanted this piece to resonate immediately and deeply into the core of the listener, to illumine through sound.

The most challenging part of this piece for me was the second line of text having to do with the Virgin Mary. She above all was chosen to bear the Christ child and then she endured the horror and sorrow of his death on the cross. How can her significance and suffering be portrayed musically?

After exploring several paths, I decided to depict this by a single note. On the word “Virgo,” the altos sing a dissonant appoggiatura G-sharp. It’s the only tone in the entire work that is foreign to the main key of D. That note stands out against a consonant backdrop as if a sonic light has suddenly been focused upon it, edifying its meaning. It is the most important note in the piece.

A scholarly essay about Lauridsen’s composition is here.

Another version by a different composer:

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An Advent Threshold: When All the Doors are Opened

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Bethlehem in Germany,
Glitter on the sloping roofs,
Breadcrumbs on the windowsills,
Candles in the Christmas trees,
Hearths with pairs of empty shoes:
Panels of Nativity
Open paper scenes where doors
Open into other scenes,
Some recounted, some foretold.
Blizzard-sprinkled flakes of gold
Gleam from small interiors,
Picture-boxes in the stars
Open up like cupboard doors
In a cabinet Jesus built.

Leaning from the cliff of heaven,
Indicating whom he weeps for,
Joseph lifts his lamp above
The infant like a candle-crown.
Let my fingers touch the silence
Where the infant’s father cries.
Give me entrance to the village
From my childhood where the doorways
Open pictures in the skies.
But when all the doors are open,
No one sees that I’ve returned.
When I cry to be admitted,
No one answers, no one comes.
Clinging to my fingers only
Pain, like glitter bits adhering,
When I touch the shining crumbs.
~Gjertrud Schnackenberg,from “Advent Calendar” from Supernatural Love: Poems 1976-1992. 

He will come like last leaf’s fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to the bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud’s folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
~Rowan Williams “Advent Calendar”

Who has not considered Mary
And who her praise would dim,
But what of humble Joseph
Is there no song for him?

If Joseph had not driven
Straight nails through honest wood
If Joseph had not cherished
His Mary as he should;

If Joseph had not proved him
A sire both kind and wise
Would he have drawn with favor
The Child’s all-probing eyes?

Would Christ have prayed, ‘Our Father’
Or cried that name in death
Unless he first had honored
Joseph of Nazareth ?
~Luci Shaw “Joseph The Carpenter”

The hero of the story this season is the man in the background of each creche, the old master Nativity paintings, and the Advent Calendar doors that open each day.

He is the adoptive father
who does the right thing rather than what he has legal right to do,
who listens to his dreams and believes,
who leads the way over dusty roads to be counted,
who searches valiantly for a suitable place to stay,
who does whatever he can to assist her labor,
who stands tall over a vulnerable mother and infant
while the poor and curious pour out of the hills,
the wise and foreign appear bringing gifts,
who takes his family to safety when the innocents are slaughtered.

He is only a carpenter, not born for heroics,
but strong and obedient,
stepping up when called.

He is a humble man teaching his son a living,
until his son leaves to save the dying.

This man Joseph is the Chosen father,
the best Abba a God could possibly hope for.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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An Advent Threshold: Hushed in the Dark

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What is coming upon the world is the Light of the World.
It is Christ.
That is the comfort of it.
The challenge of it is that it has not come yet.
Only the hope for it has come, only the longing for it.
In the meantime we are in the dark,
and the dark, God knows, is also in us.
We watch and wait for a holiness to heal us and hallow us,
to liberate us from the dark.
Advent is like the hush in a theater just before the curtain rises.
It is like the hazy ring around the winter moon that means the coming of snow which will turn the night to silver.
Soon.
But for the time being, our time, darkness is where we are. 
~Frederick Buechner from The Clown in the Belfry

Darkness is not where we will dwell forever.
We are hushed in fear and hungry for Light.

We are promised this in the Word:
“and night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light…
Revelation 22:5.

Somewhere between the Word in the beginning
and the Word that becomes flesh
and the Word thriving in our hearts and hands,
there is the sacred silent Light of God come to earth.

This Advent becomes a threshold of quiet stillness,
as we stand poised to cross into the Light brought by His Word;
He is a flint struck to our wick in our eagerness to abolish the Darkness with the eternal glow of His illuminating Word.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

Lyrics:

In winter’s house there’s a room
that’s pale and still as mist in a field
while outside in the street every gate’s shut firm,
every face as cold as steel.

In winter’s house there’s a bed
that is spread with frost and feathers,
that gleams in the half-light like rain
in a disused yard or a pearl in a choked-up stream.

In winter’s house there’s a child asleep
in a dream of light that grows out of the dark,
a flame you can hold in your hand
like a flower or a torch on the street. 

In winter’s house there’s a tale that’s told
of a great chandelier in a garden,
of fire that catches and travels for miles,
of all gates and windows wide open.

In winter’s house there’s a flame
being dreamt by a child in the night,
in the small quiet house at the turn in the lane
where the darkness gives way to light.
~Jane Draycott

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An Advent Threshold: A Golden Pin in the Folds of Time

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Beyond the brimming ages Gabriel waits,
his foremost message burning on his breath.
Through time men slide, creeping through the gates
of birth and out again the doors of death.

He sees kings rise and kingdoms fall to dust;
he sees unnumbered souls unfleshed; to some
he gives slight hints, but the full knowledge must
wait, for his best words are not for them.

Then at last, coming from afar
he sees, gleaming like a golden pin
in time’s folds, Mary, rising like a star
above the fretted seas of what had been;

bright hinge on which the gate of Heaven creaks,
to her he turns, inclines himself, and speaks.
~J.C.Sharl “Annunciation”

Be patient and without bitterness,
realizing the least we can do
is make coming into existence
no more difficult for Him
than the earth does for spring when it wants to come.
~Rainier Marie Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet

And in all of this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last light off the black West wind went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “God’s Grandeur”

Kings and kingdoms come and go, reduced to dust over time.

So the Word waited, like the earth waits for spring,
for a golden point of light to overwhelm the dark.

She says “let it be”, not “no, not me, not now.”

Transformed, simply by accepting Him:
a simple, but oh so difficult faith,
like a tender shoot breaking through
the crust of frozen earth
seeking the Sun, needing now to bloom.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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An Advent Threshold: What Are You Seeking? Come and See What is Possible…

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The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” 

The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.
 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, 
“What are you seeking?” 
And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?”  

He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour.

One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.  He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, 
“You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”  Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”  

Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit!”  Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”  Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”  Jesus answered him, “Because I said to you, ‘I saw you under the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”  And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”
John 1:35-51

I never knew what was going on.

He would say, “Let’s go,” and we
would follow. “Follow” was his word.

And we would. Fools we were to let that
take us all that way. Why we did to this day

I don’t know. Look how it ended. Look
what it became. But what did we have

to stay for? Nothing. There wasn’t much
work. Nothing much to do. There were no

stories left. Bread. Fish. So we ended up
with more bread and fish. But we did find

stories and stories. Well, what else is there?
I never did much along the way. Look it up…

I will say, though, that it was his words. Words!

Imagine. Words had never done what his did.
I’d listen, and I wasn’t much of a listener. Then

later I would try to make sense of them. I couldn’t.
But I could feel them. And maybe that was it, how

they got inside you and made you wonder and wrinkle.
They got in my brain’s garden and made it seem like

the roots were above ground and all the flowers and
vegetables, all the nourishing, were now below…

See? See how hard it is to
explain this stuff? You just started seeing everything with a

new mind. You began to be drawn to a whole new world,
and it was a world.

You might say, okay, whatever, and yet those words
did become flesh, my flesh. And my flesh, my body, held

the kingdom of God, and if it’s a place that’s a place
for children, then most of what I know really doesn’t matter.

Labor doesn’t, and money, and reason, and, well, you
go make a list. He’d get me so confused. And then we’d

head off worrying about how we would eat and where
we’d sleep. Our feet were filthy. My God, we were always

filthy. We stank. And then he’d go and point at birds or
stalks of grain, even stop and have us kneel before a flower,

and then he’d smile. That haunts me still. That smile.
And then he died. He brought out hate, not love. He had

a terrifying sense of justice. Nothing he said or did
was impossible. Maybe that was it. It was all possible.
~Jack Ridl from “Bartholomew: Disciple”

What are you seeking? What are you looking for in your life?

Jesus asks the new disciples because He needs to know whether they are expecting a wise rabbi/teacher, or a prophesied Messiah come to change the world, or a mighty king who will liberate them from political oppression.

No matter what our expectation is, Jesus asks that we come to see what he is doing, following him to witness what will happen as he speaks, allowing his words to become our new flesh and skin.

He takes us to the threshold of heaven and throws the gate wide open. Nothing he says or does is impossible.

He shows us what is possible simply by asking us what we hope for.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year or so. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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An Advent Threshold: Midwifing the Word

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It’s when we face for a moment
the worst our kind can do, and shudder to know
the taint in our own selves, that awe
cracks the mind’s shell and enters the heart:
not to a flower, not to a dolphin,
to no innocent form
but to this creature vainly sure
it and no other is god-like, God
(out of compassion for our ugly
failure to evolve) entrusts,
as guest, as brother,
the Word.
~Denise Levertov “The Mystery of the Incarnation”

In the Christmas story, God … takes the risk of incarnation. The flesh God chooses is not that of a warrior but of a vulnerable baby, a claim that brought me tears of wonderment when I was young. But my adult knowledge of that infant’s fate — a fate shared by so many who have devoted their lives to love, truth, and justice — brings tears of anger and grief, along with a primal fear of what might happen if I followed suit.

…I know I’m called to share in the risk of incarnation. Amid the world’s dangers, I’m asked to embody my values and beliefs, my identity and integrity, to allow good words to take flesh in me. Constrained by fear, I often fall short — yet I still aspire to incarnate words of life, however imperfectly.

What good words wait to be born in us, and how can we love one another in ways that midwife their incarnation?
~Parker Palmer from “The Risk of Incarnation”

I, like you, am entrusted to care for the Word in its earthly incarnation: born into impoverished, humble, and homeless circumstances, He has no where to dwell in this world except within me and within you.

And that is no small price for Him to pay, as my human heart can be inhospitable, hardened, cold and cracked.

I, like you, am capable of the worst our kind can do.

So it is up to me to embody the Word in what I say and do, even if it means being rejected just as He was rejected, knowing that is the risk I must take.

For me, it feels as vulnerable as if I were a bare tree standing naked in the chill winter wind. I’m fearful I could break or topple over.
Yet if I’m created to welcome, harbor and spread the incarnated Word, I must reach my roots deep, stand tall and find others who will stand alongside me.

This Advent, Iet us midwife the Word here on earth, delivering it over the threshold from heaven, straight to receptive, warm, and loving hearts.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between heaven and earth

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk


Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life:
Such a Way, as gives us breath:
Such a Truth, as ends all strife:
Such a Life, as killeth death.

Come, My Light, my Feast, my Strength:
Such a Light, as shows a feast:
Such a Feast, as mends in length:
Such a Strength, as makes his guest.

Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart:
Such a Joy, as none can move:
Such a Love, as none can part:
Such a Heart, as joys in love.
~George Herbert “The Call”

1.Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly-minded,
For with blessing in his hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

2.King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth he stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

3.At his feet the six-winged seraph,
Cherubim, with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

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An Advent Threshold: A Wall Becomes a Gate

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What seemed to be the end proved to be the beginning…
Suddenly a wall becomes a gate.
~Henri Nouwen from Gracias! A Letter of Consolation

Heaven in Ordinary~
Because high heaven made itself so low
That I might glimpse it through a stable door,
Or hear it bless me through a hammer blow,
And call me through the voices of the poor,
Unbidden now, its hidden light breaks through
Amidst the clutter of the every day,
Illuminating things I thought I knew,
Whose dark glass brightens, even as I pray.
Then this world’s walls no longer stay my eyes,
A veil is lifted likewise from my heart,
The moment holds me in its strange surprise,
The gates of paradise are drawn apart,
I see his tree, with blossom on its bough,
And nothing can be ordinary now.
~Malcolm Guite from “After Prayer”

As Christians we do not believe in walls,
but that life lies open before us;
that the gate can always be unbarred;
that there is no final abandonment or desertion.
We do not believe that it can ever be “too late.”

We believe that the world is full of doors that can be opened. Between us and others.
Between the people around us.
Between today and tomorrow.
Our own inner person can be unlocked too:
even within our own selves,
there are doors that need to be opened.

If we open them and enter,
we can unlock ourselves, too,
and so await whatever is coming to free us and make us whole.
~ Jörg Zink from “Doors to the Feast”

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
~T.S. Eliot from “Little Gidding” The Four Quartets


We stand on the threshold outside the gate,
incapable of opening it ourselves,
watching as God Himself throws it open wide. 

We can choose to enter this unknown unremembered gate
into the endless length of days,
or we choose to remain on the outside,
lingering in the familiar confines of what we know,
though unless we step through at His invitation,
eventually it will end, and we with it.

There we shall rest and we shall see;
we shall see and we shall love;
we shall love and we shall praise.
Behold what shall be in the end and shall not end.
~Augustine of Hippo

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

TEXT
O salutaris hostia,
Quæ cæli pandis ostium:
Bella premunt hostilia,
Da robur, fer auxilium.
Uni trinoque Domino,
Sit sempiterna gloria,
Qui vitam sine termino,
Nobis donet in patria. Amen.

TRANSLATION
O saving victim,
Who opens the gate of heaven:
Hostile wars press upon us,
Give strength, bring aid.
To the one and triune Lord,
May there be eternal glory,
Who gives us life without end,
In our heavenly homeland. Amen.

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An Advent Threshold: A World Waiting

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Like Mary, we have no way of knowing…
We can ask for courage, however,
and trust that God has not led us into this new land
only to abandon us there.
~Kathleen Norris from God With Us

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
~Denise Levertov from  “Annunciation”

This is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.
~Madeleine L’Engle “After Annunciation” from A Cry Like A Bell

Dawn again and the birds of oblivion sing
of all hungers

Each day I wake
to a pillar of light kindling the room
into being once more

A crease in the rug, someone’s future stumble

The pale melt of bedclothes at my thighs

Mine is not the face of peace but of the found-out

The lamp’s diminutive thorn
of light sharpens at my bedside—
a whole world waiting

Again
for my yes

~Molly Spencer “Invitatory”

The Annunciation by Henry Tanner, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Mary’s response to this overwhelming event is a model for us all when God is leading us over a threshold into the unexpected and unknown.

Even though she is prepared, having studied God’s Word and His promise to His people — she doesn’t understand: “How can this be?”

Articulating it in the song she sings as a response, she gives up her so-carefully-planned-out life to give life to God within her.

Her resilience reverberates through the ages and to each one of us in our own multi-faceted and overwhelming troubles:
May it be to me as you say.

May it be.
Your plans, Your purpose, Your promise – all embodied within me.

Let it be, even if I don’t understand how it can be.

Even if it pierces my soul as with a sword so that I leak out to empty;
you are there to heal the bleeding wound by filling it with infinite light.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

The angel Gabriel from heaven came
His wings as drifted snow his eyes as flame
“All hail” said he “thou lowly maiden
Mary, Most highly favored lady,” Gloria!

“For known a blessed mother thou shalt be,
All generations laud and honor thee,
Thy Son shall be Emanuel, by seers foretold
Most highly favored lady,” Gloria!

Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head
“To me be as it pleaseth God,” she said,
“My soul shall laud and magnify his holy name.”
Most highly favored lady. Gloria!

Of her, Emmanuel, the Christ was born
In Bethlehem, all on a Christmas morn
And Christian folk throughout the world will ever say:
“Most highly favored lady,” Gloria

An Advent Threshold: Come and See the Lamb

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The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said,
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 
This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ 

 I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 

And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 

And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God.”
John 1: 29-34

When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
~William Blake from “The Tyger”

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee:
He is callèd by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild:
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are callèd by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee
~William Blake “Little Lamb”

Agnus Dei from The Collection from Museo Del Prado

He is the Lion and the Lamb.
Despite his high claims, he is never pompous;
you never see him standing on his own dignity.
Despite being absolutely approachable to the weakest and broken,
he is completely fearless before the corrupt and powerful.
He has tenderness without weakness.
Strength without harshness.
Humility without the slightest lack of confidence.
Unhesitating authority with a complete lack of self-absorption. Holiness and unending convictions
without any shortage of approachability.
Power without insensitivity.
~Tim Keller from Encounters with Jesus: Unexpected Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions

John the Baptist is the only one who actually calls Jesus a Lamb to His Face. It seems a curious label to put on the Messiah expected to bring the Kingdom of God to His people with great power, might, and fanfare.
A lamb?
A defenseless helpless lamb?
How could God send a mere lamb?

The label is particularly apt for this Messiah. This mere lamb is marked for slaughter, destined for sacrifice. The Jewish people well understood the age-old directive to find a “year old male lamb without defect”, the perfect lamb, as only that blood would demarcate their Passover rescue in Egypt. 

There would be no mistaking what “Lamb of God” implied to the Jews who knew their Passover history.

But John is even more revolutionary than simply calling Jesus a Lamb of God. He is not talking about a sacrifice meant only for his own people. He is talking about a sacrifice on behalf of the world…
for the Jews, for the Gentiles, for the enemies of the Jews, for the millions of people as yet unborn. His words cannot be clearer, ringing through to the unsettled times and people of today.

The perfect lamb is sacrificed, his blood spilling over the hands of the slaughterers, and washing them clean.

No mere lamb forgives the holder of the knife. 
Only would the Lamb of God.

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year or so. Each week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

My 2025 Advent theme:
On the threshold between day and night

On that day there will be neither sunlight nor cold, frosty darkness. 
It will be a unique day—a day known only to the Lord—
with no distinction between day and night. 
When evening comes, there will be light.
Zechariah 14:6-7

So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.
~Annie Dillard in Teaching a Stone to Talk

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An Advent Threshold: A Fearless Inventory of Darkness

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The people walking in darkness
    have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
    a light has dawned.
~Isaiah 9:2

Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness.

As our Lord Jesus tells us, unless we see the light of God clearly, what we call light is actually darkness: “how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:23).

Advent bids us take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within.

Advent is designed to show that the meaning of Christmas is diminished to the vanishing point if we are not willing to take a fearless inventory of the darkness.
~Fleming Rutledge from Advent- The Once & Future Coming of Jesus Christ

It is this great absence
that is like a presence, that compels
me to address it without hope
of a reply. It is a room I enter

from which someone has just
gone, the vestibule for the arrival
of one who has not yet come. 
I modernise the anachronism

of my language, but he is no more here
than before. Genes and molecules
have no more power to call
him up than the incense of the Hebrews

at their altars. My equations fail
as my words do. What resources have I
other than the emptiness without him of my whole
being, a vacuum he may not abhor?
~R.S. Thomas “The Absence”

There is no light in the incarnation
without witnessing the empty darkness
that precedes His arrival;
His reason for crossing the threshold into our world
is to fill our increasing spiritual void,
our hollow hearts,
our growing deficit of hope and faith.

God abhors a vacuum.

We find our God most when
we keenly feel His absence,
hearing no reply to our prayers,
our faith shaken, not knowing if such
unanswered prayers are heard.

In response, He answers.
He comes to walk beside us.
He comes to be present among us,
to ransom us from our self-captivity
by offering up Himself instead.

He fills the vacuum completely and forever.

In der Christnacht Lyrics and translation below

Dies ist die Nacht, da mir erschienen
des großen Gottes Freundlichkeit!
Das Kind, dem alle Engel dienen
bringt Licht in meine Dunkelheit,
und dieses Welt- und Himmelslicht
weicht hundert-tausend Sonnen nicht!

Lass dich erleuchten, meine Seele,
versäume nicht den Gnadenschein!
Der Glanz in dieser kleinen Höhle
dringt bald in alle Welt hinein,
er treibet weg der Hölle Macht,
der Sünden und des Todes Nacht!

On Christmas Night translation

This is the night on which I saw
the kindness of the Almighty power:
the Child whom all the angels serve
brought light into my darkest hour –
the light of heaven that yields to none:
not even a hundred thousand suns.

Let it illumine thee, my soul,
and shy not from its grace; so bright
the radiance from this cave, it soon
will fill the very earth with light,
will chase the powers of hell away,
and sin, and turn death’s night to day.

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