Tag: sun rising

Awaiting His Arrival: From Trouble to Mystery

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The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30 But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary…”
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.
Luke 1: 28-30, 38

 

…to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –

but who was God.
~Denise Levertov from “The Annunciation”

 

This is the honest grace of her body:
that she is afraid, and in this moment does not
hide her fear.
Until in the cave of her body
she might feel without willing it a tenderness
begin to form. Like the small, ghostly
clover of the meadow; the deer hidden
in the hills. A tenderness like mourning.
The source of love, she thinks, is mourning.
…the child that will soon form
inside her body, this loss by which we come
to bend before the given, its arms that open
unexplained, and take us in.
~Laurie Sheck from “The Annunciation”

 

Still, the secret at her heart burns like
a sun rising. How to hold it in—
that which cannot be contained.

But then, part dazzled, part prescient—
she hugs her body, a pod with a seed
that will split her.
~Luci Shaw from “Mary Consider Her Situation”

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Advent Sings: Be Like the Sun When It Rises

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Mt. Baker at Sunrise
Mt. Baker at Sunrise

So may all your enemies perish, O Lord!
But may they who love you be like the sun
when it rises in its strength.
Judges 5:31 from the Song of Deborah

As Deborah sings in exuberance over her God-led victory, the people of God want to model the strength seen in the rising sun: constancy, resiliency, intensity.  Yet the metaphor of the sun rising is not only about us.  God’s emergence on earth reflects the light of his tender mercies, dispelling the shadows for those living in darkness.  As sung by Zechariah after the birth of his son John who will lead the way for Jesus’ light:

because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Luke 1: 78-79 from the Song of Zechariah

As Deborah’s and Zechariah’s songs point us to the light brought by Jesus into a dark and dismal world, we see the same powerful metaphor emerging as early as Balaam’s prophecy in Numbers and later in Psalms:

I see him, but not now;
I behold him, but not near.
A star will come out of Jacob;
a scepter will rise out of Israel.
Numbers 24:17

For the LORD God is a sun and shield
Psalm 84:11

Most hopeful of all is the following passage from Malachi.   The “tender mercies” of Zechariah and the “healing rays” of Malachi bring us immense comfort and joy in our anticipation of the birth of Jesus and his return for us on the path of peace.  It has been much too long since we felt like frolicking.  Now is the time.

But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.
Malachi 4:2

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