What is being born in you?
At the beginning of this Advent, the season leading to Christmas, I sat alone in my living room after everyone else in my family was in bed. In the dark and in silence, I lit the first candle on our Advent wreath. Since I can remember, the way to Christmas each year has been through Advent--the season of preparing and waiting. This year as I lit the candle, I asked God, and I asked myself on God's behalf: "What is being born in me this year?"
If, with the Psalmist, we believe that God puts a new song in our hearts, and that Christmas is God's own incarnation in the world, then the experience of Christmas isn't a simply historical recounting of something that God did long ago, it is also, and perhaps most importantly, what new thing God is doing right now. This Christmas this year is about how God is becoming incarnate in the rag-tag manger of our hearts once again.
I pray that what will be born in my heart this year is Christ's loving compassion for all humanity and for all God's good creation in which we are so blessed to live. I pray that love, the agape love of God might be born into my heart so that I can share that love with my fellow humans and fellow creatures and the whole earth.
We tend to pray for peace in this holiday season year after year and sometimes, especially living in such a beautiful geography among such a wonderful community, I am lured into thinking peace is what comes from a beautiful sunset, or even enjoying company of people of my choosing. The peace of Christ is not like that peace, though. I certainly take personal comfort in those moments and turn to the beauty of nature and to friends and family for my own nourishment. Then I have to remember that Christ's peace is a peace for the whole world.
When an angel tells her she is pregnant with God, Mary sings: "The Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." Mary says, "yes" to being a participant in bringing about God's kingdom, and she bears the Christ into the world. "How," I am asking myself, "might I follow in Mary's path to bear Christ into the world so in need of this sort of mercy she sings of?"
Mary says, "yes" to participating in the work of God's salvation of the entire world. All of God's children are reconciled with God when we say, "Yes, I too will bear the love of God in the world." With Mary we will suffer labor pains; it will not be easy, but this is the enduring peace of God we are invited to, not an easy peace that is a short-term comfort.
This Advent, I pray that God's love may be born first in me, then through me. In small ways among my family and friends I will seek to share God's love. In more challenging ways to those who are very different from me, who are strangers to me, and who I don't understand I will seek to share God's love. In big ways, in praying for those enemies who might even wish to do me harm, I will seek to share God's love. This Advent I prayed to experience Christ's birth anew in my life. I pray that I might see the broken world as God sees it, be moved to compassion, and seek to show God's love in the world. I pray for a transformative experience of Christ's birth.
Originally Published in the South Jetty.
I pray that what will be born in my heart this year is Christ's loving compassion for all humanity and for all God's good creation in which we are so blessed to live. I pray that love, the agape love of God might be born into my heart so that I can share that love with my fellow humans and fellow creatures and the whole earth.
We tend to pray for peace in this holiday season year after year and sometimes, especially living in such a beautiful geography among such a wonderful community, I am lured into thinking peace is what comes from a beautiful sunset, or even enjoying company of people of my choosing. The peace of Christ is not like that peace, though. I certainly take personal comfort in those moments and turn to the beauty of nature and to friends and family for my own nourishment. Then I have to remember that Christ's peace is a peace for the whole world.
When an angel tells her she is pregnant with God, Mary sings: "The Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty." Mary says, "yes" to being a participant in bringing about God's kingdom, and she bears the Christ into the world. "How," I am asking myself, "might I follow in Mary's path to bear Christ into the world so in need of this sort of mercy she sings of?"
Mary says, "yes" to participating in the work of God's salvation of the entire world. All of God's children are reconciled with God when we say, "Yes, I too will bear the love of God in the world." With Mary we will suffer labor pains; it will not be easy, but this is the enduring peace of God we are invited to, not an easy peace that is a short-term comfort.
This Advent, I pray that God's love may be born first in me, then through me. In small ways among my family and friends I will seek to share God's love. In more challenging ways to those who are very different from me, who are strangers to me, and who I don't understand I will seek to share God's love. In big ways, in praying for those enemies who might even wish to do me harm, I will seek to share God's love. This Advent I prayed to experience Christ's birth anew in my life. I pray that I might see the broken world as God sees it, be moved to compassion, and seek to show God's love in the world. I pray for a transformative experience of Christ's birth.
Originally Published in the South Jetty.
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