Sunday, November 30, 2008

Mary, from Miriam (bitterness)

First Day of Advent

Luke 1:38 "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said."

“I am the Lord’s servant.” What else could I say? Like Ruth, Deborah, Esther, I just am. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. But I really had no idea.

Sounds crazy, but when my mother realized I was pregnant I thought they’d all believe me. But I didn’t get a chance to say much. Mama was embarrassed and Daddy was furious. They assumed that it was Joseph, and when he denied it they thought that he was lying. They hoped, at least, that he was lying. What else could they hope?

They sent me to stay with relatives for a while. It’s what they do with all the girls when this happens. And Joseph started making plans to call off the marriage. That’s what they do when they’re not the father. Sometimes even when they are.

When I arrived at Aunt Elizabeth’s I was pretty nervous, but I got a huge surprise. She ran to me and hugged me and said she thought it was all just wonderful. She said her baby was jumping inside of her for joy, and that I was blessed, and my baby was even more special than hers. And she thanked me for coming, like I was doing her a favour.

It was then I found out about Uncle Zechariah’s illness. He couldn’t talk, but he wrote down for me about the angel who had come to him, and how he thought he’d be okay when the baby came. And by the time I left for home I had lots to think about. And things were better too. Joseph had had a dream and had asked my parents if we could just go ahead with everything. They took it as a confession, but he said he didn’t care what people thought. Amazing!

We had a little family celebration, people talked, and when it was about time Joseph and I went away to have our baby on our own. This is how we do things when babies come this way, and no one really wants to be involved.

And it actually worked out fine. Joseph had to go to Bethlehem for the census, and I just went along. The town was crowded with visitors and we couldn’t find any place to stay, so we had our first born in the corner of a little animal shelter. And his first little bed was a manger of all things. It wasn’t the way I wanted to have my first baby, but it wasn’t really so bad. It was actually a warm spring night, not in December as you imagine. We were okay.

Some shepherds dropped by to see us and it was all pretty awkward for everyone. It’s bad enough having a baby in a stable, without people you don’t even know showing up. They asked the usual questions; “When was he born?” “Couple hours ago.” “What ya gonna call him?” “Jesus.” And they told everyone that angels had sent them. People thought they were crazy. They thought they were crazy. But, by then, I was getting kinda used to angels. They were turning up everywhere. So I just added this to the list of strange things that were happening. So much to think about.

Over the years my life has been amazing. Sometimes everything was so normal I’d almost forget that there was anything different about Jesus. And then something would happen and it would start all over again. Sometimes he'd say dark things about the end that was coming, but I could never think that way. And, even after all these years, I still can hardly bear to think about it. O, to see your little boy like that.

Over the years they’ve called me lots of things: Blessed Virgin, Queen of Heaven, Mother of God. I know they mean well, but I like Servant of the Lord. It’s all I’ve ever been, and all I’ve ever really wanted to be. And if he asked me to do it all again, what would I say? “I am the Lord’s servant.” What else could I say? Like Ruth, Deborah, Esther, I just am.

Luke 1:1 – 2:20

Artwork - The Annunciation - Henry Ossawa Tanner 1898

Monday, November 24, 2008

What Can We Do in Twenty-Five Days?

Isaiah 40:3

A voice of one calling:

"In the desert prepare the way for the LORD;

make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.

The season of Advent is a season of preparation. It includes the four Sundays prior to Christmas so it’s about four weeks long, but it varies in length from year to year. If Christmas day is a Sunday, for example, Advent lasts a full four weeks, ending on Saturday, Christmas Eve. But if Christmas Day falls on a Monday, Advent’s only three weeks long, ending on the fourth Sunday but having no fourth week. This year Advent begins on November 30th and lasts twenty-five days.

Just twenty-five days to:

  • complete our Christmas shopping,
  • decorate the house and do the baking,
  • plan the parties or prepare for the trip back home,
  • get exams and papers out of the way,
  • lose more weight than can possibly be lost in a 25 day period filled with Christmas parties.

No wonder so many of us will wake up on December 26th to discover that Christmas passed us by again and left us feeling empty and alone. But it isn’t Christmas, it's we who have passed by.

So, beginning on Sunday, November 30th, plan to take a few minutes each day to reflect with me. I’ll post a meditation on an element of Christmas – usually a biblical character, sometimes not – together with a text. The postings will vary in length (probably somewhere between a little too long and a little too short), but I hope each one will open up the story a little for you, or suggest something you hadn’t seen before.

Just twenty-five days:

  • to gather up our gratitudes and tie them with a bow,
  • to sow the things we hope to reap, and reap the things we sow,
  • and tell someone we’re sorry, or let an old hurt go,
  • or tell a friend we love her, or one we barely know,
  • and find the rushing torrent, and plunge beneath the flow of the love poured out on Bethlehem that day so long ago.

The biblical Christmas story is found in the first three chapters of Matthew and Luke.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Celebration at the Heart of Everything

John 3:17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

I expect most of us are aware these days that we don’t really know the birth date of Jesus, so there is, at best, only a 1 in 365 chance that he was born on December 25th. And actually the odds are even longer than that because the scant information we do have, shepherds out in the hills with their flocks and Rome requiring people to travel for a census, make a winter date most unlikely. So what are we to make of this Christmas thing?

Well, frankly, Christians have often found, not just the timing but Christmas itself problematic. The Puritans, for example, upon discovering that Christmas was not observed in Jesus’ day, or by the early church, promptly decided it must be a sinful, and probably Roman Catholic encroachment upon true biblical faith. So, when they came to power in Scotland, they actually passed laws against it, making it a crime to celebrate the birth of Jesus, or perhaps a misdemeanor. These laws remained in effect for a century or so, and contributed a good deal to the general impression that the Puritans were a little too serious for their own good. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are also too serious, have thrown their lot in with the Puritans on this one, as have a number of other Christian sects. But God is good and, in the post Puritan world, these folks have never been in charge anywhere outside their own homes. So the rest of us have been left to revel in our iniquity.

As you’ve probably surmised, I am a fan of Christmas. I love it all: the lights and trees, the gifts, shepherds, magi and all the rest. I love the carols and winter songs, turkey, plum pudding, candy canes, eggnog, snow, Santa, reindeer, wreaths, mistletoe, ivy, candles, worship services, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, even the Grinch. Which is to say, the following might just be excuses for what I want to do anyway. So, if you’re one of those people who believes that Christmas is merely a pagan feast with a pinch of Jesus added, you just might want to bail on me till January. But if you’re looking for someone who’s figured out how to have it all and Jesus too, you’ve come to the right place. So, get out the nut cracker, here’s my theory in a nutshell.

- The first century Jews didn’t celebrate birthdays so, of course, Jesus never celebrated his birthday, and the earliest church didn’t think to celebrate it either.

- When the gospel got to Europe, however, Christ began to gather up people who did. They each had a birthday, their parents had birthdays, the lord of the manner had a birthday, the king had a birthday.

- So it was pretty well impossible for these folks to go along celebrating all these birthdays and ignore the one who they had come to consider the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

- And they also had a feast called Yuletide, which coincided with one called Saturnalia that the Romans had. These feasts took place toward the end of December because about this time the sun began to make its way back north bringing light and warmth and spring and summer and pretty much all the things that make life good and livable.

- So these new Christians began to celebrate the coming of Jesus, who they believed was the real bringer of all these things, instead of the coming of the sun which was very nice of course, but only a ball of fire in the sky provided by the God who loved them and whose birthday they thought should matter.

- Tree decorating, log burning, ivy, mistletoe, etc., were part of the original feasts and they just came along with these new Christians.

What I am suggesting is that those who claim that Christians have just gathered up a pagan feast and baptized it are on to something, but they haven’t got it quite right. It’s not the Christians who gathered anything up and baptized it, it’s Christ. And it’s not the pagan feast, but the pagans who got gathered up and baptized. Christmas is just the sort of thing that happens when Jesus lets the riffraff in.

I love Christmas because the riffraff in question are my ancestors, and Jesus loved them just as he loves you and me. He gathered them up, with their birthdays and Yule logs and all the rest, just like he gathers everyone. He loved the idea of Yuletide and Saturnalia, like he loves Chinese gongs, African drums, and rock ‘n’ role. In fact, I actually think we get these ideas from him.

You see, he has been preparing all of us forever, encouraging us to be thankful and to celebrate the gift of life. He’s been drawing all of us toward the centre, and all our celebrations are anticipations of the celebration that’s at the heart of everything. And that celebration is Yuletide, but not really; it’s Saturnalia, but not quite; it’s birthdays, gongs and drums and rock ‘n’ roll, but not actually; it’s Christmas, but not precisely. The celebration at the heart of everything is Jesus.