4th Sunday of Advent: Earthen Vessels

Matthew 1: 18-24

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’ When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,

When we wait and watch for the coming of the Lord, we probably have this image of Jesus traveling from somewhere else in order to arrive in our lives and our circumstances. This image isn’t an easy one to dispel when our waiting and watching seems to be fruitless in the moment and when there is no sense of his presence at all. The natural conclusion is that he is not here yet; he is coming. He has not yet arrived on the scene to display his blessing and his love. We wait like an anxious lover in a train station watching the arrival of every train, hoping that the next train will be the one that the Beloved arrives on.

Mary shows us a different way of waiting. She, too, had to wait for the coming of the Savior but she wasn’t watching the far horizons and mountains as she waited for the voice of her beloved. She knew the Savior was within her. The name ‘Christopher means ‘Christ bearer’ and Mary was the first of all Christ bearers. The Lord was with her and within her but she still had to wait for his ultimate appearance. When the angel announced to Mary that the Holy Spirit would overshadow her and she would conceive a son, Mary entered into the mystical and contemplative journey of waiting and watching.

Scripture says, “Mary held all these things in her heart and pondered them.” For her, the coming of Jesus in all his fullness was a lifetime journey where she was called, as a mother, to let go of her natural expectations in order to allow the coming of the Savior to be manifested within God’s timing. From the moment of conception Jesus was present with Mary, yet she had to wait and watch for the manifestations of that presence. A pregnant woman is not completely aware of every stage of development of the child within the womb, especially at the beginning. She is waits and watches. She watches for clues and signs of the presence within. She waits for arrival, yet the child is always there.

This is our waiting and watching. He is not coming from afar. He is here. We cannot depend on our senses and understanding to tell us that. We can only wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior. Joseph was also called to enter into the contemplative journey of trusting in the Word of God and believing that it was 'God With Us' who was indeed developing in Mary’s womb. Our journeys are very parallel to the journeys of Mary and Joseph as they trusted and waited.

The psalm this week gives a great picture of the kind of waiting we enter into:

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world and those who live in it;

You are the earth. Everything within you is God’s. You pray all the time for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. “Be it done to me according to your will,” prayed Mary. “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God.”

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place?

The hill of the Lord and his holy place is within each of us. Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”  It is not in some faraway place or time. It is as near to you as the womb was to Mary.

Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false,

It’s not hard to bring to mind definitions of clean hands and pure hearts or the false things we all lift our souls to but please include in that definition the way we lift our eyes and souls to what we fear will happen in the future and the things we regret or are angry about from the past. To remain in the present moment is to enter very much into a purity of heart – a letting go of all that has gone before and that which is yet to come. Focusing on and obsessing about past injuries and future problems is truly lifting the soul to what is false. It is an exercise of the heart to lift it up to what is true: Emmanuel or God With Us right now. 

They will receive blessing from the Lord, and vindication from the God of their salvation.

After waiting and watching, a child will be born to you. Easy to miss if one is waiting for blaring trumpets, earth shaking mightiness and huge changes. The birth of an infant is wondrous indeed but after the miracle of birth you are called to be very present to nurture and care for the child, the small blossom in the desert. That child is your vindication but you must be be very present to him from the beginning.

Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob.

We are a company of seekers, watchers and waiters struggling with the tension of a God who is indeed present and who is yet to come. He dwells within yet we constantly seek his Face. He is the God of Jacob, the seeker who wrestled through the night in the desert, and who struggled like a woman in labor to bring forth the Blessing and the Vindication.

We are all called to be like Mary. We are all Christopher. We are all Josephs. If the watching and waiting becomes wearying or you feel like you’re losing your way, ask Mary to comfort and mentor you on this journey that she knows everything about. Ask Joseph to uphold you through the doubt for he, too, had much to fear from the future and resent from misunderstandings of the past. Yet, he walked daily in trust that the dream was true: God With Us was present and was to come.

The entrance antiphon says, “Let the clouds rain down the Just One and the earth bring forth a Savior.” (Isaiah 45: 8)

May your clouds be fruitful and may your inner earth bring forth Jesus.

Third Sunday of Advent: of Gaudete and Prophecy

Excerpts from Isaiah 35: 1-10. The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing…Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy….For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool and the thirsty ground springs of water;

Matthew 11: 11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Last week I wrote about John learning to be in the present moment in the desert – a spiritually romantic idea until you try it. How hard it is to be in the moment when most of your present moments are far from gratifying. But in this season of Advent, a time when we are called to repentance or to turning around and opening ourselves to being changed, we need to understand that it is in the present moment that we need to stop, pay attention, ponder and be open to what is right in front of us. The present moment can redirect us, change us, simplify us and teach us the mystery of the kind of quiet joy an unrecognized newborn infant in a manger can offer. It is in the present moment that we are called to discover how rejoicing is a strong perspective and a persevering attitude, not necessarily a reaction and not necessarily an emotion. Being a person of rejoicing doesn’t mean we are never sad, overwhelmed, frustrated, afraid or grieving. It means that after honestly experiencing the emotions that assail us, there is a determined turning to Truth, the truth that our God comes, every moment of every day. This is repentance: turning from self-focus and self effort to watch for and anticipate the coming salvation of God.

This is Gaudete Sunday. The entrance antiphon says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near.” Elsewhere in scripture the psalmist says, “This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.” This is the day…not tomorrow, not yesterday but today. This day, this moment is when you should be watching because the Lord is near. Keep in mind that when these scriptures were written they weren’t referring to the four weeks before Christmas. In the antiphon, Paul was exhorting the Christians to always rejoice because every day is the day of the Lord and the Lord isn’t just near, he is here!

Even in the desert? Yes, even in the desert. Isaiah prophesies, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom … Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Here is your God.'”

Notice that he didn’t say gladness, rejoicing and blossoming would happen once one is out of the desert. The desert itself was the place that would be transformed in Isaiah’s prophecy. So, scrambling to get out of the desert may cause you to miss metanoia: transformation and change, going beyond your limited mind. Stay awhile. Pay attention. Repent. Rejoice.

I have said before that we are all called to be consecrated members of the Royal Priesthood. Here’s something else we are all called to be: prophets. Prophets don’t necessarily foretell anything; they are simply those who speak God’s word as God gives it to them to speak. And it is in the desert wilderness that you will learn about the God who desires to speak through you. Are you unsure that you could possibly be called to be a prophet?  In the Gospel this week, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least of the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

John was the last prophet of the Old Testament and Christ’s death on the cross ushered in a new age and a new covenant. Jesus was saying that in the new order of things, in the Kingdom of Heaven, every one of us is called to be a prophet and, because we have received the baptism of Christ and the blood of Christ has redeemed us, we have a greater ministry than John the Baptist. This is not pointed out to us so that we can feel smug; it is so that we will begin to get an inkling of the powerful mystery we have been called to participate in. This is not tame stuff. This is real and I’m not sure we have any idea what kind of a spiritual life is open to us if we could only accept the truth of who we really are.

We are called to be messengers and prophets to a dry and barren world. But first, we need to experience the wonder of prophesying to our own deserts and wildernesses. How? By strengthening the weak hands and making firm the feeble knees and saying to ourselves within that wilderness, “Be strong. Do not fear. Here is your God.”  This is the prayer of the present moment. “Be strong. Do not fear. My God is here.” It doesn’t matter if you can’t see him and can’t feel him yet. Metanoia means going beyond the world-based mind and into the things of the Kingdom. This is prophecy; this is the word of God, which is not a feeling, an emotional response or an intellectual conclusion. It is truth. Prophesy to your wilderness. Prophesy often. Eventually you will sense a creeping gladness and eventually you will witness the first of many tiny blossoms opening up. One must persevere and be very still and patient to actually see a flower blossom but once witnessed, it is never forgotten.

On this Third Sunday of Advent and always: Rejoice! Prophesy with joy and singing; prophesy to your wilderness and announce to it that the day of the Lord is here. Proclaim to your land, “Sing and rejoice O Daughter of Zion for, behold, he comes!”

An interesting side note:

When we began to renovate our home, kneeling and bending irritated an old knee injury I had so that stairs were difficult and fast walking not a great idea.

“Make firm the feeble knees…” 

You all know that I had a period of time when my arm and hand muscles were in pain and I had to miss writing one blog and had to write a few more only using my left hand.

“Strengthen the weak hands.”

This past week while helping my daughter out after the birth of her second son, I caught a flu that immediately congested my right ear. My left ear has been deaf since birth so I am presently deaf to all but the loudest of sounds and can only hear voices with great difficulty and much lip reading.

“…the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.”

Easy conversation is not possible. Email is my preferred way of communicating anyway but being deaf made even phoning to let people know what was happening with me was impossible. Then yesterday for a full day, our Internet crashed and I couldn’t even communicate with people by email.

“…and the tongue of the mute shall sing for joy.”

I have been prophesying to my wilderness. My God is coming. My God is here. I will watch and wait. I will endeavor to be open to metanoia and to go beyond what my mind sees. In spite of my inner groans and my occasional tears of frustration, I feel there is something truly significant and wondrous about to happen.

It may be a single blossom in the desert, delicate like a newborn child. And it will be enough.