Joseph, being a righteous man
          and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace,
          planned to dismiss her quietly.
                           —Matthew 1.19

Imagine if he had.
Imagine how often we dismiss the holy
because we don’t see it as holy.
How often we judge,
come to our conclusions
and make our plans,
without knowing we’re dealing with God.
How easily we dismiss or avoid
people or relationships,
issues or awareness
unmindful that God is present,
unbelieving that something unseen
and possibly glorious
may imminently appear.

The door you close
may open of itself.
The Unexpected One may emerge
from that one, or another.

Learn to expect the wholly unexpected,
the holy unexpected.
Look on your disappointments and discouragements
with eyes of faith.
God is coming.
God is already here, gestating.
God is not done yet.
 

 

          Joseph, son of David,
          do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.
                    —Matthew 1.20

Joseph,
walk with me
into this darkness,
the not knowing.
You have to marry the mystery
before everything else.
Surrendering all claim
to outcomes or knowledge of them,
you commit to the love at hand,
and it is enough.
The very undoing that confounds you
is the love that finds you.
The answer you seek is no answer,
but only presence,
this woman who also must not be afraid,
this child who will not be revealed
until after you say yes,
this God who is not at the end of the journey
but your companion on the journey
and the dark road itself, Emmanuel.

We have to say yes
before anything, don’t we?
Joseph, walk with me.

 

Look at your hand.
It’s not perfect,
though it would look silly on anyone else.
Fragile, yet strong.
The back and its forested hillsides,
the little hairs, the ridges and furrows,
the blue veins mysteriously tunneling.
The palm like a desert, eroded, sere.
Imagine all it’s held,
places it’s been,
what it has caressed or struck,
created or ruined.
What it has done, could do, might do—
most of it not alone,
but meant to work with another,
or even more.
You love it, don’t you?
You wouldn’t lose it for anything.
You need it, count on it,
even with its age and imperfections
delight in it, marvel at it.
You look at your hand, as if from a distance,
yet you are in it, are you not?
It is you, isn’t it?

God is in you
as you are in your hand.
Jesus is not God’s only one.

Near the speed of light
the divine Impulse comes to you,
Word made flesh.
 

Greetings, Beloved.
God is with you.

Do not be afraid.
God delights in you.

In your life
you will embody God’s love.

This divine love will be great,
and fill the world, and have no end.

Don’t doubt this can be true of you,
who are so ordinary and small in the world:

this is the Spirit’s work in you;
what is in you is holy.

Nothing is impossible with God.
With God, nothing is impossible.

Let this be your prayer each day,
each moment, each thought and action:

May it be for me
according to your word.

                  (Luke 1.28-35)
 

 

          When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing…
                           —Matthew 11.2

Wait. John was in prison?
Oh, yeah. Right.
When you defy the Empire, it resists.
The light shines in the darkness,
but the darkness doesn’t relent.
This is the awful rub of Incarnation.
God enters our suffering, and we object.
The Child of Heaven comes in human form
not just to enjoy the pleasures of having a body
but to endure the persecution of the body,
to resist evil with one’s flesh,
to thwart our systems of privilege and exclusion
with a vulnerable body,
to suffer many insults,
to see the inside of many prisons,
to die on many crosses.
And yet Christ comes.

We prepare for the coming of such a Christ
by mirroring the mystery of incarnation:
to touch the suffering of the world,
to mourn with those who mourn,
to enter into the prisons of those we love—
and to feel the teeth of evil fighting back,
and its anger and violence,
to endure recrimination from those we confront,
to bear the cost of justice, the price of flesh.
We will be punished for our light.
But take courage: in our lonely cells we will know
the Holy One is with us, the light within us.
Even in the shadow of the Empire
the poor hear good news, the oppressed are set free.
This is how Christ comes into the world.
This is how we prepare a way.
 

 

         God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
                  and lifted up the lowly;
         God has filled the hungry with good things,
                  and sent the rich away empty.          
                           —Luke 1.52-53

This is no lullaby.
God doesn’t just lift the lowly.
God lowers the mighty.
This is no rising tide lifting all boats.
It’s typhoon, a redistribution of wealth.
This lovely child Mary bears,
this little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes,
will tear apart our hierarchies,
assault our structures of injustice
and upend the world.
This is the divine insurrectionist in the manger.
He will not comply: he will reign.
He will not be amenable to our economics,
our prisons and poverties,
or tolerant of our barbaric systems and slaveries.
Whether we like it or not
the Holy One will impose the Reign of Heaven upon us,
where there is no wealth or poverty,
no privilege, no caste.
To those with power, place and possession
the letting go will be robbery.
         (And your own place will crumble, your confidence
         in the world’s fairness though it favor you;
         from that throne you will be taken.)
They will react against equality.
Evil will defend itself from justice with violence.
They will crucify.

Still, Gabriel was right.
The gentle child will prevail.

         Let this lovely vision comfort you
         and strip you of all the fear and anger
         with which you resist it.

Rejoice in God your Savior,
for the Realm of Heaven is near.
 

 

         When John heard in prison
         what the Messiah was doing,
         he sent word by his disciples and said to him,
         “Are you the one who is to come,
         or are we to wait for another?”
                  —Matthew 11.1
                           
Someone you may not have noticed is waiting,
longing for healing, for justice, for hope.
You only mean to be passing by,
but they see you.
And even if they don’t know they are asking,
they are asking.
“Are you the one?”
Not necessarily the Messiah,
but perhaps one to bring hope,
to be a light in the darkness.
There may be someone in some kind of prison
looking for some kind of encouragement,
someone longing for healing or appreciation or forgiveness.
Will you be the one, or should they wait for another?
There may be people of color who see a white person
and assume racism, until they see otherwise.
There may be a non-conforming person
who assumes you will judge them
unless you clearly don’t.
Will you be the one to shine light in their darkness,
or are they to wait for another?

Sit still in the grace of God.
Let the light that is dawning for the world
dawn in you.
Let that light grow and radiate.
Bear it with you through the day.
You will meet someone who seeks grace,
who longs for a sign of hope.
And for them
you will be the one.
 

 

         When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing,
         he sent word by his disciples and said to him,
         “Are you the one who is to come,
         or are we to wait for another?”
                           —Matthew 11.2-3

Well, either way we have to wait.

And how we hate to wait.
Because waiting means being patient
“like the farmer waiting for the crop,”
powerless, not controlling,
allowing life to unfold,
trusting grace to emerge
among other things,
open to what may come,
including the unexpected.
To wait is both to hold
and to let go.

God, give me courage to wait,
not restless or pacing,
but ready, trusting, open,
caring without clinging,
mindful of your grace in all things,
even that which is troubled.
Help me stand with faith
on your love and its power,
for though it is invisible,
I know it. I know it deeply.

I turn to your love,
I open my heart,
and I wait.
 

 

Dearly Beloved, Grace and peace to you.

         By the tender mercy of our God,
                  the dawn from on high will break upon us,
         to give light to those who sit in darkness
                  and in the shadow of death,
                  to guide our feet into the way of peace.
                           —Luke 1.78-79

The coming of the dawn is not linear or constant. The darkness ebbs, then returns. Evil has its days. Sometimes the voice of hate and bigotry rallies its minions, and their cheers evoke dread in my soul. I see mean-spiritedness at work and my heart wrinkles up like a dried fruit. I went to bed last night wondering, “What can I say?” I awoke early, in darkness, unable to sleep. Despair lay on me, palpable as my blankets. I got up in the dark and lit my prayer candle.

In my Bible reading I’m currently making my way through 2 Chronicles and Hebrews, and always, a couple of Psalms a day. This morning in the dark I read by candlelight: “O grant us help against the foe, for human strength is worthless” (Ps. 108.12). “Do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude; for the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chron. 20.15). “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb. 11.1). I prayed till the sun came up. Then I went for my morning walk in the woods.

The sun stretched itself, climbed into lower branches and sat there. Migrating ducks and geese chatted on the pond. Upper branches began to light up like candelabras. Somewhere, beyond my seeing, the Milky Way spun silently, elegantly. And somewhere beyond my seeing, good people were kind and courageous for justice.

When I despair for the world I am looking at it from a human point of view: I see the evil we are capable of, and I am afraid for us. I am like Job, asking. “Why is there evil?” And God invites me, like Job, to see it from God’s point of view. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38.4). Our suffering and our evil—even the seething mass of all the deepest evil in the world—is a tiny speck in God’s wonderful Creation. God is not weak or far away: this world exists entirely within God, in God’s heart. God’s goodness infinitely outweighs and overpowers the forces of evil. I just can’t see it, like the Milky Way I’m part of.

But if I look with the eyes of faith, I will see signs. The dawn comes for me when I remember that there is more at work than meets the eye, especially the eye of fear. The dawn from on high breaks upon me when I remember, in the words of Tutu’s African Prayer Book, “Goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate; light is stronger than darkness; life is stronger than death. Victory is ours, through the One who loves us.”

It is into darkness that God sends light. Christ is coming into the world. God’s dawn from on high breaks upon us—but it is not a disembodied light. The way the dawn comes is that God sends people into the darkness—people like Jesus, like us—who shine with God’s light. It rises in us. We embody it. Our simple acts of love and courage, every act of kindness, every witness for justice, every prayer for another, no matter how feeble, no matter how doubtful or conflicted, every tear shed for the world, no matter how fragile, is light that transforms the darkness, that gives light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and guides our feet into the way of peace.

I walked home from the woods this morning warm with hope and shining with a Presence I had not expected. I hear geese above my house. I pray that the light of Advent may dawn in your heart as well.

Deep blessings, Pastor Steve

____________________ Steve Garnaas-Holmes Unfolding Light www.unfoldinglight.net

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Read Isiah 11.1-9 and instead of “him” read “you”—
you, and all of us in the community of faith.

Notice God’s power in us,
even against great forces of evil,
even throughout all Creation.

Meditate on this:
make this your Christmas wish—
that this may be true for you.

You are shoots from the root of God;
         you shall sprout and blossom.
The spirit of the Blessed One shall rest on you,
         the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
         the spirit of mindfulness and reverence for God.
Your delight shall be in obedience of the Holy One.
You will not judge by appearances,
         or make decisions according to hearsay;
but act with respect toward the poor,
         and choose for the well being of the powerless.
With a word you will disarm tyrants,
         and you will blow away all oppression.
Justice shall be the belt around your waist,
         and faithfulness the coat around your shoulders.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
         the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion together,
         and a little child shall lead them.
No one will harm or destroy on all my holy mountain;
         for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Beloved
         as the waters cover the sea.