Birthing the Son of God - Mary Elizabeth Pratt-Horsley
All my life I have been told that Advent is a time of waiting – This year I’ve been thinking about the waiting we do in our lives…
There’s waiting in anticipation of a desire being fulfilled … I remember back in New Jersey in the late 70’s waiting in line for ages it seemed to take my kids to see the first Star Wars movie… Not too long ago people waited in line for hours and hours to be the first to purchase the new i-phones from Apple… Just two weeks ago people camped out in front of stores throughout the country --- so that they could push and shove and be the first through the doors on Black Friday.
Of course, there are many kinds of waiting – the nervous waiting of a student for exam grades … our anxious waiting as patients for the results of medical exams…
Yet Advent is a different kind of waiting – hopefully a more creative kind of waiting… it is more like the waiting of the gardener who has planted seeds, knowing that as he waits…the seeds are preparing … deep in the earth…to bring forth a living plant.
Advent waiting is like the waiting of expectant parents… They know that each day…or week… or month they wait… their baby is growing and developing in a life-giving and necessary process. Waiting, planning, loving, hoping … are all part of that process.
And then there is the waiting experienced by artists, musicians, writers, philosophers – a waiting characterized by mulling over new ideas. It is a fruitful waiting – totally necessary to the creative process…
Today it seems that we have no patience for that kind of waiting… and that Advent has been lost in the rush to Christmas…
It wasn’t that long ago – I can remember it from my childhood anyway – that the Incarnation… the coming of Christ as a human … really comprised three seasons that lasted about two months – Advent… when we prepared for the coming of Jesus into the world, the twelve days of Christmas… when we celebrated his birth and coming among us … and Epiphany … when Jesus was shown to the wider world as God incarnate. In many ways… that time of preparation and celebration seem to have been lost.
So what is the content and the fruit of our Advent waiting?
Our Advent waiting is not just a time for counting off the days to Christmas … it’s not just a quiet or barren patch we must go through to arrive at the joy of Christmas.
It’s a time of faithful preparation… In today’s Gospel from Matthew we find John the Baptist, who was given the task of preparing the way for Jesus. According to Matthew, it was Isaiah who spoke first of John the Baptist as the one who was to “make straight” the paths of the Lord as part of preparing for his coming.
How are we to prepare this Advent for the coming of the Lord? How are we to “make straight” his path? In the Gospel, John does not mince his words, or spare our feelings when he says that we must bear fruit. How do we bear fruit in the context of Advent… and preparing for the coming of Jesus?
Recently I came across a quote from Meister Eckhart, a German theologian and Christian mystic who lived from 1260 to 1328. I had read the quote before somewhere… but this time it really caused me to ponder. Meister Eckhart wrote:
“What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.”
How do we birth the Son of God into our world? First, we must prepare…
Like any artist or architect, we know that preparation means reflection, pondering, mulling over our options … It is only when we have gone through these stages… that we can begin to think of the actual planning and carrying out of our task… This is an extremely important part of the process. As we prepare and plan to “birth the Son of God, what are some of the questions we should be asking ourselves?
We need to ask ourselves – What do I know about the One who is to be brought into the world? At one point in the gospels, John the Baptist asks Jesus’ followers: “Is this the One I am to follow as Lord?” Jesus responds through his disciples… Tell John the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame and leper are healed, and the poor and oppressed are encouraged and supported…
So the Son of God to be brought into the world by us … right now… in our day … is a person of compassion … bringing light and wholeness to the dark and difficult situations in which people find themselves.
To facilitate the birth of the Son of God into our time and culture …we too are invited be compassionate … we too are encouraged to support the work of healing and wholeness that is taking place... We, too, in the many dark corners of our culture and world… are to keep vigil for the light … and bear witness to the wholeness of God in our brothers and sisters… and in our world…
What would that look like… bringing the Son of God into the world… in our own time? I would imagine it would look different for each one of us…. Yet how to begin?
One way is to truly take some time to reflect and ponder this Advent– asking yourself: “What is the darkest spot in my community or in our world … that area or problem or situation that I would passionately like to see brought into the light and made whole again? If you could wave a magic wand – and heal one thing … or solve one major injustice … or bring wholeness to one situation … What would it be?
For instance you might passionately like to see all the world’s children have the resources they need to both reach their potential and safely reach adulthood … clean water, food, education, healthcare, loving families, an absence of war and injustice in their countries… That is a situation that I am passionate about. Of course, we can’t do it all… but we can start somewhere …
We could sponsor a child in an impoverished country … we can be advocates and voices for health care for all children here in the USA … we can support world hunger relief programs … We can purchase alternative Christmas gifts that bring poor families resources they need to be whole… We can purchase fair trade goods…. which give small farmers a fair price for their products… thus enabling them to feed their children…
It seems to me that our Advent pondering and preparation can involve thinking about how to provide immediate relief to the situation we are passionate to make whole … and …it can also involve pondering how to change the structures that permitted the situation to develop in the first place… laws… attitudes etc.
A friend pointed out to me this week that this 2008 presidential election is the first one in many years where we don’t have an incumbent President seeking re-election nor do we have a sitting Vice-President trying to become President. We have a fascinating slate of candidates in both parties … As we look at each candidate’s integrity, gifts, and actions … rather than the spin and hype surrounding them … perhaps we will be able to discern, with the Holy Spirit’s help… the person who would best be an ally for us in bringing wholeness to that one situation we are passionate to heal… the person who would challenge the structures, laws and attitudes that continue to perpetuate the situation.
To bring the Son of God into the world in such a way in our day won’t necessarily be easy or risk free. We are always tempted to live cautiously… finding our security in the status quo … or in material protections … hesitating to make changes or take any risks…
Yet at this season… perhaps more than any other, we are reminded that each of us is created in the image of One who is above all a Creator… Like God… we are created to bring wholeness … the seed and impulse to be life-giving and creative lie deep within each human being…
We are also the creation of a God who was willing to risk enough to give each one of us free will… the freedom to make life-giving choices … or not…
We, too, are to be risk takers… universe-disturbers in order to bring well-being to others…
After our Advent reflection and pondering… our planning and preparation… let us …with joy and resolve… with creativity and courage … birth the Son of God into our world … at this season of the Incarnation.
By our compassion … by our love … by our risk-taking and willingness to speak up and step out for the well-being of others … let us rise to the Epiphany challenge … to show forth the wholeness of God to a world that is still broken. Amen
All my life I have been told that Advent is a time of waiting – This year I’ve been thinking about the waiting we do in our lives…
There’s waiting in anticipation of a desire being fulfilled … I remember back in New Jersey in the late 70’s waiting in line for ages it seemed to take my kids to see the first Star Wars movie… Not too long ago people waited in line for hours and hours to be the first to purchase the new i-phones from Apple… Just two weeks ago people camped out in front of stores throughout the country --- so that they could push and shove and be the first through the doors on Black Friday.
Of course, there are many kinds of waiting – the nervous waiting of a student for exam grades … our anxious waiting as patients for the results of medical exams…
Yet Advent is a different kind of waiting – hopefully a more creative kind of waiting… it is more like the waiting of the gardener who has planted seeds, knowing that as he waits…the seeds are preparing … deep in the earth…to bring forth a living plant.
Advent waiting is like the waiting of expectant parents… They know that each day…or week… or month they wait… their baby is growing and developing in a life-giving and necessary process. Waiting, planning, loving, hoping … are all part of that process.
And then there is the waiting experienced by artists, musicians, writers, philosophers – a waiting characterized by mulling over new ideas. It is a fruitful waiting – totally necessary to the creative process…
Today it seems that we have no patience for that kind of waiting… and that Advent has been lost in the rush to Christmas…
It wasn’t that long ago – I can remember it from my childhood anyway – that the Incarnation… the coming of Christ as a human … really comprised three seasons that lasted about two months – Advent… when we prepared for the coming of Jesus into the world, the twelve days of Christmas… when we celebrated his birth and coming among us … and Epiphany … when Jesus was shown to the wider world as God incarnate. In many ways… that time of preparation and celebration seem to have been lost.
So what is the content and the fruit of our Advent waiting?
Our Advent waiting is not just a time for counting off the days to Christmas … it’s not just a quiet or barren patch we must go through to arrive at the joy of Christmas.
It’s a time of faithful preparation… In today’s Gospel from Matthew we find John the Baptist, who was given the task of preparing the way for Jesus. According to Matthew, it was Isaiah who spoke first of John the Baptist as the one who was to “make straight” the paths of the Lord as part of preparing for his coming.
How are we to prepare this Advent for the coming of the Lord? How are we to “make straight” his path? In the Gospel, John does not mince his words, or spare our feelings when he says that we must bear fruit. How do we bear fruit in the context of Advent… and preparing for the coming of Jesus?
Recently I came across a quote from Meister Eckhart, a German theologian and Christian mystic who lived from 1260 to 1328. I had read the quote before somewhere… but this time it really caused me to ponder. Meister Eckhart wrote:
“What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the son of God fourteen hundred years ago, and I do not also give birth to the Son of God in my time and in my culture? We are all meant to be mothers of God. God is always needing to be born.”
How do we birth the Son of God into our world? First, we must prepare…
Like any artist or architect, we know that preparation means reflection, pondering, mulling over our options … It is only when we have gone through these stages… that we can begin to think of the actual planning and carrying out of our task… This is an extremely important part of the process. As we prepare and plan to “birth the Son of God, what are some of the questions we should be asking ourselves?
We need to ask ourselves – What do I know about the One who is to be brought into the world? At one point in the gospels, John the Baptist asks Jesus’ followers: “Is this the One I am to follow as Lord?” Jesus responds through his disciples… Tell John the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame and leper are healed, and the poor and oppressed are encouraged and supported…
So the Son of God to be brought into the world by us … right now… in our day … is a person of compassion … bringing light and wholeness to the dark and difficult situations in which people find themselves.
To facilitate the birth of the Son of God into our time and culture …we too are invited be compassionate … we too are encouraged to support the work of healing and wholeness that is taking place... We, too, in the many dark corners of our culture and world… are to keep vigil for the light … and bear witness to the wholeness of God in our brothers and sisters… and in our world…
What would that look like… bringing the Son of God into the world… in our own time? I would imagine it would look different for each one of us…. Yet how to begin?
One way is to truly take some time to reflect and ponder this Advent– asking yourself: “What is the darkest spot in my community or in our world … that area or problem or situation that I would passionately like to see brought into the light and made whole again? If you could wave a magic wand – and heal one thing … or solve one major injustice … or bring wholeness to one situation … What would it be?
For instance you might passionately like to see all the world’s children have the resources they need to both reach their potential and safely reach adulthood … clean water, food, education, healthcare, loving families, an absence of war and injustice in their countries… That is a situation that I am passionate about. Of course, we can’t do it all… but we can start somewhere …
We could sponsor a child in an impoverished country … we can be advocates and voices for health care for all children here in the USA … we can support world hunger relief programs … We can purchase alternative Christmas gifts that bring poor families resources they need to be whole… We can purchase fair trade goods…. which give small farmers a fair price for their products… thus enabling them to feed their children…
It seems to me that our Advent pondering and preparation can involve thinking about how to provide immediate relief to the situation we are passionate to make whole … and …it can also involve pondering how to change the structures that permitted the situation to develop in the first place… laws… attitudes etc.
A friend pointed out to me this week that this 2008 presidential election is the first one in many years where we don’t have an incumbent President seeking re-election nor do we have a sitting Vice-President trying to become President. We have a fascinating slate of candidates in both parties … As we look at each candidate’s integrity, gifts, and actions … rather than the spin and hype surrounding them … perhaps we will be able to discern, with the Holy Spirit’s help… the person who would best be an ally for us in bringing wholeness to that one situation we are passionate to heal… the person who would challenge the structures, laws and attitudes that continue to perpetuate the situation.
To bring the Son of God into the world in such a way in our day won’t necessarily be easy or risk free. We are always tempted to live cautiously… finding our security in the status quo … or in material protections … hesitating to make changes or take any risks…
Yet at this season… perhaps more than any other, we are reminded that each of us is created in the image of One who is above all a Creator… Like God… we are created to bring wholeness … the seed and impulse to be life-giving and creative lie deep within each human being…
We are also the creation of a God who was willing to risk enough to give each one of us free will… the freedom to make life-giving choices … or not…
We, too, are to be risk takers… universe-disturbers in order to bring well-being to others…
After our Advent reflection and pondering… our planning and preparation… let us …with joy and resolve… with creativity and courage … birth the Son of God into our world … at this season of the Incarnation.
By our compassion … by our love … by our risk-taking and willingness to speak up and step out for the well-being of others … let us rise to the Epiphany challenge … to show forth the wholeness of God to a world that is still broken. Amen
posted by Caroline Hall at
9:42 AM
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