Keeping the Season

"Pieta - Death of Christ 01" by Waiting for the Word, on Flickr

Reading for the Annunciation of Our Lord: Luke 1:26-38
Reading for Good Friday: John 18:1-19:42

Mary Speaks
by Madeleine L'Engle

O you who bear the pain of the whole earth, I bore you.
O you whose tears gave human tears their worth, I laughed with you.
You, who when your hem is touched, give power, I nourished you.
Who turn the day to night in this dark hour, light comes from you.
O you who hold the world in your embrace, I carried you.
Whose arms encircled the world with your grace, I once held you.
O you who laughed and ate and walked the shore, I played with you.
And I, who with all others, you died for, now I hold you.
May I be faithful to this final test, in this last hour I hold my child, my son;
His body close enfolded to my breast:
The holder held, the bearer borne.
Mourning to joy, darkness to morn.
Open, my arms; your work is done.

--
The Crucifixion
Anonymous, Irish

At the cry of the first bird
They began to crucify Thee, 0 Swan!
Never shall lament cease because of that.
It was like the parting of day from night.
Ah, sore was the suffering borne
By the body of Mary's Son,
But sorer still to Him was the grief
Which for His sake
Came upon His Mother.

"Nothing that Belongs to Us" by Dee Ashley, on Flickr

Wise women also came
by Jan Richardson

Wise women also came.
The fire burned in their wombs long before they saw the flaming star in the sky.
They walked in shadows, trusting the path would open under the light of the moon.

Wise women also came, seeking no directions, no permission from any king.
They came by their own authority, their own desire, their own longing.
They came in quiet, spreading no rumours, sparking no fears to lead to innocents' slaughter,
to their sister Rachel's inconsolable lamentations.

Wise women also came, and they brought useful gifts:
water for labour's washing, fire for warm illumination, a blanket for swaddling.

Wise women also came, at least three of them,
holdingMary in the labour,
crying out with her in the birth pangs,
breathing ancient blessings into her ear.

Wise women also came, and they went, as wise women always do, home a different way.


-from Night Visions: Searching for Shadows of Advent and Christmas, 1998: United Church Press

"Our Lady of Spring 2015" by Stephen B Whatley, on Flickr

Too Much to Ask
by Luci Shaw

It seemed too much to ask
of one small virgin
that she should stake shame
against the will of God.
All she had to hold to
were those soft, inward
flutterings
and the remembered sting
of a brief junction--spirit
with flesh.
Who would think it
more than a dream wish?
an implausible, laughable
defense.

And it seems much
too much to ask me
to be part of the
different thing--
God's shocking, unorthodox,
unheard of Thing
to further heaven's hopes
and summon God's glory.

--in Wintersong

"José y Maria" by Everett Patterson

Trouble
by James Wright

Leering across Pearl Street,
Crum Anderson yipped:
“Hey Pugh!
I see your sister
Been rid bareback.
She swallow a watermelon?
Fred Gordon! Fred Gordon! Fred Gordon!”
Wayya mean? She can get fat, can’t she?”
Fat? Willow and lonesome Roberta, running
Alone down Pearl Street in the rain the last time
I ever saw her, smiling a smile
Crum Anderson will never know,
Wondering at her body.
Sixteen years, and
All that time she thought she was nothing
But skin and bones.

"Annunciation Mosaic" by Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P., on Flickr

It came to me, recently, that faith is "a certain widening of the imagination." When Mary asked the Angel, "How shall these things be?" she as asking God to widen her imagination.

All my life I have been requesting the same thing - a baptized imagination that has a widen enough faith to see the numinous in the ordinary. Without discarding reason, or analysis, I seek from my Muse, the Holy Spirit, images that will open up reality and pull me into its center.

This is the benison of the sacramental view of life.

-"A Widening of the Imagination" by Luci Shaw, in Wintersong

"The Visitation," by Claudia Williams (photo by Clive, on Flickr)

Luke 1:39-55
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for 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.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

"Waiting" by Alli, on Flickr

Waiting is essential to the spiritual life. But waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. We wait during Advent for the birth of Jesus. We wait after Easter for the coming of the Spirit, and after the ascension of Jesus we wait for his coming again in glory. We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God's footsteps.

-Henri Nouwen, from "Active Waiting" in Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith

anatomy" by Ben Giles, on Flickr

Acts 3:12–19
When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out.

1 John 3:1–7
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

Luke 24:36b–48
[Jesus said,] "Peace be with you." [The disciples] were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, "Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you — that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.
---

So you may have noticed that today’s gospel reading from Luke, on the surface, sounds suspiciously similar to last week’s gospel reading from John. Nope, you haven’t stepped into a weird time warp where you are stuck repeating Easter 2 over and over and over again like the movie Groundhog Day, I promise!

Today, we have another story of the resurrected Jesus showing up among the disciples. Like last week’s account from John, the disciples are gathered together in a room, hidden away. Like last week’s gospel, Jesus shows up among them and says, “Peace be with you.” Like last week’s gospel, Jesus shows them his hands and feet, and the disciples, eventually, come to believe.

What is different between John’s gospel last week and Luke’s gospel today is the question of what the gospel writers were trying to prove about the resurrected Jesus. John, I think, was trying to establish the identity of Jesus post-resurrection. Jesus appeared to the disciples and to Thomas as if to say, “hey look, it’s me, Jesus, and not somebody else!” When Thomas finally gets his chance to encounter the risen Christ, he responds with a declaration of identity: “My Lord and my God!”

Luke’s gospel is less concerned with the identity of the risen Christ, and far more concerned with his bodily reality.

Maybe it’s because tradition says that Luke was a physician that he seems more concerned than the other gospel writers with matters of Christ’s humanity, even from the very outset of his gospel. Luke is the only gospel that gives us a real birth narrative. Luke’s gospel is concerned with establishing Jesus as the real human savior for real human needs like hunger and pain and poverty and oppression. And here, after the resurrection, Luke takes care to establish not just the identity of the resurrected Jesus, but also his bodily reality. For Luke, it is important that the disciples and all of us know that Jesus, who fully died, has been fully raised.

"Why are you frightened?” Jesus asks, “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.

But even having seen these wounds, Luke tells us that the disciples, even in their joy, were yet also disbelieving and still wondering, and so Jesus takes it one step further: He said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence. Ghosts, spirits, disembodied souls: they do not need to eat. But bodies do.

And so he shows his hands and feet and eats a snack to prove that he is, indeed, resurrected in the flesh, because anything less fleshly would cease to be resurrection and would cease to be salvation.

In the opening stanzas of his marvelous poem, “Seven Stanzas for Easter,” John Updike writes,

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The heart of our Christian faith rests upon this truth that Christ was born - really born; body, mind, and spirit - and that Christ died - really died; body, mind, and spirit - and that Christ then rose again - really rose; body, mind, and spirit. He's not a ghost. He is touchable. He is hungry. He has wounds and scars. He - his body - is resurrected from the dead, so that our bodies will also will be resurrected at the end of all things.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, writing in the fourth century, said “That which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.”

By this he means that Christ had to take on flesh so that we, as children of the flesh, might be redeemed. More than this, the very death and resurrection of Christ’s own body has united us with God and, in the words of 1 John, has made us “children of God; and that is what we are.” 1 John goes on to say that when Christ is finally revealed, “we will be like him.” Just as Christ was raised not on in spirit but also in body, so will we be like him in our own resurrection - raised not only in spirit but also in body.

This is the same message as we get in Peter’s sermon in Acts today. The crowds have just watched the apostles heal a lame man at the entrance to the temple, and they are amazed, so Peter starts preaching. He asks, ”Why do you wonder about this? Is the power to heal bodies not the very power of God, the same power that forgives sins and the same power that raised Christ from the dead?” Peter’s message here is that the power of God to raise Christ in the flesh is the power of God to forgive us and to heal our human bodies and to save our created world.

Even though we live a bodily, earthy, dirty life, I think that it is sometimes much easier for us to imagine the work of God taking place the spiritual realm, the neighborhood of the soul, the purification of minds and desires, than it is to understand the work of God on behalf of bodies, and not just human bodies, but animal bodies and plants and trees and the entire body of creation.

But when we, in our confession of faith, proclaim, “I believe in the resurrection of the body,” we are confessing that we have a God who cares about not just souls, but bodies; a God who cares not just for the heavenly realm, but for the created matter of this universe; a God who cares not just for matters of the spirit, but for matters of flesh, too.

And why is this so very important, that God cares about bodies?

It is important because somewhere, there is a transgender youth who is trying to figure out what to do with a body and an identity that don’t fit together.

It is important because somewhere, there is a 99 year old man whose joints are failing who feels creaky and useless as he waits out his days in a care facility.

It is important because somewhere, there is a 45 year old woman who has been yo-yo dieting since she was 14, who believes that her body will forever remain unloveable.

It is important because somewhere, there is a college wrestler with an eating disorder who believes that his whole worth is tied u pin how well his body can perform.

It is important because somewhere, there is an infertile couple who feel like their bodies have completely failed them.

It is important because somewhere, there is a woman with a physical deformity that makes her feel excluded and invisible.

It is important because somewhere, there is a child with leukemia who has been sick for more days in their life than they have been well.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ in his flesh has won for us the salvation of our bodies and the body of this world.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ in his flesh has ushered the kingdom of God into our midst as it unfolds here and now and in the real stuff of crumbling housing projects and cancer and the dirty feet of children whose shoes have holes and the sunken faces of families who don’t have enough to eat.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ in his flesh empowers us to feed hungry people and clothe naked people and march for justice and weep over prejudice and care for the frail and heal broken bodies; to care about carbon emissions and polluted water and to be conscious of how much trash we generate and which animal habitats we are destroying.

This is the power of the bodily resurrection: That Christ comes to us each week in this holy meal, where we touch and taste his body, and remember with our hearts and our tongues and our bodies and our spirits that Christ is here, among us, and that this bread and wine that we can touch are the elements of our salvation.

Brothers and sisters, just as the disciples touched the risen Christ, in the body, and by touching were assured of their salvation, so also do we touch Christ not only in the elements of communion, but in the body of Christ gathered here. If you were to reach out and touch the shoulder of the person next to you, you would be touching Christ’s body. If you were to clasp your own hands, you would be touching Christ’s body. If you were to plant your feet firmly on the ground to feel the strength of the foundations of the earth below, you would be touching Christ’s body.

Whatever you feel about your body - love it, hate it, whether it is strong or weak, a finished product or a work in progress - your body is blessed and saved and will be resurrected, and it is given the very power of God to be a blessing in the world.

So let us close by blessing these very bodies that God has given us, through which we know God, by which we are called to be a blessing in the body of this world.

You have heard the holy and saving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now receive the sign of that gospel on your body and in your heart, that you may know the Lord and the power of his resurrection.

As a sign of God’s endless love and mercy for you,
Receive the + sign of the cross on your forehead.

That you may hear the gospel of Christ, the word of life,
receive the + cross on your ears.

That you may see the light of Christ illumining your way,
receive the + cross on your eyes.

That you may sing the praise of Christ, the joy of the church,
receive the + cross on your lips.

That God may dwell within you by faith,
receive the + cross on your heart.

That you may bear the gentle yoke of Christ,
receive the + cross on your shoulders.

That God's mercy may be known in your work,
receive the + cross on your hands.

That you may follow in the way of Christ,
receive the + cross on your feet.

May God bring you in peace and joy to fullness of life in the risen Christ. May the God of all grace, who has called you to glory, support you and make you strong, now and forever. Amen.
(from the ELW “Welcome to Baptism” rite)

"Glory of Christ" by Stephen B Whatley, on Flickr

2 Corinthians 4:3-6
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Mark 9:2-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

---
On days when my dad was feeling too tired, too weak from chemo, and too loaded up on painkillers to concentrate on reading or talking, he would curl up on his end of the couch and turn on the Home and Garden network, watching hour after hour of home improvement and renovation shows.

My favorite part of home renovation shows is the end, when the homeowners get to see all the work that the designers have been doing. For each room, there is a “before” and an “after” shot that we, the viewers at home, get to see. The old room, with its mismatched furniture or its peeling linoleum floor, and the new room, filled with light and with the smell of freshly painted walls.

Whether the change is drastic or subtle, I grew to love watching these shows with my dad, because I loved how the designers always had an eye for a room’s potential. Even as they were looking at the “before,” they could see in their heads the “after. The purpose of their work was to uncover the inherent beauty in a house’s bones, to shine up the elements that were already there, to reveal beauty instead of building it from the ground up.

During this season of Epiphany, we have been revealing and uncovering the good news of who Jesus Christ is for the world. Transfiguration is sort of the ultimate Epiphany. This day in the church year, like those home renovation shows, is all about revealing beauty. It is about throwing off the veil and uncovering the brightness of Christ, which, incidentally, has been there all along. And transfiguration is about throwing off the veil and uncovering the beauty in ourselves and in the world, which, also, has actually been there all along.

Jesus is up there on the mountain with his disciples, and before their very eyes, he becomes bright as the sun, cloaked in dazzling white. He is revealed, with Moses on one side and Elijah on the other, as the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets, a savior who has all authority in heaven and on earth. And a voice from heaven on the mountain echoes the words of the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism: "This is my Son, the Beloved.”

A favorite hymn of mine is "Love Divine, all Loves Excelling." In the last stanza of that hymn, we sing "Finish then thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be. Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee. Changed from glory into glory, 'till in heaven we take our place; till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise."

That phrase, "changed from glory into glory" is exactly what is happening to Jesus at his transfiguration, exactly what happened to him in his baptism. In both of these "before and after" events, all of the divine mystery that was already pumping through his veins was affirmed, intensified, identified, made more real. Realer than real, if you’ll pardon my making up of words.

At his baptism, God says of Jesus, “this is my Son.” Except that it’s not like Jesus wasn’t the Son of God before his baptism. Up on the mountaintop, the voice from heaven says “this is my Son - listen to him!” but it’s not like Jesus didn’t have authority before his transfiguration. I mean, for the last three weeks or so, Mark’s gospel has told us over and over again about Jesus having the authority to heal the sick and cast out demons.

No, in both of these epiphany moments, it’s like God had this plan to open up the heavens to remind Jesus of who he really was. To change him from glory into glory. To affirm the “before” and let that affirmation itself be the “after.” To give a name to the beauty that already existed in him, that the disciples and all the rest of us might see him for who he really is.

For those of us who are waiting to see ourselves and our creation renewed and reordered, Jesus’ transfiguration is a sign for us that the work of God in our lives is not to create beauty out of ugliness, but to uncover the beauty that has been in us all along.

Which is sometimes very hard to believe. Any number of magazines, self-help books, and makeover shows make it seem like we are beautiful only after some renovations, and not before.

Like…maybe we think that we will be more beloved after we get better at attending worship regularly. Or we think that we will be more valued after we get that degree or that promotion. Or we are told that we will be more lovable after we lose those last ten pounds. We get duped into thinking that our lives are incomplete until after we get married, or after we have children, or after we buy a house, or maybe we are in a place where we think that our lives are worth joy and peace only after we retire.

And as we look deeply into the world around us, we see racism and classism and poverty; we watch our fragile creation groan as we damage the tender ecology of our planet; we see nations at war and innocent lives taken by terror and violence. And we sometimes get numb and think that the kingdom of God will show up only after our world is back on track.

But Paul reminds us that God is the one who, at the birth of creation, said “let light shine out of darkness,” and that in all of creation, there has not been a time when light and beauty has not existed. God shoots beautiful beams of this light directly into our hearts, that we might be enlightened and empowered by knowing God’s glory as revealed to us in Christ, both up on the mountaintop and on the cross.

By Christ’s death and resurrection, we take heart knowing that God sees us as beautiful even while we are yet imperfect and incomplete. We have confidence that every day, God intends to change us not from rejection to glory, but from glory to glory.

And so all the times where we need help seeing God’s potential in our world, to all the places where we need help seeing beauty in both the “before” and in the “after, Jesus, dazzling on that transfiguration mountaintop stands for us as a symbol of the power of God to make beauty out of beauty, to draw light out of light.

Transfiguration pushes us to see belovedness in one another and in all creation, even while we are still waiting for the dazzling restoration of all things. Transfiguration empowers us to work for justice and peace in this world, right here and now, not waiting idly for God's "after," but treating our current world as the kingdom of God in our midst, doing what we can to uncover the goodness and beauty in all this created universe.

For God created the world and called it good and beautiful - alleluia!
We have put on the dazzling brightness of Christ, in whom we have been baptized - alleluia!
We are named "beloved" and "child of God." - alleluia!
We have been changed from glory into glory with all the communion of saints - alleluia!

May you know this day and always that you are beautiful, beloved, and filled with the light of Christ. May you shine with this light each and every day.

Amen.

"transfiguration" by 0x17.me, on Flickr

Mark 9:2-9
Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, "Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, "This is my Son, the Beloved listen to him!" Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus.

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

"Xmas" by Anders Ljungberg, on Flickr

In Mary-Darkness
by Jessica Powers

I live my Advent in the womb of Mary
And on one night when a great star swings free
From its high mooring and walks down the sky
To be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
With hope’s expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
Guarded and loved me, though I could not see,
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
Someone is hidden in this dark with me.

Source: “In Mary-Darkness” from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, edited by Regina Siegfried, ASC, and Robert F. Morneau. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1989.

Annunciation
by Denise Levertov

‘Hail, space for the uncontained God’
From the Agathistos Hymn, Greece, Vic

We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions
courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.
___

Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another
in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.
More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
___

She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child – but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –

but who was God.

Luke 1:26-38,46-55
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you." But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God." Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.

And Mary said,
"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for 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.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever."

First Coming
by Madeleine L’Engle

He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace.
He came when the Heavens were unsteady,
and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait

till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
he came, and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,
to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.
In the mystery of the Word made Flesh
the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane
to raise our songs with joyful voice,
for to share our grief, to touch our pain,
He came with Love: Rejoice! Rejoice!

"manger" by Sketcy-G, on Flickr

"It is in the dark that God is passing by. The bridge and our lives shake not because God has abandoned, but the exact opposite: God is passing by. God is in the tremors. Dark is the holiest ground, the glory passing by. In the blackest, God is closest, at work, forging His perfect and right will. Though it is black and we can't see and our world seems to be free-falling and we feel utterly alone, Christ is most present to us... "

― Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are