Advent Week Three: Love

 

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.  Luke 2:7 (KJV)

I invite you to take the Mary from your Creche/Nativity scene and hold her in your hand. As Mary ponders prayerfully, I encourage you to ponder too.  Can you picture Mary carefully wrapping Jesus in the swaddling clothes?   This reminds me of when I was as in soon-to-be parent-classes, I was taught how to, “burrito you baby.”  Honestly, that is what we were told and taught and had an instructor watch over us while my wife and I performed this task.  Clothes in this sense is the plural of cloth.  Jesus, like all babies, was wrapping in bands or strips of cloth.  One scholar said of Mary wrapping Jesus was, “Mary’s maternal care; she did for Jesus what any ancient Palestinian mother would have done for a newborn babe.  Ancient Jewish and Greek sources indicate that wrapping an infant in this way was common, ordinary, and meaningful”.  It showed care and was a claim of love for a child.  To not wrap your baby was a sign of neglect.  So, initially we see how Mary is both the God-bearer and God-care-giver. 

Then there is this tension of laying Jesus in a manger, an animal feeding trough.  This is not exactly the ideal crib for an infant.  In this one verse, the span of a few words, there juxtaposition of maternal care/concern in less-than-ideal conditions.  As you gaze at, hold in your hand, and ponder with the figure of Mary, let her witness sing and speak to this time.  To be sure, we are living in a less-than-ideal condition right now.  The pandemic is keeping us away from our usual Christmas festivities.  We are unable to travel or see family the way our heart desires.  We feel the polarization of our country, our inability to talk to each other.  All around us the world feels out-of-sync.

Yet, God didn’t wait until humans got it right to live among us, God came and still comes in the chaotic.  If that sounds familiar, it is one of the meanings of Genesis 1, God creating and in cahoots with chaos.  The swirling, stirring chaos in the beginning doesn’t just go away, it remains.  It is woven in our personal and communal lives.  Part of the divine story is chaos and creativity woven together.  In some ways God entering the world in a barn is a sign of chaos.  In some ways God upending the life an unwed young woman, Mary, is part of chaos.  Then, Mary, in a less-than-perfect place lovingly wraps Jesus in clothes and laid hm in a manger.  I pray your soul stirs at the mystery, uncertainty, the less-than-rational, the holy, the beautiful and broken all mixed into this one sacred verse.  For indeed, this one verse changes everything if only we let Mary sing her song to our souls.

Prayer: God as You entered the drafty and dusty places of the world then, enter now into the less-than-perfect chaos called, “My life,” right now.  Amen.