Advent Week Three: Love

 

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.  Luke 2:11-12

“Unto you,” those ancient words are still the promise of God’s presence in our lives today.  Unto you, in your life, right now.  I know that our minds can raise all kinds of objections about how we don’t feel like we are thriving, remember all those fears you thought about yesterday?  Unto you, those two words are repeated in the two verses above emphasizing the importance.  Into the messiness and less-than-perfectness of our lives, Christ enters. 

The sign back then was a baby, a vulnerable infant under the watchful eye of his care-giver mother and father, lying in a feeding trough.  That is the sign?  Not exactly the Grand Canyon or neon flashing lights.  It is perplexing and puzzling that the sign of the sacred is a baby wrapped lovingly then laid where a baby should not be.  We have the ordinary in the baffling and bewildering.

I invite you today to see where that is truth for you.  Where is God moving in the ordinary in ways that don’t make sense?  What I am inviting you into is often called the trans-rational.  Our minds, our operating systems that were installed in school, have the software of the Enlightenment.  The way the Enlightenment dealt with mystery was to either explain it reasonably or throw it out as a figment of the imagination.

For example, Jesus didn’t really feed five thousand with just a few loaves and fishes.  Rather, everyone dug into their picnic baskets and shared some of what they had with everyone else.  Makes sense.

For example, Moses didn’t really part the Red Sea.  Rather, it was the reeds in the Red Sea that clogged the wheels Egyptians soldiers and caused the Israelites to be set free. 

I was trained in seminary to explain the Bible.  When I could not, don’t dare preach on that text.  Yet, what if there is truth beyond the truth our minds can contain and comprehend?  What if some experiences and encounters are contradictions and messy and leave us scratching our heads with both curiosity and frustration?  What if life isn’t linear and logical, but a circuitous route that makes you feel a bit dizzy and excited at the same time?

Unto you, right now in ways that may not make sense, God is entering in.  Unto you, in those less-than-perfect, even fear-filled, and frustrating moment, God is entering in.  That has been and still is what God is up to…if we are open to enter the mystery not to solve but to simply be.

Prayer: Unto me and to each person reading, O God, enter in we pray.  Amen.