Lighting up Love

Christmas Eve Services will take place at 9am and 7pm. The Church will be open on Christmas morning for Quiet Prayer at 9am. All are Welcome.

As we light the candle of Love, we recite Mary’s Song. The Song she sang when the baby Jesus was still in her womb in this period of Waiting. It is a love song to God. A love song to what has been. A love song to what will come.

Art awakens our imagination and this is a new favorite piece of art that depicts the scene of Mary and the angel Gabriel (Henry Tanner: The Annunciation). Stories awaken our imagination. Imagination awakens empathy and deeper understanding and love for one another.

Stories, Art, Imagination…bring us deeper into the Mystery of what was, what is, and what could be. Of who was, who is, and who could be. Including ourselves. We learn better who we were, who we are, and who we could be. I like to think of Advent as a time when time slips away and becomes a bit meaningless in the Mystery of something Bigger and unKnowable (which includes our own lives).

One of the best ways we can live and grow with the experience of the Story is to imagine ourselves in it—Contemplation (Ignatian Contemplation). How would it feel to be Mary? What is Mary really going through with her deeply human emotions? Why is Mary chosen? What makes Mary special?

Maybe that why’s we have the Christmas Pageants, so that we can put ourselves into the people of the Stories. We’ll come out with answers and new answers every year. We’ll have the same answer, similar answers, and different answers. An infant playing the baby Jesus will have a different experience than the six year old playing the Shepherd or the adult playing Joseph. That doesn’t make those answers wrong.

We can see Mary trying to understand it all in her Song. This is something she does often and well in the Stories. She reflects. She thinks. She listens. She watches. She ponders. She treasures. She’s not discovering to prove anything to anyone else. She’s simply trying to better understand; to better understand God’s bigger plan and better understand and live God’s plan for her.

She knows she is the least likely to be called by God. It’s interesting, especially in Luke, we are introduced to the Big Guys first in many of the chapters, people like Caesar Augustus, Herod, and Quirinius (the guy responsible for the census). These are people we may not like, but they are people who are big and powerful and in control. But God calls on someone else.

Someone like Mary. What does that say about Mary? PAUSE. What does that say about God? PAUSE.

God is always surprising us with the unexpected. When we think we might know God’s plan, it might be time to come back to the Stories. It’s never the expected person. We have the Big Guys and then it’s John the Baptist living in the wilderness who is called. It’s never the “usual” or the expected. It’s someone like…Mary.

Mary the young woman. Mary the virgin. Mary the innocent. Mary the peasant. Mary the betrothed. Mary the poor. Perhaps, Mary being called reminds us that the small matters. It’s the small, ordinary people who bring about real change. Who tend to what really, really matters. PAUSE.

Mary knows what God is asking of her and it is terrifying. She could lose her betrothed and be outcast. She could be ostracized or stoned. She could be killed. But she says yes to the scary and the unknown.

The whole Journey to the manger is terrifying.
The Journey to the cross is terrifying.

There is something special about Mary, not just bearing the baby Jesus, but bearing witness to his entire journey from conception and birth to the cross. Perhaps, she is his anchor along the way…a constant and gentle presence. In many ways, her journey also echoes Jesus’s path to come…PAUSE

For now, let’s come back to Fear for a moment. The angel Gabriel says to the frightened Mary: Fear Not.

What are the things we are afraid of in our own lives? PAUSE. Our leaders? Those in charge? The world? The systems? The taxes? War? These are things Mary and her people also worried about and feared.

Where our next meal is coming from and how to pay the next tax bill? Our health and the health of our family? Death, dying, and loss? Our safety and the safety of our family? Our reputation and place in the world? Our jobs and our work? Are we doing enough, saving enough, giving enough? These are things Mary and her people worried about and feared. Just like we do.

Do we worry about God (whatever “God” means to you: Universe, Energy, Life, etc). Are we doing Good Work? Are we doing enough Good Work? Are we doing God’s work? Are we tending to what matters most? Are we loved? Perhaps, Mary and her people worry and fear this too.

How like us is Mary? In her worries? In her fears? In her loves?

Then, as if that isn’t enough, this small, young woman is asked to do more…to bear the baby Jesus and all that that Journey asks of her. None, None of it easy…PAUSE. She fears. She questions and she wrestles with it (in her own gentle, pondering way). But she says…yes, I will.

It is her willingness and trust that make Mary special right from the beginning. She says yes despite her fears. Courage is not saying yes once the fear is gone (nothing would ever get done), but saying yes despite fears. The angel says, fear not and she trusts.

We can say yes and have courage despite our fears. We can take a breath and trust and do what really matters.

Perhaps Mary is our anchor of Courage. Not just for the big things, but the small, simple day to day courage life and God requires of us. Saying yes to what is right and what is good despite fear and worry. Saying yes to bigger things, because it matters most. Choosing what matters most over what’s easy.

Each obstacle opens another obstacle. Mary chooses to bear the baby, but what will Joseph do? Joseph chooses to support her, but then there’s the census that requires to travel (very pregnant) across dangerous lands to Joseph’s ancestral home in Bethlehem. Perhaps, we also feel this in our lives: that every obstacles opens another obstacle.

All the way to the birth, there is challenge. Interesting to ponder: the journey was so arduous and terrifying that they were willing to stay in an Inn. PAUSE. We think of an Inn as a nice, cozy place to rest and eat and we’re sad that there wasn’t enough room at the Inn for Mary and Joseph. Inns of that time were usually both unsafe and not places that devout Jewish folk would willingly stay…that, perhaps, tells us just how terrible the journey was.

We can imagine that Mary grows and learns through this first Journey to the Cradle. Perhaps not just to be courageous herself, but to become an anchor of Courage for others. Perhaps not just for the baby Jesus, but the growing up, and the grown up Jesus. She is with him…all the way. All the way. PAUSE.

Perhaps she helped to give Jesus Courage. Perhaps she helped Jesus to be willing too. Perhaps she helped Jesus to be faithful. Perhaps she helped Jesus to ponder, to prayer, and to study quietly in his heart. Perhaps she helped teach Jesus to be gently Strong.

Perhaps, she can inspire us to be fully human, yet gentle, loving, and full of courage. We, too, can be inspired by Mary’s Courage. She is special, but she is also very like us.

Like Mary, in our fear, we can listen…listen and trust the “fear not” within the fear. Quietly, faithfully be inspired toward Courage, Faith, and Love.