The close link between first and second “comings” of Jesus then becomes clear. Jesus is baptized by John. The Spirit descends, anointing Jesus afresh for his public ministry. The voice of God himself is heard, announcing him as his beloved Son. He is the one who will bring God‟s sovereign, saving rule “on earth as in heaven”. The double Advent theme thus dovetails perfectly together. The first coming is not only the preparation for the second one; it forms a kind of template for it. Learning to live appropriately between the two “comings”, under the rescuing rule of Jesus and in the power of his Spirit, is what it means to be Christian.
– N.T. Wright
Category Archives: Advent
virgin
As if until that moment
nothing real
had happened since Creation
As if outside the world were empty
so that she and he were all
there was — he mover, she moved upon
As if her submission were the most
dynamic of all works: as if
no one had ever said Yes like that
As if one day the sun had no place
in all the universe to pour its gold
but her small room
-Luci Shaw
…to the captive there is no other freedom
“The Incarnation is hard to dismiss out of hand because it so radically comes near our needs. Into the world of living and dying the arrival of Christ as a child turns fears of isolation, weakness, and condemnation on their heads. C.S. Lewis describes the doctrine of the Incarnation as a story that gets under our skin unlike any other creed, religion, or theory. “[The Incarnation] digs beneath the surface, works through the rest of our knowledge by unexpected channels, harmonises best with our deepest apprehensions… and undermines our superficial opinions. It has little to say to the man who is still certain that everything is going to the dogs, or that everything is getting better and better, or that everything is God, or that everything is electricity. Its hour comes when these wholesale creeds have begun to fail us.”(2) Standing over the precipices of the things that matter, nothing matters more than that there is a loving, forgiving, eager God who draws near.
The great hope of the Incarnation is that God comes for us. God is aware and Christ is present, having come in flesh, and it changes everything. “[I]f accepted,” writes Lewis, “[the Incarnation] illuminates and orders all other phenomena, explains both our laughter and our logic, our fear of the dead and our knowledge that it is somehow good to die,…[and] covers what multitudes of separate theories will hardly cover for us if this is rejected.”(3) The coming of Christ as an infant in Bethlehem puts flesh on humanity’s worth and puts God in humanity’s weakness. To the captive, there is no other freedom.”
On the Incarnation of man
Winter snow will come.
Winter wind will blow.
Snow melts on flesh.
Wind bites the flesh.
One cannot deny they are alive
In the throes of a driving winter storm.
One cannot deny light is brightest
When filling many thousand years darkness.
Our flesh cannot deny enfleshment
When our ears are pierced by gnashing gales,
When our hands bleed upon icy snow drifts.
advent antiphons
From Mary’s sweet silence,
Come, Word mutely spoken!
Pledge of our real life,
Come, Bread yet unbroken!
Seed of the Golden Wheat,
In us be sown.
Fullness of true Light,
Through us be known.
Secret held tenderly,
Guarded with Love,
Cradled in purity,
Child of the Dove,
COME!
-Sr. M. Charlita, I.H.M.
if you want
If you want,
the Virgin will come walking down the road
pregnant with the holy,
and say,
“I need shelter for the night,
please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul
you will witness the sublime
intimacy, the divine, the Christ
taking birth
forever,
as she grasps your hand for help,
for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation
come into existence eternally,
through your womb, dear pilgrim—
the sacred womb in your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help;
for each of us is
His beloved servant
never far.
If you want, the Virgin will come walking
down the street pregnant
with Light and sing…
–St. John of the Cross, “If You Want” in Daniel Ladinsky Love Poems from God:
Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West
blessing the advent door
First let us say
a blessing
upon all who have
entered here before
us.
You can see the sign
of their passage
by the worn place
on the doorframe
as they walked through,
the smooth sill
of the threshold
where they crossed.
Press your ear
to the door
for a moment before
you enter
and you will hear
their voices murmuring
words you cannot
quite make out
but know
are full of welcome.
On the other side
these ones who wait –
for you,
if you do not
know by now –
understand what
a blessing can do
how it appears like
nothing you expected
how it arrives as
visitor,
outrageous invitation,
child;
how it takes the form
of angel
or dream;
how it comes
in words like
How can this be?
and
lifted up the lowly:
how it sounds like
in the wilderness
prepare the way.
Those who wait
for you know
how the mark of
a true blessing
is that it will take you
where you did not
think to go.
Once through this door
there will be more:
more doors
more blessings
more who watch and
wait for you
but here
at this door of
beginning
the blessings cannot
be said without you
So lay your palm
against the frame
that those before you
touched
place your feet
where others paused in this entryway.
Say the thing that
you most need
and the door will
open wide.
And by this word
the door is blessed
and by this word
the blessing is begun
from which
door by door
all the rest
will come.
-Jan Richardson found here
Tonight…
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
-Philip Brooks, 1867, Hymn: O Little Town of Bethlehem
born to give them second birth…
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die;
born to raise the sons of earth;
born to give them second birth.
-Charles Wesley, Hymn: Joyful, all ye nations, rise
The Coming
And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, A river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many People
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said.
-R.S. Thomas
peacocks for pilgrims 