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| Image by Tony Armstrong-Sly |
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A GREETING
This is the day that the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
(Psalm 118:24)
A READING
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him, and without him not
one thing came into being. What has come into being in him
was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines
in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
(John 1:1-5)
MUSIC
A MEDITATIVE VERSE
The word is very near to you;
it is in your mouth and in your heart.
(Deuteronomy 30:14)
A REFLECTION
Those of us who are Christians can also remember the example of Someone who lived with a sense of meaning and purpose in the most chaotic and oppressive time. We have only to recall that Jesus lived with God as the point of his being. Again and again, he told his disciples that he had come from God and was going to God. He knew who he was, that his deepest identity lay in the mystery that he was born of God. And he knew that he was for God, that he had come to announce the great dream of God, the dream of the reign of God and the great economy of grace. This was the meaning and purpose of his life. It was his passion. His affirmation of the point of his life was profoundly based on his gratitude for being born of God.
- from Radical Gratitude by Mary Jo Leddy
VERSE FOR THE DAY
He is the reflection of God’s glory
and the exact imprint of God’s very being,
and he sustains all things by his powerful word.
(Hebrews 1:3a)
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| 15th Century Besançon Book of Hours. Mary reads scripture while Joseph minds Jesus. |
Today we celebrate the birth of Jesus who took on human form to come among us. This quiet and humble and extraordinary event is a cornerstone of our faith, a turning point that sends us forward on our path of discipleship with renewed hope. Even as we experience joy in the season, we also know that hiding in the future of this wondrous moment is a deep and abiding sorrow. In a few months we will understand more fully through Jesus' death and resurrection, just how significant his incarnation has been. As hard as it is to imagine, the person of Jesus was known only to a few hundred people in first century Palestine.
Advent has ended and Christmas is here, but for the figures of the birth story, a new Advent begins. Mary and Joseph must raise the boy prophet and wait for the words promised by angels to be fulfilled. They will spend thirty years in that ‘Advent’. On the night that Jesus was born, John the Baptist is already several months old. The people who will be called by Jesus to “drop their nets” and follow him are in their infancy. At the time of this birth, there are children of Nazareth and Galilee who will grow up to be those who will have profound impact on the future of the Christian story. Like Peter and Thomas and Mary Magdalene.
It can seem strange to imagine such essential figures of our faith as children. God knew them, just as God knows us, from our mother’s womb and before. Each of us has a role to play in the unfolding of God’s realm on earth. In the coming days, we will follow the paths of the people who became some of the earliest and most significant Celtic Christians. We will look at the pilgrim paths that have been established in their name, and the ways in which their unique stories involve the lives of animals and plants and the land they found themselves in.
Unlike Mary and Joseph, we don’t have to wait thirty years to follow Jesus into the world. Each year we tell the story of the birth again so that we can renew within ourselves our own preparation to be disciples of Jesus. During the rest of the year, we may fall out of practice or become too disaffected by the troubling realities that are all around us. And each Advent and Christmas we come back to our faithful hearts and try again; we prepare and renew ourselves once more. We prepare for the birth so that we are ready to then renew our sense of discipleship.
In these coming twelve days of Christmas, how will the joy we feel ignite our discipleship? How will we prepare our hearts for building up the body of Christ?
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| Image by Tony Armstrong-Sly |
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LC† Come Holy Darkness is a project of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook, and on Twitter. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help to support extended offerings throughout the year.
Thank you and peace be with you!