Star of Wondering (Anne Trenning)

The best Advent Bible study I have ever been to was with a bunch of 5-7 year olds. Sorry colleagues and friends, sorry pastors and teachers. And to be clear, I have participated in some excellent advent-themed discussions and studies. But my favorite, by far, was one cold Sunday morning, gathered around a table with twelve little hands passing between them figurines of Mary, Joseph and a donkey, while the teacher told the story of their long journey to Bethlehem and of Jesus' birth.

After the story the teacher said "Let's imagine about that long journey, what are some things you wonder about?" And slowly but surely the wonders started to emerge, "I wonder what a donkey feels like?" "Did Mary get cold?" "Did God wish he could hold Baby Jesus when he was born?" The wise teacher didn't answer the wonderings, but just let them hang in the air, sparking our imaginations. 

Advent is a time to wonder. A time when we are confronted with unabashed mysteries and questions whose answers dance just at the edge of our understanding.
A time for small wonders and big wonders, wonders that warm our spirits and those born of our deep longing- 
What do donkeys feel like? 
How do reindeer fly? 
How does selfless love come to us? 
How did such a big God fit into such a tiny baby? 
How can a person's heart change after so long a time? 
Will peace ever come? 

We hold the questions, we visit and revisit them, not as a theological exercise per say (although theologies are fine things to work on) but we hold them in a different way in this season. Maybe they are bathed in the light of hope or ringing an echo of Mary's assertion that all things are possible with God, or maybe they have just been dusted with the magical whimsy of our Christmas culture, a la It's a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street. 

Even so, there is something in that story of a starlit manger, of God breaking into the world in such a way, that pulls us toward a deeper sense of wonder: that mix of awe and mystery and hope, that unsteady, tiptoed longing, reaching, imagining, marveling. Like a child who imagines Santa's trip around the world in one night or someone who open themselves to the mystery of a Love Incarnate. For this season promises one of the greatest wonders of all, that in the midst of our questioning and wondering and longing, Christ comes to dwell.


Today's song has no words. Instead I would encourage you to take these moments to wonder, to question, to marvel at this story, this promise, this hope to which we give our hearts year after year...

Please share with us some of your 'wonders' this season in the comments below.

-Lindsey

Eureka (Ben Lee)

image courtesy of Myke Christoffel

If there had been a nightly news circuit in the time of Jesus' birth - an online newsfeed for the Holy Land - I wonder if Mary and Joseph would have been reading and shaking their heads in as much dismay as we do now:

'Can you believe it? This is not a good time to raise a child! It's like our culture thrives on divisiveness, argument, and scapegoating. How can a child grow up anything other than weary and jaded in a time like ours?'

And yet Jesus came, and was born into a world of divisiveness and social strife. He was born into an occupied land under an oppressive regime dealing with many radical discontents - a time and culture vastly different, and yet strangely similar to our own.

One of the common ways U.S. society, at least, enjoys creating divisiveness and strife is around the "science versus faith debate." Yet most major faiths agree with the fundamental concept behind one of the most revolutionary science theories of the 20th Century: Einstein's Theory of Relativity. For the non-science savvy person like myself it boils down to understanding that all energy and matter are interrelated. Everything - everything - is intertwined. We are not only inseparable from each other and our surroundings, but from even the farthest star in the cosmos.

We're All in this Together perf. Ben Lee. Lyrics HERE.

The fact that we're all in this together is not a new concept, but it's a Eureka moment when we realize that it's more than just a nice idea. It's the bedrock of our survival and thriving, and frankly, it's just scientific fact according to quantum physics. Jesus tried to get the message of our fundamental unity across his whole life, saying, "whosoever does this to the least of these does it to me," and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and really tried to drive it home in John 16:

 "This is my command, love each other."  - John 16: 17

It can't get much clearer than this, but somehow we forget to not only love one another, but even to really notice one another. We are all in this together, not because we have the same troubles, but because we acknowledge that we share in a common struggle through our days. We are imperfect, broken, frequently cynical or downtrodden. We are also strong beyond measure when we come together.

We Resist the Sleep when we refuse to believe the lie that we are isolated, freakish, or worthless. We Seed the Hope when we joyfully proclaim to one another that, "You're made of atoms, I've made of atoms... and we're all in this together!" 

Loneliness and a sense of isolation are a part of the human experience, and Jesus never promised that he would cure these feelings, or that being God-with-Us would resolve all suffering and loss in the here and now. What he did promise was, "Lo, I am with you until the end of the age." In other words, 'we're all in this together.' Together -- even with God-in-Christ, who does not separate from creation but draws closer, now and always.

Where do you need to feel "in this together" with others during this Advent season?

May your journey be marked by strangers and friends who come up alongside you in the twilight, listening to your need, being supported by your presence in turn, each and all sharing pilgrimage into the dawning day.

                                                                                                                                         - Anna



**This week, we'll take YOUR suggestions for what songs help you Seed the Hope or Resist the Sleep. Post a YouTube link with your thoughts and we'll re-post them all on our Saturday post.**

The Long Wait (Emeli Sande)

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.                -Isaiah 43:1-2

 

 
When I was a kid, the most difficult waiting of this season had to do with the rule that we could only advance the mouse on our advent calendar one day at a time toward Christmas.  Some days my brother and I would move the mouse several times, back and forth, between the previous and current days; with the kind of twitchy frustration that causes children to groan or sigh and flail themselves onto the nearest couch or chair.  WHY GOD, did you make advent so long?!

As an adult, I confess, I am not much better with waiting.  But I do recognize that beyond the realm of advent calendars and four Sundays set aside for themes of “waiting and expectation,” there is another kind of wait. There are those among us that have been waiting life times, literally; those who have said the need and said it again and screamed the need and still are waiting for an answer. I think of family members who waited their whole lives before trying to reconcile, of the countless people who work and wait generation to generation to bring peace to homelands rife with conflict, and of all the waiting in between: months of unemployment, years of trying to let go of hurt.

Some times, we wait so long that the waiting itself becomes a force in our lives. Our situation doesn’t seem to change, that loved one doesn’t change, that problem does not get resolved; instead, in the face of all this waiting, all of the sameness around us, we change. Waiting can empty us. Waiting can develop in us capacities and characteristics we had not recognized in ourselves, both good and bad (perseverance, wisdom, bitterness, cynicism…).  

 

 

Oh heaven, oh heaven
I wake with good intentions
But the day it always lasts too long
Then I'm gone
Then I'm gone
Then I'm gone

 

This is what I hear when Sande sings “will you recognize me?” It has been so long that my expectation, my good intention, has been lost; so long, in fact, that I feel as though I have been lost. “The day always lasts too long, then I’m gone.”  The kind of emptying that long waiting can bring to us can be painful, it can be exhausting; but it can also be constructive, clearing away parts of us that may have held us back at one time, making space for good risk taking, emptying us for something new. Then again (and just to be clear) sometimes the emptying-wait just sucks.

But the Good News of this Advent season is that God waits with us. In the long history of our faith, both before the birth of Emmanuel and after, God was with the people, as they waited, as their days and years grew long, when they didn’t remember who they were and when they didn’t live into that identity. God was with them. God is with us. So the answer to our song’s question is a divine “yes.” Yes, I will recognize you, empty or full, whatever the waiting brings to you, however it changes you. I will recognize you, for you are mine.

 

In your emptying and in your filling, may God With Us, keep you through the wait.

-Lindsey