Readings: Psalm 89:1-4, 19-26; 2 Samuel 6:12-19; Hebrews 1:5-14

I have found my servant David;

With my holy oil I have anointed him;

My arm also shall strengthen him.

Psalm 89:20-21

I love a good mystery. Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, P.D. James, Elizabeth George, and Martha Grimes have written me into their worlds, and I’ve spent many hours with Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, Holmes and Watson, Dalgliesh, Lynley, Jury and Plant. While it seems most real life crimes are committed by the usual suspects (spouse, sibling, business partner, etc.), it’s almost never the obvious suspect in a well written mystery. On the rare occasion that the butler/husband/heir did do it, the reasons are never as simple as they often are in real life. A good mystery is exactly that: a mystery.

Life outside criminal investigations is rarely simple or obvious. There isn’t a living being that can be fully understood. It’s difficult to predict what any particular person might do when faced with a challenge or put in a dangerous situation. Who can work under pressure? Who will find an unexpected solution to a vexing problem? Who will find the strength and courage to risk life and limb to save others? It’s almost impossible to know in advance.

The same was true when today’s passages were written. Who would have thought that the poetry writing, dancing-before-God-and-people, youngest son and shepherd would be chosen by God to rule? Who would have thought a poor teenager and a carpenter would be the ones to raise God-With-Us? Why a locust eating backwoods preacher as the forerunner? Why a Nazarene born in a stable?

In this holy world where mystery abounds, God only knows who will be chosen next. Why not you? Why not me?

O Lord, guide my feet on this road to Bethlehem. Amen.

Readings: Psalm 125; Malachi 3:16-4:6; Mark 9:9-13

I have attended church almost every Sunday of my remembered life.
I love the church, the quietness of the space and the holiness of the environments I have been part of throughout the different stages of my life. In each of these church experiences I had my pre-conceived idea of who Jesus was based on the experiences of my life beforehand and what I had been taught and had been willing to take the time to study.

(In the verses just before these, Peter, James, and John have seen Jesus transfigured and heard the voice of God speaking to them)

As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean. Then they asked him, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” He said to them, “Elijah is indeed coming first to restore all things. How then is it written about the Son of Man, that he is to go through many sufferings ad be treated with contempt? But I tell you that Elijah has come, and they did to him whatever they pleased, as it is written about him.” Mark 9:9-13 NRSV

On the way down from the mountaintop experience, Jesus commands these three disciples not to tell anyone what they had  seen; it would not be understood until after the resurrection. These disciples had been so completely schooled in the idea that the Messiah would set up a kingdom on earth that they could not understand what Jesus was saying. When the Cross had taught them what Messiahship meant and when the Resurrection had convinced them that Jesus was the Messiah, then, and then only, could they tell of the glory of the mountain top.

I need to be careful that I am not blind to what God wants to do in and through my life because I have already decided how I want things to turn out. It is so easy to be blind to the truth when I already have a preconceived idea of how I want certain things to be.

This scripture reminds me that there are times when God graciously allows us to take a few steps by sight so that we can continue the journey by faith. Peter, James, and John see Jesus with the two most prominent figures in the Old Testament – Moses the Lawgiver and Elijah the great prophet.  Jesus is briefly transfigured, and they are allowed to see Him in a glorious state. Finally, and most significantly, they hear the voice of God for themselves when He affirms that Jesus is His son. Allowing Peter, James, and John to experience these things was an expression of God’s grace upon them at this point in their journey of following Jesus. They may not understand what they saw, but they did see it.

I wonder if we understand what resurrection means. I am increasingly convinced that our present day equivalent to the disciples wondering, “What does this talk of resurrection mean?” might be “What difference does resurrection make in day-to-day lives?” And if, in the end, we can’t answer that question, then we might also wonder why we say we follow the way of Christ at all.

Yes, we’re familiar with the idea of resurrection. But do we actually expect it and experience it? Have you ever had an experience where God allowed you to take a few steps by sight so that you could continue the journey by faith?

Prayer: Dear God, let the resurrection be real for us, shaping both our faith and our actions in this world. In Jesus’ name,  Amen.

Offered by Donna Eby, photographer, teacher, seeker of the Christ Child.

Readings: Psalm 125; 2 Kings 2:9-22 (23-25); Acts 3:17-4:4

Now the people of the city said to Elisha, “The location is good…but the water is bad and the land unfruitful…then he went to the spring of water and threw the salt into it, and said, “Thus says the Lord, I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” So the water has been wholesome to this day, according to the word Elisha spoke.

Elijah has been taken up into the heavens, leaving Elisha to pick up his prophet’s mantle. He is a true prophet, having the power to do mighty things in the name of the Lord. Putting grief aside, he manages to cleanse a spring of water – an act that saves the people from illness and death. Prophecy and help don’t die with Elijah because God continues to provide for the people through Elisha. God’s power has passed into new hands. That’s where the story ends when it’s heard in church or listed in daily devotionals, but it’s not the end of the story as written:

He went up from there to Bethel; and while he was going up on the way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him, saying, “Go away, baldhead! Go away, baldhead!” When he turned and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. From there he went on to Mount Carmel, and then returned to Samaria. 2 Kings 2:19, 21, 23-25 NRSV

As our weary and grieving prophet heads out of town, a pack of small boys runs alongside, shouting insults and taunting Elisha. Elisha snaps, turning his grief, exhaustion, and annoyance into a curse that leaves dozens of young boys injured and dying. He keeps walking, leaving behind life-giving water and heartbroken families. Human frailty and great power can harm just as easily as it can heal.

Perhaps this is why God-With-Us came to Mary and Joseph – a young woman willing to risk everything to serve God and a man kind enough to refrain from harming her even when he thought she had been unfaithful. God knew they would love him and teach him to act with compassion. For Mary and Joseph were so loving that God gave them his only begotten son…

Come, walk with me to Bethlehem.

Readings: Psalm 126; Habakkuk 3:13-19; Matthew 21:28-32

Though the fig tree does not blossom and no fruit is on the vines;

though the produce of the olive fails and the field yields no food;

though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

and makes me tread upon the heights.

Habakkuk 3:17-19 NRSV

Habakkuk was a prophet in the late seventh and early sixth centuries BCE.   It was a time of great turmoil in Jerusalem and of many great injustices in the world.  In many ways like in our own world, the question arises, “Where is God’s justice?”  Why do the poor suffer while the powerful seem unpunished for their misdeeds?  Why do bad things happen to good people?

Perhaps we ask the wrong questions.  Is it up to us to criticize God?  Or is it possible that there is something else going on. Perhaps we have a role in bringing God’s kingdom into our world. Over and over again, in both the Old and New Testaments, we are reminded that our God wills a world of righteousness and justice, a world with compassion for the poor and the sick, a world of peace and love. Sometimes we are depressed by what we see in the events of our time. We feel helpless to make things better. Habakkuk foresaw great troubles coming to Jerusalem in the form of warring nations.  He knew that times were going to be rough.  “YET I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!”

There are times in our own lives when we feel helpless. We do not have control over what is happening. Jobs are lost. Relationships fail. Illness consumes us or someone we love. YET, in all of the sadness and violence, God is beside us, loving us, guiding us, helping us. As we look back on some of the dark times in our life, so often we see God at work picking up the pieces for us and helping us get through to a brighter side of the darkness.

And there is the answer: God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, with us always.  In the darkness or the light, as Julian of Norwich reminds us All shall be well.

A Prayer from St. Augustine: Lord Jesus, let our minds rest in your Word, so that when doubt and grief would overwhelm us, faith will open our eyes to see your hand at work in our life and enable us to turn toward the future with hope and toward each other in perfect charity.

Marge O’Brien wrote these words in 2014. She died a few months ago, leaving behind a world better for her life. I was blessed by her friendship, and I am grateful for the words she leaves behind.

Readings: Psalm 126; Habakkuk 3:2-6; Philippians 3:12-16

The Lord stopped and shook the earth; he looked and made the nations tremble. The eternal mountains were shattered; along his ancient pathways the everlasting hills sank low.

(Habakkuk 3:6)

When God comes into our lives, what happens? The Bible is full of stories about exactly that. There are burning bushes, clouds, pillars of fire, wrestling in the night, and strangers dropping by for dinner. Then there are the earth shaking, brilliant light in heaven appearances. The coming of the Lord is glorious. This is exactly what we expect: spectacular and overwhelming evidence of God’s power.

Then we get to the last line of Habakkuk’s prayer: the eternal mountains are shattered. Along his ancient pathways the everlasting hills sink low. The eternal places and roads of God are gone. We can’t find them in the rubble and there are no landmarks to guide us. We are lost.

Advent is something coming into creation that has never been – God with us in human form. No earthquakes, just angels and shepherds seeking a baby. God comes to us in this child Jesus. We see in him the way to our eternal home. Hope and glory are ours in the coming of Jesus. We live in God “because Christ Jesus has made us his own.” When we find the stable, we find God.

Come, Lord Jesus, Come.

(Images from Pixabay.com)

Readings: Psalm 27; Malachi 2:10 – 3:1; Luke 1:5-17

Planets spin us back in time

where stars wink silently on a non descript stable,

dank and cold.

Reality before perception:

as on Christmas cards all glitter and light,

Mary, child-woman,

holding the “breath of heaven” within her being

cannot fathom that same breath

rippling into time and space

thousands of years henceforth.

All creation waits.

And in one great exhalation

              HOPE!

that the promise still holds.

That as the shepherds, we too will look in awe,

songs of wonder and praise

filling our ears and hearts.

In the land of the living

the very same stars will illuminate

The Word fulfilled,

God among us,

In the peace and beauty of holiness.

 12/01/2017

I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord

in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13

Offered by Debbie Hill, artist, musician, seeker of the Christ Child.