Held

You came to be held.

This is what I keep coming back to this Christmas. You, very God, slipping from the womb of a terrified teenage girl, wriggling, wet, squalling in the cold night. Held.

Tiny fists flailing helplessly. Eyes unfocused, not yet able to even see the world you made. Mouth grasping for nourishment. Skin wrinkled, soft, and pale. The crown of your head misshapen by your birth.

While we, the weary lost, cast our hearts upward and waited for the brilliant breaking in of Your glory, You slipped in weak among us. Yes, You rose into our dark with the brightness of a new star, and those who were watchful saw. You sang to us Your message, and those who were quiet heard. You whispered to hearts a promise to appear, and those who were waiting received.

But mostly we waited in darkness, unaware while You came. Wrapped thick in our longings, we did not know that You came to be held. You needed us. To speak to You, clothe You, feed You, touch You. You came so we would raise You up among us, teach You our ways. You, the living Word, came unable to speak and received our own language. You came to sleep under our stars, walk our dusty paths, live our simple life of longing and love.

You came to be ours so we could be Yours.

We held You. Tiny. Fragile. Beating heart, grasping fingers, hungry cry. Clumsy hearts full of pride and desire, we took You in and rejected You by turns. We wounded You as we have wounded one another since the beginning. We made You our own.

We held close Your new tiny body, and a few years later we held it again, the body that we broke. The crown of Your head misshapen by our hatred. We held in our very hands the fact of Your life and death among us.

You let Yourself be held so You could hold us.

When You slipped from our grasp and rose from us, the waiting began again. And here we are now, still wrapped in our longings, bewildered, hurting, weary hearts seeking upward for the breaking in of Your glory. When will You return? When will Your light crush this tide of darkness?

The mystery of this Advent, this waiting, is that You are coming and yet You have come. You are here with us even as we wait for You. You hold us even in our longing to see Your face, touch Your robe. You speak to us even as we fill heaven with our cries. You slip in to be with us even as we wonder where you are.

You are the One who helps us to wait for You. You come to the watchful, the quiet, the waiting. To those who look.

To those who look.

Open our hearts to see You.

Filled

From John 4

Steel yourself. Take your heavy jar and clutch it to you, a pretense of purpose, a flimsy shield against the stares. March out into the heat of day, and pretend not to notice the silence or the smirks. Pretend you are not desperately lonely, longing for anyone to see past the name they have created for you. No, the name you created for yourself. Put on your sexy haughty smile and do not care. Pretend not to understand what men think when they look at you and why the women turn away. Why they are afraid.

Swallow the dismay that rises to your throat when you see a Man at the well. Waiting. What is He waiting for? A Man. He is a Jew. Should you leave? Your gut tells you to leave but no, you need water. Lower your head and say nothing. He will not dare speak to you, a Samaritan and a woman.

You almost drop the jar when, in the kindest voice, He asks you for a drink. You look up and He is gazing at you with a look you have not seen before. It is a look that carries no judgment and no demand. “Why do You even ask me this?” you blurt, and He smiles.

In that moment your life changes, when this Man sees you. He doesn’t just look. He sees. Absurd, but you find yourself talking as you have talked with no one else, and He listens. You find within yourself a well of need surging up unbidden, and He receives the outpouring. His answers are hope. Here is a Man, looking at you like you matter, giving instead of taking, making you real. His gaze clothes you. And you see that He asked you for a drink so you would know you really had nothing to offer Him, nothing you could do for Him. He is the one who quenches thirst.

He tells you who you really are. He tells you all you ever did. And He does so simply, without blame. His words of you carry the weight of your wounds. You are so lonely. You have been rejected. You long for love. He offers you what you had not even let yourself long for. Peace. Rest. Acceptance.

This is what He does. He transforms you into who you already are, only you could never find yourself without Him. He looks past what the world has told you and He tells you why, and He tells you it is all right. You can put down your jar. He is the water. His water is life, and it is within you. You can raise your head without shame. And now, when men come to you, you can lead them to hope. You can show them what you have found. Who you have found. You can watch their transformation. You can be free.

Second birth

(John 3)

The first time I was born

into darkness,

a raggedy

grasping thing,

groping for life

and held by the shadow

of a love once known.

Fed by a craving

covetous world,

flesh fattened on falsehoods

dazzled by desires,

consumed by the noise

of my ambitions.

Here I lived

to die,

frenzied by the                                         

ever-hungry I,

plunging into earth

that didn’t want me

yet held me fast.

Here I built

to rise,

Pushed by a promise

and a lie,

the walls of my triumph

transformed to a tomb.

Here You came

for the second birth.

Here you lived

loved

labored

longed for the children

of your heart.

Opened wide Your arms

and screamed

into the wrecked world

Your love

Your agony

Your ransom

and delivered us.

Life in death

joy in sorrow

You mirror the pain

with purpose, You

breathe in my shuddered breaths

breathing out in me Your

song.

Here I die

to live,

held in the promise

that You give,

spirit yearning upward

in surrender

to your peace.

I cease.

I rest

to be raised

in Your truth.

I lose and find

myself in You.

Master of the feast

John 2:1-12

When the wine ran out, the servants must have panicked. Surely some of the blame would fall on them. The humiliated master of the feast would be looking for a scapegoat. When Mary comes to Jesus—was she a friend of the master?—He almost seems to be smiling when He says, “What does this have to do with Me?” But He can’t refuse His mother, and she trusts Him completely.

The disciples must have wondered what He was up to, this man they still barely knew. And what did the servants think as they labored to fill the heavy jars with water, hauling bucket after bucket of something they didn’t need? Why is He wasting our time? We should be out looking for more wine. Who is this man, anyway? Their work must have seemed futile. And yet they obeyed.

Were they frustrated? Resentful? Stressed and anxious? Merely curious? As Jesus watched them work, was he grinning at them? Were they compelled by His presence? Were they afraid? What was it about Him that compelled them to do this?

We see only that they did as they were asked to do, whether or not they obeyed willingly. And then, when He told them to take that water to the master of the feast? Did they tremble as they did so? Did they laugh at his lunacy? Did they sneak a sip along the way? (I would have.)

I imagine their knowing glances when the master tasted the wine, assuming it came from the bridegroom. I wonder if they looked back at Jesus and saw Him still grinning at them. Our little secret. He showed Himself that day to be the true Mater of the feast, though unseen.

And what that must have done for them, His making them a part of His miracle. Suddenly they were no longer servants but confidants in a wonderful plan, a joke almost, of the biggest blessing.

His disciples saw all. I wonder what they remembered later, maybe feeling sometimes that their labors were futile, as they obeyed feeling like not enough, like water poured out, and then the Master, unseen, turned all their effort into the richest wine.

A voice in the wilderness

From John 1

He stood in the river, vast sky stretching above him, the water tugging at his knees. A wild man in the wilderness holding out hope. The people came to him because here, at last, was a message; here, at last, was a voice.

Sometimes the wilderness is desolate, the parched tangle of the world crying out for what it has lost. Sometimes it is beauty, the upward yearning of creation expanding our own souls. Most often it is both. And in the wilderness we find space and silence. We find room for our lament.

In the wilderness a man spoke, and the people came. Walked from the noise and distraction of their lives into the space where the message found a voice. Crowded the riverbanks, stood at the edge of their suffering and met hope. Here is where they began to make room for God, and here is where God found them.

Jesus came to that wilderness, walked right into that river, past the judges who hovered with arms crossed. He didn’t give a sermon or wow everyone with a miracle. He simply waded in to be with his people, went down into the water, opened Himself to receive God. He paved the way.

That’s what He does. He comes to us. He finds us in the wilderness. In the stark, thirsty places; in the still, lovely places. Sometimes He blazes up in the darkness from a burning bush and turns our lives upside down. Sometimes He simply wades in, holds out His hand, and calls us to join Him.

Sometimes you are forced into the wilderness. Sometimes you flee there. Sometimes you simply go there because there is nowhere left to go. And sometimes you live there for a while. You receive a message and you become a voice calling, and the people come and find what they were looking for.

But first you have to find it for yourself.