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Monday, January 1, 2018
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
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.
Thursday, September 7, 2017
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.
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
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.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
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.
Friday, March 3, 2017
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.
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