Singing before time

I was thinking this week about Mary's trip to Bethlehem. Not the one she made with Joseph in order to get enrolled or taxed or whatever the reason. I was thinking about that long journey she made from her home in Nazareth to see her relative (cousin? aunt?) Elizabeth. What was she thinking?

She was just a teenager, pregnant, no husband — yet; traveling alone nearly the length of Israel. Didn't she know she was risking everything God had planned? What if she fell, what if she got sick on bad water or spoiled food? Didn't she know that life is very fragile — especially new life?

Was Nazareth too hard a place to be for her? Did she have something to say that she couldn't say at home to her own mother that she needed to say to Elizabeth? Had the whispers become too loud, the glances too sharp? Did she just need some place to go where she would be welcomed, to find someone who would listen to her, to perhaps hold her close and tell her that she is brave.

As her son would be driven to the wilderness after his baptism, Mary was driven into the wilderness to sing her song.

Barbara Brown Taylor points out that Mary's song is sung past tense and that prophets always get their verb tenses mixed up because for them God's actions are always happening ahead of time. There is no distinction between then, now, and tomorrow.

All Mary had was the promise and the song that God had done great things for her, that God wanted her to be part of what is yet to come.

Those Little Advent Candles

There is not one of us, I imagine, that is not profoundly moved and deeply sorrowful over the murders of the children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut. And for that tragedy to happen at this time of year — Christmas and Hanukah — makes it even harder to comprehend and to understand.

Rachel Held Evans began her blog post on Sunday (Dec. 16) this way:

"Those little Advent candles sure have a lot of darkness to overcome this year… Their stubborn flames represent the divine promise that even the smallest light can chase away the shadows lurking in this world, that even in the darkest places, God can’t be kept out."

She is right. We need to keep those little Advent candles and those little Hanukah candles burning well past their seasons. There is "a lot of darkness to overcome this year."

Shining the light of Advent and Christmas into dark places is what Christians should be doing, especially now. Christmas is not about us, it is about God and God’s actions. Advent and Christmas prepare us to face the real challenges that lie before us. They center our lives on what God is doing for his children.

The coming of Jesus is the end of the rule of the powerful, an end to the damning Law of value and worth that we impose on each other. Jesus is a threat to the way things are now and stands as a beacon to the way things will be.

The beacon of good news that shines from Advent to Christmas and into Epiphany is that God is with us, God is for us. It is the good news that makes us brave and gives us the confidence to say, "God bless the little children and the poor. God bless the weak and the outsider. God bless the lonely, the sick, and the disturbed. God comfort those who mourn."

It will take a long time for the wounds of Newtown, Red Lake, Columbine, and the wounds of poverty, war, and hatred to heal. It will take a long time for the soul of this country, and of we its people, to repent of our lust for money and our trust in violence and power.

Yet for me, the center of this season and my faith is this: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth (John 1). And I have faith, as Rachel Held Evans said, "that even the smallest light can chase away the shadows lurking in this world, that even in the darkest places, God can’t be kept out."