By Barbie Perks —
Close on 20 years ago, I came across the Blue Christmas concept in a Methodist Women’s magazine that was being published in South Africa. The idea resonated deeply as we had suffered a number of losses that year in our church community: deaths, divorces, jobs and relationships. I contacted our pastor and suggested we hold a service the week before Christmas to recognise the losses in our community and he agreed, with the proviso that I organise it! I am always grateful to him for the trust and confidence he had in me as a person, and that service birthed what is now an integral part of the church’s Christmas calendar.
After that first service, we renamed it our Christmas of Hope service, a time when we can focus on caring for those who have suffered loss in any way, recognise the brokenness that grief brings, and give them hope to face the future, confident of the support of the church community, and with the knowledge that Christ is with them in all aspects of their lives. The liturgy, combined with an invitation to come forward to light a candle in remembrance of what we have lost, is particularly comforting to many.
What we need most when life is at its darkest point, is that flicker of light, that hope that things will eventually get better. Sometimes it takes a long time, but when we hold on to Christ as our anchor through it all, God makes a way and we can move forward.
I returned to my home church for a visit last week, and was reminded of this service again, and how poignant it is for me as I am now the one walking this road of uncertainty. This Christmas will be a very different one, in a different home, in a different country, among different friends. Thankfully, some family members will be joining us and I am sure it will be a wonderful week. The amazing truth of it all, is that no matter the where, the why and the how, the re-telling of the birth of our Saviour is a constant source of comfort and hope.
A favourite Christmas carol is “We Three Kings” – we sing of the star and the light that leads us, and there are times when that light is literally all we have to hang onto in the darkness of grief and sorrow.
Two songs I found online that are very meaningful are
May you be blessed this Christmas. May you find hope to see you through the difficult hours.
By Lilly Lewin
Wrapped in God’s Love….
The week before Christmas is filled with TO DO lists and expectations. For some, it means traveling to visit friends and family. For others, it means working longer hours at restaurants, stores, and churches. Some To Do Lists are fun, and involve things like making cookies and wrapping gifts, while others bring more stress and anxiety, more frustration and less rest.
In the midst of these next few days, I invite you take time to rest in God’s love for you.
Use the image of Mary holding Jesus and wrapping him in swaddling clothes to help you connect with God’s love holding you, and protecting you. Use the painting above or below, or find one on line that resonates with you, to help you with this Ponder this image. What do you see? What do you notice? How does Mary look at Jesus? How does Jesus want to look at you? Use these images to pray with this week. 
Imagine Mary, holding Jesus in her arms and singing him a lullaby. What if Jesus wants to sing a song of love and comfort to you these last days of Advent and into Christmas? Can you hear him? What Song is Jesus singing to you? Find a lullaby and play it as a reminder of God’s love holding you close.
Imagine how safe a baby feels in her mother’s arms. Allow yourself to be held in the arms of God. How does it feel to be held and comforted? Will you allow Jesus to hold you in the days ahead?
Put a blanket around your shoulders. Let the blanket remind you of Mary wrapping her baby in swaddling clothes to keep him warm and protected. Sit with this image. As Mary wrapped Jesus in swaddling clothes, Allow Jesus to wrap you in his love this holiday season. Each time you wrap up in a blanket to watch tv, read a book, or add a blanket to your bed for warmth, allow this to be a symbol of Jesus wrapping you his blanket of love and safety.
The blanket is symbol of the love of Jesus surrounding you.
The blanket is a symbol of Jesus holding you close and loving you just as you are!
Be wrapped in God’s love this Christmas. As Mary wrapped Jesus in bands of cloth, let the love of Jesus wrap around you and remove the stress and fear, the anxiety and expectations others .
Allow God to hold you close, like a mother holds her child.
Breathe in Love
Breathe out fear.
Breathe in Belovedness.
Breathe out self doubt.
Breathe in love for the unique creation you are.Breathe out comparison.
Breathe in Love. Breathe out stress.
Breathe in Love.
Rest in this great Love.
Be wrapped in it!
Merry Christmas! 
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
I was unable to have children of my own, so holding my nephews, niece and friends’ children over the years has been such a precious bittersweet joy. As time has gone on my grief for myself has largely healed, so that now not every beautifully taut swollen pregnant belly automatically makes me want to cry or propels me from the room. Yet I wonder if there is something about God I will never be able to understand because I am not a parent.
Yet does that necessarily mean that ‘birthing God’ is reduced to being merely a metaphorical spiritual idea? Christians believe God reentered the physical universe by being born as a child. The wonder of that sentence is incalculable. The material laws of the cosmos changed when God’s matter transformed into human flesh. It sounds far fetched I admit. The stuff myths are made of. But if I let the reality of this wonder incarnate in me, surely nothing will ever be impossible again. And that includes what God might want to do, in my life, with my life; how God might want to use me to draw the kingdom of heaven near – now.
However, before that possibility can take root within me, I come to a screeching mental halt: I often struggle hugely with an abiding sense that I am somehow intrinsically unloveable. Intellectually, I know this cannot be true; the love my family and friends show to me gives me practical evidence that this is not truth. Theologically, I absolutely reject the medieval concept of original sin; the experience of holding a new born child convinces me that I too, cannot have been born with that dark baggage. The whole story of Advent reminds me time and again that God has come and is coming into the world, precisely to eliminate that lie of separation.
Sometimes, I so wish I could hold the Christ child in my arms, maybe then I would see in that child the miracle of God wanting to be brought to birth in this very specific way; maybe then I would believe I too am a child of God who is intimately loved and loveable; that God wants me to birth the Beloved into the world around me – now. (And I hear Jesus whisper, “Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe”.)
Despite all the images that surround me at Christmas in the western northern hemisphere there is absolutely nothing sentimental about this birth of Love into Love’s world. God’s birthing continues to be a hard joy, a jagged light, as so many women will testify. There is always an element of danger in birthing no matter how we wrap it up in technology. So too then, I shouldn’t be surprised if God’s birthing in me is hard labour, long and slow in coming, requiring plenty of extensive preparation, and then demanding a long moment of absolute surrender to the process. God asks me to relinquish all my attempts at control to render myself absolutely vulnerable, just as God made the God-self vulnerable to come as a child – by choice. The risks were huge.
But sometimes I hear myself cry, “Lord, does the process have to be quite so long and so hard?”
Just as the Christ-child is made and born vulnerable in flesh, the God-child my Creator makes and bears in me is just as vulnerable in spirit. The risks are huge for this birthing too; not least that I will allow grief to harden into embittered defensiveness, or allow depression to cripple me by convincing me I am utterly alone, or allow chronic ill health to shrink my world so that I no longer seek opportunities for connecting with others or for exercising my creativity. Because even all God’s power did not, and does not, make God invulnerable. God is joyful when I am joyful but equally, God is wounded when I am wounded, because that is the exactly the miracle of the incarnation which is encapsulated in the name Emmanuel: God with us.
In The Dark Night of the Soul psychologist Gerald May takes this idea further, as he reflects on Teresa of Avila’s contemplative vision of ‘the Holy One’s being surrendered to us in love and needing us to love, to be loved by, and to manifest God’s love in the world’. He continues:
Theologically, if God is all-loving – if God is Love – then that love must necessarily temper God’s omnipotence. Love always transforms power, making it something softer, deeper, and richer. Conversely, it may only be in our vulnerability, in or actually being wounded, that love gains its full power. Thus true omnipotence may not be found in a distant and separate power over something or someone, but rather in the intimate experience of being wounded for and with. (197; original emphasis)
God was wounded for me, God is being wounded for me, God is being wounded with me. Out of all the murk of my muddy soul, this feels like the beginnings of a revelation. I may not be a parent but perhaps my experiences of being made vulnerable physically, mentally and spiritually by chronic ill health brings its particular understandings of God’s character with it too. Perhaps me becoming a host-space for God, a Light-bearer, is perhaps not out of the question either.
Perhaps by embracing my vulnerability is how, finally, I learn to live loved.
By Ana Lisa de Jong —
We are stories within a story.
Narratives within the larger Word.
Even while we question meaning or reason,
we have comfort in knowing how it ends.
More than players on a stage,
we have our own self-determination.
We are safe to make decisions and choices,
within the provision of an all-encompassing plan.
Advent reminds us of the eternal story,
in which life and death take turns,
in entering from the wings.
And nothing in this world is ever final
while the Word has the enduring say.
We are stories within a story.
Narratives within the larger Word.
Even while we wonder at the purpose of our griefs,
with relief we keep our trust in joy’s return.
For Advent teaches us the story within the story.
The larger volume and the smallest detail contained.
Held together in a great unfolding scroll
by hands that reach from beginning to end.
Advent recalls to us the gift of waiting.
The treasure held close to Mary’s breast.
The heart already leaps for what isn’t yet,
this comfort is knowing how it ends.
The hope in which we, waiting,
place our faith.
The trust in what we know
has been conceived.
by April Yamasaki —
For Christmas last year I received an amaryllis bulb—the kind that’s shipped in a box with the premixed soil, plastic pot, and step-by-step instructions. Just as directed, I planted the bulb up to its neck in the potting soil and placed the pot in a warm spot with good light. The stem had already started growing while still in the box, so I watered the soil lightly, and hoped the pale growth would turn green as it grew.
The stem did grow and green up a bit, but then it seemed to lose heart. It was too weak to stand up straight and soon had bent double. I hoped a second stem might emerge to produce bright red flowers like the ones shown on the box, but as it turned out I hoped in vain. All I got were leaves—so healthy, dark green, and long and longer that they stretched out beyond the table top, and lasted until the end of October.
I’m disappointed that my amaryllis bulb didn’t flower, but I hope the vigour of its leaves allowed it to store up energy enough to bloom this year. At least that’s what I hope for as my bulb is resting now in a cool, dark closet. Soon it will be time to pot it in fresh soil, bring it into the light, and place it in a warm spot. Will a stem emerge healthy and strong this time? Will there be flowers standing at the top like a brilliant red crown? Or is my green thumb only for the leaves?
This year my amaryllis bulb is my unexpected symbol of Advent. It reminds me that far from being passive, waiting takes some tending. Waiting means watching in expectation. Sometimes waiting leads to more waiting. Just as I wait again in expectation of amaryllis flowers, we are again waiting for Christmas, just as we did last year and the year before and the years before that. We wait for the fullness of time to celebrate the coming of Christ the King.
For some Christians in the early church, the expectation of Christ’s return was so strong and so immediate that they stopped working. Why work to build a house when the Lord will come before you have time to finish? Why work in the fields, when the Lord will come before the harvest? Why bother to make a living when the end is so near? Why not just sit and wait?
And so they sat idle—and became a burden to those in their community who continued to work. To address this, 2 Thessalonians 3:10-13 (NIV) gave these instructions:
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work
shall not eat.” We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they
are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down
and earn the food they eat. And as for you, brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is
good.
So while I’m waiting for my amaryllis to bloom, while we’re waiting for Christ the King at Christmas and in the fullness of time, I’m taking these words to heart. Let us do the work that God has set before us and never tire of doing good.
by Christine Sine
If we can’t become like children in Advent, there may be no hope for us! Advent is one of the times of the year when there is permission for adults to “play”: decorating our homes, wearing colorful or goofy clothes, and reliving childhood traditions… the season of Advent is an opportunity for adults – including adults without children – tp encounter faith, God and the story of salvation in Christ through the eyes of children. (Advent in Narnia Heidi Haverkamp 22,23)
I am really enjoying my unfamiliar approach to Advent this year, and these words have inspired and energized me as we head towards the half way point of the season. They are a wonderful encouragement to me as I come to the end of a year where The Gift of Wonder has encouraged me to explore childlike practices on a regular basis. This year I have found that my journey through Advent has been a combination of these same childlike explorations with more serious reflection on the realities of God’s world. All of it is stirring my imagination and enriching my faith and understanding of God.
Advent is a time to step into a world of imagination and wonder…. It can require imagination to enter into God’s reality and to experience the Christmas season not as a silly, childish distraction, but as a radical new perspective of faith and the kingdom of God. (Advent in Narnia Heidi Haverkamp 20/21)
These sentiments are well expressed in the latest podcast on A Theology of Hustle I was interviewed for – a fitting one for this pre-Christmas week.
The last week of Advent is always a busy time for us as we do our last minute shopping, get ready for the Christmas pageant at church and attend all those pre-Christmas parties. I do hope that you will also take time to pause each day to enter into the true meaning of the season and thought that you might appreciate the prayers and litanies from past years that we are highlighting on the Godspace Facebook page.
The Grace and Impatience to Wait – Walter Brueggemann
The Mood of Christmas – Howard Thurman
A Christmas Prayer by Henri Nouwen
And still to come:
A Christmas Poem by Madeleine L’Engle
A Christmas Prayer by John Henry Newman
Amazing Peace – A Christmas Poem by Maya Angelou
At The End of The Year – by John O’Donohue
A Litany for the Fourth Sunday of Advent
I also thought that some of you would enjoy revisiting my Advent video Leaning Towards the Light. It contains amazing photos by Craig Goodwin and Tom Balke (Title photo) and beautiful music by Jeff Johnson.
Produced and written by Christine Sine.
The music is “Antiphon” from the CD, ANTIPHON by the Coram Deo Ensemble. Music by Janet Chvatal, Jeff Johnson & Brian Dunning
℗© 2011 Sola Scriptura Songs / ArkMusic.com
Used with permission. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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By Michael Moore —
When we were on our Ignatian Silent Retreat at Spring Hill College this past June, I spent a lot of time with this painting of Mary, the Mother of Jesus in the old wood framed Sodality Chapel. This portrait was painted by Spring Hill Alumnae and Mobile, AL Artist, Stephanie Morris. The model was a Spring Hill College student. As I spent time with Mary, her eyes truly reached out and spoke to my heart and soul.
This is the final sermon in the series on The Women in Jesus’s Genealogy. Three of the women were not in his Genealogy but their stories were well worth exploring. I have explored the stories and contemplated the lives of Eve (Denise preached that sermon), Ruth, Rahab, Bathsheba, The Canaanite Woman at the Well, Mary Magdalene, and now Mary, the Mother of Jesus.
As I have written and preached before, Mary is often problematic for Protestants. In part the difficulty is in the way she is elevated in the Catholic Church. Yet many Catholic folks I know don’t believe she should be elevated to the level of God any more than Protestants do. Yet as a part of the Reformation, Mary was pretty much thrown out all together. My own journey as a Presbyterian with Mary has been challenging as well as enlightening. I have come to a deeper understanding of Mary. I truly admire her and have learned much from sitting with her. So, let’s get to the subject of this final reflection in this series.
The two scripture readings that I am using tomorrow bookend the life of Jesus. In Luke 2:33-35 we hear the following somber news after Simeon blesses Jesus. In context, Jesus was brought to the Temple by his parents. Simeon was overjoyed that the long-awaited Messiah had finally come and he was alive to see it.
And the child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” – Luke 2:33-35
Can you imagine? As I think about Mary hearing the last part of the blessing on top of all that she had heard at Jesus’s birth I am overwhelmed! A sword will pierce your own soul too!
As we remember the birth narrative, we can see how Mary’s life with Joseph didn’t exactly begin normally. They didn’t have a typical betrothal. The gossip must have flown around as she began to show and as the story of God overshadowing her came out. At one point, Joseph even considered quietly divorcing her. Yet God interceded through the angelic visitors and they found their way forward as a couple.
In the birth narrative, following the visits of the Shepherds and their stories of angels, she pondered all that she had seen and heard in her heart. Forty days later the family goes to the Temple for what should be the standard purification of Mary following the birth of Jesus. Joseph and Mary were also supposed to present and dedicate their first-born son to God in order to fulfill the law in Exodus 13.
As I said earlier, when the 40-day old infant Jesus was presented to Simeon and he immediately proclaimed his joy in a very familiar passage of Scripture.
Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God: God, you can now release your servant; release me in peace as you promised. With my own eyes I’ve seen your salvation; it’s now out in the open for everyone to see: A God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations, and of glory for your people Israel. – Luke 2:29-32 (The Message Translation)
There was so much for Mary to ponder in those early days. There would be so much more to ponder as Jesus grew from a baby to a young boy and finally into a man. Yet lurking in the back of her mind must have been the words of Simeon: a sword will pierce your own soul too.
Scripture is quiet when it comes to the growing up years of Jesus. After the incident in the Temple where the twelve-year-old Jesus was amazing the religious leaders, we hear nothing about his life until he appears as a part of the crowd following John the Baptist and asks John to baptize him.
The three years of Jesus’s public ministry must have provided much to contemplate and be concerned about for his mother. More and more was poured into her heart as she followed Jesus, listened to his teaching, and watched the miracles.
Yet in the end, as the road led to Jerusalem for the final time her heart must have been heavy. As the intrigue unfolded did she remember the words of Simeon? Did she feel a pain and a piercing beginning in her heart?
The second reading from John 19:25b-30 is, I believe where her heart was pierced and broken as she watched her son dying an agonizing death on the cross. I can’t even imagine the pain as Jesus looked down from the cross and said goodbye to his mother. Yet in the midst of the pain, there was a loving and tender moment as he made sure that the woman who had given birth to him and raised him would be cared for.
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. – John 19:25b-27
The story has come full circle and now, with her son dying on the cross, her heart was pierced in a way it had never been pierced before. It was with this woman that I spent so much time reflecting in the Chapel at Spring Hill College. As I used the Ignatian practice of placing myself into the story, I felt her pain in a way I had never done before. During that week, I came to know Mary in a way that I hadn’t in the majority of my years in ministry.
As I looked into her eyes, I saw the pain and the peace. A wise woman who was forced to learn such harsh lessons at an early age. A woman who had to watch helplessly as the Empire executed her son. A woman who had to watch as the faith community turned its back on Jesus, and in essence, on her as well.
As I sat with her in the Chapel and as I have continued to do ever since, I felt a peace that I didn’t expect. As I sat with her, I heard her say “I am not God. I am the Mother of Jesus. Don’t worship me. Listen to me and learn from my story.”
May we do that as we consider Mary and the place she holds in the life of Jesus and in our own faith journey as well.
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