Baby Smiles

Luke 2:22-40

I feel guilty, the way Joseph indulges me. The baby is six weeks old; I’m perfectly capable of walking the few hours from Bethlehem to Jerusalem! But he insists I ride the donkey, at least most of the way. I admit I love to just sit and gaze down at my baby. He’s so cute! I know all mothers think their babies are the cutest, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.

“Nothing, Joseph, just laughing at myself. Don’t you think our baby is cuter than all other babies?”

Joseph’s sun-burned grin is one of my favorite things about him. “Well, of course!” he agrees, and walks on. The donkey plods patiently beside him. I keep on staring down at my baby’s face, trying to memorize it. He changes so fast. Look how filled out he already is. I can hardly remember what he looked like when he was all scrawny and wrinkly, in the stable. Oh, that night! I can’t think of it without a shudder. But then the shudders are overtaken by chills of wonder, remembering the stories the shepherds told. I wish I could have heard the angels sing!

But I shouldn’t be greedy. After all, Gabriel himself talked to me!

It’s kind of funny. I have lots of friends who have babies, and I know this feeling of awe, of staring into the face of a brand-new human and trying to memorize it, is universal among mothers. We all talk about how they change, and grow, and how we know them, but don’t…so at first, my thoughts are the thoughts of every mother. But then it always turns to a different kind of awe. Remembering Gabriel’s announcement to me, and the pain and division that brought, and then Joseph’s dream, which set everything straight. It hardly seems true, though I feel ashamed to admit it. But then there were those shepherds…

Yeshua wakes suddenly, looks up at me, and smiles widely, a new skill he enjoys tremendously. “Oh, look, Joseph! Look at him smile!”

Nearly three hours have passed by the time we reach the city, and we must find a place to stay and prepare our best Sabbath clothes for the ceremony tomorrow. This is a ceremony I’ve looked forward to since I was a little girl. A woman, a wife, justifies her existence by producing a son, especially by producing him first. Joseph is very proud of me. Of course, I am an indulged wife, and I know Joseph would be proud of me even if I’d had daughters, or no children at all. But I’m deeply grateful to God for a son. I wish we could afford a lamb instead of just two doves. Joseph says the Holy One knows our hearts. Anyway, he points out, no sacrifice would be worthy enough to redeem the life of God’s own Son!

I look down at my baby again. He looks so ordinary, gazing around at movement and light. Just another baby…

The next day, bathed, anointed, and dressed in our very best, with my mother’s borrowed necklace adorning the baby as is traditional, we stand before the priest. Joseph holds Yeshua and says to the priest, “This is my firstborn son. He is the first out of his mother’s womb.”

There are more prayers, then the priest takes the baby, holds him up, and intones the blessing: "May the Lord make you as great as Ephraim and Menasheh. May the Lord bless you and keep watch over you; May the Lord make His Presence enlighten you, and may He be kind to you; may the Lord bestow favor on you, and grant you peace. May the Lord guard you from all evil, and guard your soul. Let many days and years of life and peace be given to you."

His tone of voice is matter-of-fact, even bored. He does this all the time—just another baby…

A disturbance arises nearby and I turn my head, startled. An old man, his face alight with an unearthly joy that reminds me of Gabriel, is hurrying toward us. Just as the priest is about to hand Yeshua back to his father, this man takes him instead and cries out, almost weeping, "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel."

I am standing there with my mouth open while this man blesses my baby. Suddenly, he turns to me and his eyes pin me like a spear. In a quiet, intense voice, he adds, "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."

I feel a shiver of fear and reach for my child. But the excitement isn’t over yet. Many people are already looking our way, and more begin to gather when an even older woman I have seen in the temple before comes over, takes one look at the child in the old man's arms, and begins to sob praises and thanks to God. She cries out to the onlookers that all those who are looking for the redemption of Israel should take note of this baby. Some come closer, craning to look at Yeshua, who has been awakened by the tumult and turns his toothless baby grin on one and all.

I watch the faces. The priest and some others looked irritated a minute ago. Some looked curious. Some looked excited. But when they look at his little face and he smiles, not a one is able to keep from smiling back. Faces all around me are softening, hands are reaching to touch his curled fingers, some voices are cooing nonsense to him. A few are praying, echoing the old man and woman.

The shiver of fear is turning to a shiver of awe and a…what can I call it? A presentiment. A feeling that already, he is changing the world around him, and things will never be the same.

Darkness to Light

[Bass] “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,

[Add tenor]        The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light,

[Add alto]                           The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light!

“Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them light has shined!

[Soprano]           Jesus, our Morning Star, Light of the world. Glory be to God on high!”

We’re singing the J. S. Cool arrangement of this in my choir. I tried to find a link on Youtube so you could hear what it sounds like (not us, mind you, but some choir somewhere!) but all I could find was Handel—also wonderful, but not the same thing.

So you’ll just have to imagine each line getting louder and more exciting, a little higher in pitch, until the sopranos cry out the last line in joyous praise.

In the multi-denominational church I attend, there is a worship committee who meets and plans all aspects of the worship service to mesh together in one great act of communal worship. The sermon, the music, any readings, the altar and church art, the picture on the bulletin, even which stole the pastor wears, all reflect the theme of that week. It takes work. But the people here have the idea that all—visual people, auditory people, even kinesthetic people—should gain the greatest blessing possible. They’re willing to work prayerfully so that can happen.

And of course, all of us need all of those components, no matter which is our preferred means of processing the world.

This week, one of the lectionary texts is the Isaiah 9 passage from which these words come. One of my favorite things about it is that it’s written (spoken) in present tense, several centuries before the birth of the Light of the World. Today, we sing "the light has come" when speaking of the first Advent of Christ into the world, and we can also sing "the light has come" when referring to a yet-future, much-awaited, deeply longed-for event--the second Advent of Christ, this time for final reconciliation and an end to all suffering. We are the souls beneath the throne, crying, "How long, Lord?"

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in deep darkness. I’d be willing to bet you have, too.

Has the Light shined?

Are you reflecting it on?

All we have to do is receive, then turn outward so that the beams reflect away from us and onto those around us. The Sun of Righteousness does all the rest.

Light—Let It Be!

This little light of mine...

This is a photo I took of a friend's little solar light, reflecting on the snow. It seems particularly a propos, since it gets its light from the sun and has to recharge every day...

I have recently decided to read (slowly and painstakingly, my finger following each unaccustomed line from right to left under the Hebrew) the Interlinear Bible this year. I keep the old Strong’s next to me, and have already found some interesting questions, and I’ve only finished Genesis 1. (What, exactly, does it mean that the “lights in the heavens,” besides delineating days, months, and years, are also for signs—that is, “a signal…flag, beacon, monument, omen, prodigy [?!], evidence, etc.:--mark, miracle, (en-)sign, token”?) Just for one example…)

So when I looked at the lectionary for this week (those who are interested can find and follow it here: http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Epiphany/AEpi2_RCL.html), I was intrigued that it just happens to be all about light this week.

Here’s the prayer, or “collect,” which I think is beautiful:

“Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”

It made me think of Daniel 12, and the promise that many will “shine like the stars,” when Jesus comes again and finally puts all darkness to flight.

Isaiah 49, a messianic prophecy which also has some enlightenment for all followers of God’s Way, says, “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth." The context makes it clear that Jesus is the one the passage is primarily speaking of, but Jesus himself said that we are also the light of the world.

I think if we hadn’t grown up singing “This little light of mine” and talking and hearing about this statement, we’d be pretty shocked by it. Me? The light of the world?! You’re kidding, right?

There is no argument about where the light comes from. All light. So the question is, are we lit from within by his Spirit? May we “shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory”!

How has light come to you, during the first two weeks of this new year?

How have you shared light during this same time?

Waiting...

So you wait. You wait for school to start. You wait for school to end. You wait for the big vacation trip. You wait for graduation. You wait for Mr/Ms Right. You wait for the baby to be born, and then for it to sleep through the night, and then for it to go to school and for it to come home from school…and this begins to sound familiar. You wait for the promotion and for the raise and for the paycheck, or sometimes for the job to show up. You wait for retirement and for pension checks.

You wait to die.

Through it all, you wait with longing that is sometimes passionate and sometimes faint but persevering, for Jesus to come.

They waited. “Redeemer,” said the angel at Eden’s gates, and “Messiah,” said the prophets, and the centuries and the lifetimes slid by, and they waited.

When you’re the one doing the waiting, it’s endless. It might be ten minutes for the phone call or a week for the medical test results or nine months for the pregnancy or hours for the birth, but it’s all forever.

“It’s all relative,” said Einstein. “

To me, all times are soon,” said Aslan.

“God is patient,” said Peter.

And still we wait.

Advent comes every year. At least you only have to wait one trip around the sun for that. Then you only have to wait a month for Christmas. It’s a time when we can rediscover both the waiting and the end of waiting. When the little girl and her fiancé got through the night at the stable, and the waiting was over, it had still just begun. There was babyhood to be got through, and childhood (bar mitzvah, Son of the Covenant) and then 18 years at home waiting for the ministry to begin.

That 3 ½ years must have gone by in a flash. Not so the hours of the “trial,” or, God help us, the crucifixion. Or the grave…But that part ended. And IT WAS DONE!

Then he said, “I’ll be back. Soon!”

And so we wait. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

Sh’ma by the River 5—Loving the Great Spirit with All My Little Soul

Hear, O Israel,

the Lord your God, the Lord is One.

You shall love the Lord your God

with all your heart

and with all your mind

and with all your soul

and with all your strength.*

Many people separate soul from spirit and think of them as two different things, or as two different aspects of selfhood. I don’t do that. As Adventists, we believe a human being is a soul, rather than possessing a soul. We believe we are one being, that mind and body cannot be separated (except for consideration, such as in this series). What we do with our thoughts affects our physical health. What we do with our bodies affects our spiritual health. It’s all one.

If I were to draw a diagram of the self, it would look something like this:

The three smaller circles would be the body, mind, and heart, or emotions. The little spot in the center is where we are our full, true selves—all elements and aspects of us living and functioning as one whole being—a human soul. The large circle represents the Holy Spirit—the soul or spirit of God, “in whom we live and move and have our being.”

During this series, we have considered how to learn better to love God, others, and ourselves from our whole physical selves, our whole minds, and our whole hearts. To learn what it means to love God, others, and ourselves with our whole souls, just put it all together. Simple. Hard! Almost impossible! But simple. When all of our little circles are centered inside God’s big circle, then the peace God brings seeps into the center. It comes into our stomachs, and calms them. It comes into our emotions and lives with us in and through them. It comes into our heads and gives us a new outlook on life.

Simple, it may be, but it can also be scary. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is often likened to wind. (The Hebrew and Greek words are the same—so is the English, but we’ve kind of lost it inside other words: inspire, respire, and perspire all share the same base as spirit, and they’re all about breath. So, for that matter, is expire.) Today, here in the last week of my Cape Breton Sabbatical by the river, the wind is so powerful it reminds me of that text in Acts, about “the sound of a mighty, rushing wind.” The cabin is shaking. When I went outside, I experienced something I’ve often said, but it’s never been actually true before—the wind really did nearly knock me down. When I would pick up a foot to take a step, that leg would be blown out from under me. The wind blew away my ice chest and all its contents, and took a large wooden picnic table off the porch and dumped it in the yard in two pieces.

Today, beside the river (from a safe distance, inside) I’m thinking about what it might really mean to throw my whole, puny, little spirit, my whole broken self, all my body, all my mind, all my heart, all my love, into the whirlwind that is the Holy Spirit of God, and go wherever that  Spirit chooses to take me.

Do I have the nerve?

Do you?

*These words combine the Sh’ma, found in Deut 6:4, 5, with Jesus’ words in Luke10:27, to give all four:  heart, mind, soul, and strength.

Sh’ma by the River, 4: Loving God with One’s Heart

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God

with all thy heart…

Loving from the heart seems like a no-brainer. Literally. Of course we love with our hearts. That’s where all emotions are seated, right? Or maybe the bowels, which is what the Hebrews used in this context. It seems to me that other societies have used other body parts, possibly the liver, certainly the brain, as the seat of emotion, but even Wikipedia is failing me on this one.

In the immortal words of Dr. Temperance Brennan, of TV Bones fame, “The heart is nothing but a pump.” True. However, I believe there’s good reason why humans have always thought emotions, positive and negative, (love, hate, fear, anger, happiness, sorrow, contentment, etc.), rise from body organs. There is a connection. Emotions make our blood pressure rise and drop, increase and decrease heart rate, adrenaline, dopamine, and more. Feelings, to put it more succinctly, are feelings.

The river overflowed its banks this week. I assume it did so just to give me good subject matter for this devotion. Emotions are scary for some of us. (I am one of them.) We have been raised so carefully to believe in “mind over matter,” and being mature and rational and in control and all that. We even name self-control as a gift of the Spirit. But the Greek word used in Galatians 5:23 is egkrateia, which means temperance. (Huh. Wonder what Bones would think about that?)

Temperance means the middle way. Not too hot, not too cold. Not too controlled by emotion, and not too controlled by brain. The river is essential to life, I want to say, when it’s contained within its banks, wending its merry way, not too low, not too high. But my analogy suffers a little when I think about the millions who depended for millennia on the seasonal flooding of the Nile, for one example.  Is it okay to overflow once in a while? And what does that mean?  Give way to emotion? Surely not…

Unless “give way” is taken literally. Make a way, or a path, make allowance for feeling.

When the Baddeck River overflowed this week, I don’t know if it caused harm or damage. I know it didn’t here, because there’s a nice big swale between the house and the riverbank. Room for it to swell, and to go back down again. A place for it to deposit, perhaps, all kinds of life-giving nutrients for future growth in the meadows.

This devotional did not go in the direction I had planned for it. I’m just saying.

Love God, others, self, from the heart. With the full strength of emotions. Without doing harm.

What does that mean?

Sh’ma by the River 3, Loving God with All Your Mind

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy…mind…

When I walk by the river and think of mind, I think of flow, of current, of direction. The river is born to seek the ocean, and that’s all it does. Our minds were born to seek God, but they, unlike the river, have free choice. We are even free to choose to believe we have no free choice. Consider that one for a minute!

I see the river doing all kinds of things at once, just like my mind. In the middle, it’s rushing along without much impedance, heading ever downhill. Then there are stretches that rush and ruffle over rocks and sandbars—impeded, but not letting the obstacles stop it. In fact, you could anthropomorphize (not that I would ever be guilty of that!!) and say the river seems to enjoy the obstacles.

Along the edges, there are spots where the river slows, circles, seems to get nowhere, but as long as it’s still connected to the main flow, that part of the water will move along, too, just at a different pace.

I mentioned last week that people used to be able to care for this river, to keep an open channel. I got to wondering what things I do, or could do, that keep an open channel in my mind?

I’ve noticed that one thing that makes the river flow more freely is rain. At first, I thought of this in the usual, even clichéd interpretation  of rain as adversity, but for the river, rain is not adversity, rain is life. Rain, to fill my mind, might be the water of the Holy Spirit’s presence.

Side waters might be good, for breaks, but how can I keep them from becoming separated from the flow, and getting stagnant?

I can use my mind to love myself by not allowing obstacles to get me down, by not speaking to myself in hurtful ways I would never use with another, by, as a friend of mine puts it, “paying attention to what I’m paying attention to!”

I can use my mind to love others by my words, written and spoken, by listening carefully when they speak, and watching their faces for the things they can’t say in words.

I can use my mind to love God by casting out into the depths of that immense, unfathomable love, by thinking of that love and patience and majesty, by trying (and failing!) to put some of it into words.

How do you keep your mind flowing free with love?