Saved by Incarnation

On our pilgrimage to the Holy Land we visited this spot on the Jordan River near where John baptized Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17.)  We know for sure that Christians celebrated this event as early as the second century, maybe even at the end of the first century.  At the same time as Jesus identifies himself complete with our humanity, the voice from heaven reveals his divinity, God in flesh made manifest.  The Baptism is so important because it helps us to see that Jesus saves us, not just by dying and rising, but by his Incarnation, his entire life from conception to his death and resurrection.

Trinity's Embrace

"The heavens were opened for him and he saw the Spirit of God descending dove-like coming upon him." ( Matthew 7:16) The Spirit and Son and Father, whose voice is heard, are wrapped in one loving embrace, an image early in the Gospel of our humanity caught up in the Trinity's embrace.

Another Way

James Taylor's 20 year old song Home By Another Way helped me reflect on the Magi and Herod.  He sings that to avoid the evil that King Herod represents "It's best to go home by another way."  Like the Magi who could not go back  to their old way of life after finding God in this baby, we leave behind our familiar gods and keep searching for a deeper relationship with the Living God who gives our lives meaning.

Pondering

Yesterday's ice disappearing.
Instead of just wishing for a happy new year, we can make it a happy new year.  Mary shows us how.  After the shepherds leave, Luke tells us, "Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart."  We can take five or twenty minutes away from the news, that upsets us anyway, and join Mary in treasuring and pondering.

Merry 6th Day of Christmas

For several weeks much of our cove has had a thin layer of ice.  This morning the wind blew water from the rest of the Lake against it and pushed it all the way into the cove where it melted.  Looked like the spring thaw.
In the beautiful poem that begins John's Gospel the author is not content to talk about a child in Bethlehem, he pushes back further for the origins of Jesus (1:1.)
 "In the beginning was the Word;
  and the Word was with God;
  and the Word was God."
Jews would recognize the first three words as  the first three words in their Bible, and the wider Greek-speaking world would also understand them to mean that the Word existed before and beyond human time and history.  In the second line "with" has the sense of being turned toward God in a dynamic relationship, a personal relationship.  The third line means something like "What God was, the Word also was."
Such words take us in awe into eternity

Let It Be

Roots of two big trees that were brought down across a road in our neighborhood by the ice storm we had December 15-6.
When angel Gabriel told Mary that she was to have a child by the Holy Spirit, she replied, "Let it be done to me as you say (Luke 1:38.)  Mary taught her son to accept God's will and say, "Let it be."  She taught it so well that in the Garden of Olives the night before he was crucified Jesus was finally able to say, "Father, let it be."  I pray to Mary to teach me as well.  "In my hour of darkness, she is standing right in front of me, whispering words of wisdom, 'Let it be.'" (the Beatles)

Peace

The reality of God-With-Us is the source of our Christmas peace.  Our faith in Christ's constant presence and power in us and among us fills us with a deep peace that remains even in the midst of grief and pain, loneliness and worry.  The angels long ago sang to the shepherds, "Peace to God's people on earth."