In this fourth week of Advent preparation we anticipate lighting the candle of Love next Sunday. On that same day, or the day after – Christmas Day – we will light the Christ candle.
Perhaps we will make time and space this week to reflect and meditate on what it is we are waiting for. What will the coming of Christ - already and not yet - mean this particular Christmas? And what do the stories of the foreshadowing and birth of Jesus, tell us about the meaning of love in our world?
This past Sunday Father Richard Rohr of the Center for Action and Contemplation shared a reflection the celebration of the Incarnation. Rohr says that for the first 1200 years of Christianity, Christmas was not celebrated. Easter was the central feast, focusing on the death and resurrection of Christ.
However, Francis of Assisi, with his great love of all creation, popularized Christmas as the Feast of the Incarnation. Rohr writes
“It makes sense that Christmas became the great celebratory feast of Christians because it basically says that it’s good to be human, it’s good to be on this Earth, it’s good to have a body, it’s good to have emotions. We don’t need to be ashamed of any of it! God loves matter and physicality.” Francis loved Christmas, and decorated trees with lights “to show their status as God’s creation.”
Rohr sheds light on the meaning of Advent waiting, even in these times when Christmas has come many, many times before. He says
“when we speak of Advent or preparing for Christmas, we’re not just talking about waiting for the little baby Jesus to be born. That already happened two thousand years ago. In fact, we’re welcoming the Universal Christ, the Cosmic Christ, the Christ that is forever being born (incarnating) in the human soul and into history.”
As Rohr goes on to say, we still need to “make room in the inn.” We so often see things only literally, in their materiality. Rohr invites us to
“See the light shining through … [to] see the incarnate spirit that is hidden inside of everything material.
“Incarnation meant not just that God became Jesus, but that God said yes to the material universe and physicality itself. Eastern Christianity understands the mystery of incarnation in the universal sense. So it is always Advent because God is forever coming into the world.” [1]
John 1:9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. (NRSV)
May we pray:
Holy One, in this last week of Advent watching and waiting, remind us that we do indeed watch and wait for something.
We wait for our hearts and minds to catch up with your incarnate love in the world, always showing up somewhere new.
We wait for our hearts and minds to discover another little corner, another forgotten one, another hidden space, about to burst with your holy light, if only we have eyes to see.
And yet, while we think we wait patiently for you, it is you who waits patiently for us - to discover you in the ordinary transformed into the holy extraordinary.
Holy One, give us eyes to see, this last week of watching and waiting.
Amen, Amen.
This week, as we reflect on the already and not yet nature of Emmanuel - God with us - we will notice imagery expressing this nature in the Advent and Christmas carols and songs we sing.
O Little Town of Bethlehem
1 O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.
3 How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given;
So God imparts to human hearts the blessed love of heaven.
No ear may hear thee coming, but in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive thee still, thou, dear Christ, enter in. [2]
Here is the carol, performed by the Birmingham University Singers and the staff, students and friends of the University of Birmingham.
[1] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/celebrating-incarnation/
[2] Philip Brooks (1868), https://hymnary.org/text/o_little_town_of_bethlehem