Who are you waiting for?

“Despite gun-toting armies and companies raping the environment - children are born into our torn and twisted world everyday, … and each one brings the renewed message that God has not lost faith in mankind.” - Johann Christoph Arnold, author and social advocate for children

As I’ve matured, I’ve grown to appreciate the Franciscans’ emphasis on the incarnation, God becoming human in the enfleshment of Jesus is a big deal, perhaps bigger than Easter. (St. Francis popularized Christmas.) C.S. Lewis expressed there would be no Easter without the incarnation. Unfortunately, with commercialism consuming the Christmas season we fail to ponder the significance of this event, our stories and God working through them.

I think too many folks begin their spiritual journey indoctrinated with ‘original sin,’ rather than beginning with ‘original blessing.’ In Genesis, “God created it, and it was good” is stated six times and concludes with “indeed it was very good.” This is when God launched the manifestation of himself in the first act of creation joining matter and spirit as one.

“The real light which gives light to every man was coming into the world.” - John 1:9

God materialized our universe from an unfathomable burst of Light 14 billion years ago in the Big Bang, an event that continues expanding beyond mankind’s imagination. Light is composed of two fields acting simultaneously, the magnetic field and the electric field; hence the essence of electromagnetic waves or light. The two fields are always in phase, in other words, like waves, they peak and trough in unison at identical instances. However, the two waves travel perpendicular to each other. Light ceases to exist if either field is removed.

Similarly, in creation, humanity is the union of the spiritual and the material. It’s our essence in nature. To separate one from the other fundamentally destroys what it is to be human. We live in a culture that favors separation encouraging dualism. I caution against this separation in our personal lives. Unfortunately, we encourage this separation when we downplay Jesus’ humanity and fixate on his divinity destroying his essence instead of … recognizing the synthesis Jesus lived and shared, … the same synthesis we’re invited to live and share.

In an unprecedented case 2000 years ago, God took human form, … a face, a body, a personality, a heart … in Jesus. Many people think God incarnated in Jesus was God’s plan to come and fix a messed up world … and that didn’t happen. Despite the divinity in creation, the world remained a mess when Jesus left this earth. Because of today’s messy world, many folks surrender their spiritual component of life for … you can name several substitutions, excuses, distractions! But for many others, we learned, God was not the punitive, sometimes petty God He was portrayed to be in the Old Testament. True God wants the best for us modeling simplicity, non-violence, forgiveness, healing, inclusivity, use of talents, love …. all qualities we are called to exercise.

Too one-dimensional as I see it, is that many see Jesus as only divine while they see themselves as only material. People develop the attitude, “Oh sure, Jesus could heal … because he was divine. We can’t do that.”

Ah, but we can! We are called to heal and much more!

“As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” - Matthew 10: 7-8

If we can’t put the divine and physical together in Him, we can’t put it together in ourselves nor will we put it together in others. We are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, children of the Kingdom of God, both divine and fleshy, a living paradox, just as Jesus was. We are gifts from Him and to one another. We are in the story, not outside it!

“Jesus is the standing icon of the entire spiritual journey from start to finish: divine conception, ordinary life, moments of enlightenment (such as Jesus’ baptism, Peter’s confession, and Jesus’ transfiguration), works of love and healing, rejection, death, resurrection, and ascension. That is not just Jesus; it is true for all of us.” Richard Rohr OFM author and Franciscan

The mystery of the Advent season is the paradox of matter and spirit as one! Francis taught others to imitate our Lord, to walk in His footsteps … to love … to act not to just worship His divinity. To realize the miraculous in the laws of nature, to find God at work in our lives and the lives of others, we must reflect on our stories. Consider a biographical sketch of your children’s births. Do you see common threads? Do you find extensions of the stories lived by our Lord? Advent is a time to ponder with excitement, engagement, anticipation as our young Mother Mary did in a manger. Cherish them in the quiet of your hearts, in the spirit of your families, and in the body of your communities.

The Nativity “pulls you inside of a universal story, and it lodges in the unconscious where it is not subject to the brutalities of your intellect or will. … the map of Jesus’ life is the map of Everyman and Everywoman: divine conception, ordinary life, betrayal, abandonment, rejection, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. In the end, it all comes full circle, and we return where we started, but now transformed” - Thomas Merton OSB, author and Benedictine monk

Light looked down and saw darkness.

“I will go there,” said light.
Peace looked down and saw war.
“I will go there,” said peace.
Love looked down and saw hatred.
“I will go there,” said love.

So he,
the Lord of Light,
the Prince of Peace,
the King of Love,
came down and crept in beside us.

-Rev. John Bell, Iona Community

O come, O come, Emmanuel!