Advent 3: How can it be?

The angel's visit to Mary is a moment of such mystery

that poetry, music & art only begin to capture it.

But what of God's daily arrivals into our lives? Are our eyes open to the shimmer of angel's wings? Do we hear the announcements of holy glory blazing around us? Henri Nouwen reminds us that we, too, are the beloved of God: favored, even chosen, for sacred callings. And that we are not alone.

"Mary"

We see so little, stayed on surfaces,

We calculate the outsides of all things,

Preoccupied with our own purposes

We miss the shimmer of the angels’ wings,

They coruscate around us in their joy

A swirl of wheels and eyes and wings unfurled,

They guard the good we purpose to destroy,

A hidden blaze of glory in God’s world.

But on this day a young girl stopped to see

With open eyes and heart. She heard the voice;

The promise of His glory yet to be,

As time stood still for her to make a choice;

Gabriel knelt and not a feather stirred,

The Word himself was waiting on her word.

{Malcolm Guite}

WWAnnunciation-d.werburg welch-lg

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN: Advent with Theological Horizons

Welcome, all Wonders! Advent 1

Advent ("arrival")

has been observed by Christians since ancient times. It is a season of inward preparation for God's wondrous coming into our midst: a time of gladness and fear.  This God who came to Bethlehem---and who will come again in glory---conquers darkness, scatters the proud, humbles the mighty, feeds the hungry, and sends the rich away empty-handed (Luke 1:51-53).  How will we get ready for such a coming?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer gives us a picture of Advent as "a prison cell, in which one waits, hopes, and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside." The essence of Advent, then, is expectancy and readiness for action: watchfulness for every small opening, and a willingness to risk everything for freedom and a new beginning. 

“Conversion” by Marci Johnson

How can word
become flesh?
Belly. Bone.

Tongue—the feel
in the mouth a word
rolling around. Word,

not a kiss not the thing
itself—a name. The arch
of a foot. Your face

in my hands, just
a name. Blue sky lolling
beyond the window
frame—eyes open.
Just a way of looking.
Begin with a change.”

from Frederick Buechner:

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary," and that is the beginning of a story – a time, a place, a set of characters, and the implied promise, which is common to all stories, that something is coming, something interesting or significant or exciting is about to happen. And I would like to start out by reminding you that this is what Christianity is. If we whittle away long enough, it is a story that we come to at last. And if we take even the fanciest and most metaphysical kind of theologian or preacher and keep on questioning him far enough – Why is this so? All right, but why is that so? Yes, but how do we know that it's so? – even he is forced finally to take off his spectacles and push his books off to one side and say, "Once upon a time there was...," and then everybody leans forward a little and starts to listen.

 
We want to know what is coming next. There was a young woman named Mary, and an angel came to her from God, and what did he say? And what did she say? And then how did it all turn out in the end? The story Christianity tells is one that can be so simply told that we can get the whole thing really on a very small Christmas card or into two crossed pieces of wood. Yet in another sense it is so vast and complex that the whole Bible can only hint at it, a story beyond time altogether.  Yet it is also in time, the story of the love between God and humanity. There is a time when it begins, and therefore there is a time before it begins, when it is coming but not yet here, and this is the time Mary was in when Gabriel came to her. It is Advent: the time just before the adventure begins, when everybody is leaning forward to hear what will happen even though they already know what will happen and what will not happen, when they listen hard for meaning, their meaning, and begin to hear, only faintly at first, the beating of unseen wings.