God Is With Us
The Rev. Amy Morehous
Advent 4, Year A
Church of the Ascension
December 19, 2010
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
show us the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.
Haul out the holly
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again
Fill up the stocking
I may be rushing things but deck the halls again now
For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder
Grown a little sadder, grown a little older
And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder
Need a little Christmas now
For we need a little music, need a little laughter,
need a little singing ringing through the rafter
and we need a little snappy, happy ever after
We need a little Christmas now!
Most of us have probably heard this song - probably sung in a snappy, peppy tempo, with lots of accompanying strings and jingle bells, and a breathless chorus of voices. I have to confess that I’m normally a terrible Episcopalian. I love Christmas carols, and I sing them in my car usually from Thanksgiving, until Christmas. But I have to confess that this one is not one of my favorites. It seems a little desperate to me - a little rushed, a little manic. But, this hasn’t been our year for Christmas carols. To be perfectly honest, over the past several weeks hearing the words “happy”, “jolly” and “merry” have made me want to kick someone in the shins. (You’ll be happy to know I’ve restrained myself.)
It has been easy for me, this year, to put off Christmas, and live into the mysterious waiting that is Advent. To sit in the dark, and look for the light to come. Because there have been times in my grief these past few weeks when the valley has been so dark, I was not sure I would see the light again. But I know, as the Psalmist says, that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We walk through it - we don’t linger there forever. But on the dark days, the dark of that shadow can be very powerful indeed.
I’ve thought for weeks about what God would have me say to you today, on this last Sunday in Advent, the day when we look forward to God’s great promise, given to us by the prophet Isaiah. A young woman is with child, and shall bear a son, and will name him Emmanuel. “God is with us.” God is with us.
It is a mystery to us, this gift of presence. Not presents - wrapped in beautiful paper with shiny bows. Presence. God is with us. God who comes to live among us as a tiny and frail child. That mystery draws us here every year at this time, when we celebrate it without fully understanding it. But we don’t have to understand the mystery to experience it, to live into its promise.
I would like to offer you a full and complete understanding of many things this morning, but one of the things I have lived into this whole year is knowing how much I don’t fully understand. I can neither understand nor explain why our son died six weeks ago. I don’t understand why our nephew died in May at the age of two and a half, after living most of his brief, sweet life with a devastatingly progressive terminal illness. I frequently don’t understand why grief comes to the lives of people I care about. I only know that it does. Griefs come into each of our lives because we are human. Because we live in a world in which hard things happen to people every day.
“This is life’s nature: that lives and hearts get broken - those of people we love, those of people we’ll never meet.” Anne Lamott says that “the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward, and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest care of the more wounded people in waiting room, until the healer comes. You sit with people,” she said, “(and) you bring them juice and graham crackers.”
Many of you have brought me juice and graham crackers when I needed it, and I thank you. And you will keep doing it, because I can tell you that I will need it for a long while. And someday in the future, we will sit together, you and I, and I will bring you juice and graham crackers when you need them. Someone gave me a terrific piece of advice last weekend, at the memorial service for our son. They said, “Be patient with God.” Together, today, we are all here being patient with God in our own way, waiting until the healer comes, because the healer is promised to us by a God who loves us all, even in the midst of our grief, and our anger, and our hard times.
Henri Nouwen said that “waiting is essential to the spiritual life.” This is terrible news for me, because I hate waiting. But he continues on to say that “waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. ...We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God’s footsteps.”
Sometimes in the midst of all our waiting, in the middle of hard times or great grief, it’s easy to wonder if God is present at all in the midst of it. After all, God’s footsteps can be hard to see in the dark. But, one thing I have come to believe above all is that our pain matters to the One who made us. God did not promise to make my life pain-free, to give me a charmed life where nothing terrible ever happens. He didn’t even promise to take all the pain and suffering away when those hard things happen. I have days where I sure wish he would. But God did promise to be present with me in the midst of it, to fill that pain and sorrow with his presence so that I might bear it. He has blessed me with friends and family, so that I am not bearing up under the weight of my grief alone. He sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to be with each of us - in sorrow and in joy. And he sends his own son among us - a tiny boy, born of a young woman, cradled in a manger. Emmanuel. God is with us.
We are here together, today, on this fourth Sunday in Advent because we yearn toward that presence in our lives. Toward that moment when God breaks into our lives, the light in our darkness. Toward transformation. Peter Gomes says that “the promise of Christmas...is nothing less than transformation. That is why we can never get enough of George Bailey and Ebenezer Scrooge at this time of year. Even as they were, we too can be changed. What we yearn for is what Saint Paul once called the peace which passes understanding, a peace, first inward and then outward, which this world can neither give nor take away.”
Most of us, as we are caught in our own pain, and our own lives, have a hard time letting go, and opening ourselves to that radical inbreaking of God. I know I wrestle with that every day. We all have an idea of where we thought our lives would be today, that “snappy happy ever after” of the song. Our reality frequently doesn’t match those expectations. I can say with all honesty that I anticipated a completely different Christmas this year than the one I will have. I can hang on to those old expectations, which were very sweet indeed. Or I can embrace the Christmas my family and I will actually have, in all its imperfection, its ups and its downs, its tears and its laughter. I can hold on to the fantasy of my expectations, or I can live into the place where Christ meets me - the place where I actually am.
Where are you, today? Are you weighed down by the thoughts of the Christmas that won’t be? Are you wrestling with a reality that doesn’t meet your expectations? With disappointments? With grief? Most of us are, if we’re honest. One of the gifts of Advent is time - time to work toward letting go - even a little, of all of our “should be’s”. “I should be giving my children more. I should be more successful. I should be sharing this with someone I love. I should be happier. I should....I should...I should.”
Here we are together, all of us, in the midst of our messy and imperfect lives. The promise of the incarnated Christ is that he comes into each of our lives just the way they are - despite darkness, and insecurity, and difficulty. Today, I ask you to join with me as we cast off some of our “shoulds” and embrace the messy and the imperfect, with all of our hurts, and all of our joys . God will be there, as we do. Emmanuel. God is with us.
Together, we walk through the dark of Advent, knowing that the light is promised to us. To each of us. The light is promised to us, not because we believe, but because we belong. Sometimes the wild improbability of God’s love for us is too difficult for the wan intellectual exercise we think of as belief - particularly when we are walking in the dark. Even on the days when we cannot see the light of God’s presence, when we cannot even hope for it for ourselves, it will be there. Others around us will carry that hope for us, when we cannot, will sing the words of it, when we’ve lost the tune.
This is the last Sunday of Advent. We have spent the last few weeks waiting, listening, watching as people in darkness who yearn for a sign of the light. And the Light of the World is on the horizon now: his name is Jesus, for he will save people from their sins. I wish for myself, for my family, and for all of us a transformative Christmas, when the light of Christ seeps into all the dark places in our lives. Emmanuel. God IS with us.
Amen.
Advent 4, Year A
Church of the Ascension
December 19, 2010
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts;
show us the light of your countenance, and we shall be saved.
Haul out the holly
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again
Fill up the stocking
I may be rushing things but deck the halls again now
For I've grown a little leaner, grown a little colder
Grown a little sadder, grown a little older
And I need a little angel sitting on my shoulder
Need a little Christmas now
For we need a little music, need a little laughter,
need a little singing ringing through the rafter
and we need a little snappy, happy ever after
We need a little Christmas now!
Most of us have probably heard this song - probably sung in a snappy, peppy tempo, with lots of accompanying strings and jingle bells, and a breathless chorus of voices. I have to confess that I’m normally a terrible Episcopalian. I love Christmas carols, and I sing them in my car usually from Thanksgiving, until Christmas. But I have to confess that this one is not one of my favorites. It seems a little desperate to me - a little rushed, a little manic. But, this hasn’t been our year for Christmas carols. To be perfectly honest, over the past several weeks hearing the words “happy”, “jolly” and “merry” have made me want to kick someone in the shins. (You’ll be happy to know I’ve restrained myself.)
It has been easy for me, this year, to put off Christmas, and live into the mysterious waiting that is Advent. To sit in the dark, and look for the light to come. Because there have been times in my grief these past few weeks when the valley has been so dark, I was not sure I would see the light again. But I know, as the Psalmist says, that we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. We walk through it - we don’t linger there forever. But on the dark days, the dark of that shadow can be very powerful indeed.
I’ve thought for weeks about what God would have me say to you today, on this last Sunday in Advent, the day when we look forward to God’s great promise, given to us by the prophet Isaiah. A young woman is with child, and shall bear a son, and will name him Emmanuel. “God is with us.” God is with us.
It is a mystery to us, this gift of presence. Not presents - wrapped in beautiful paper with shiny bows. Presence. God is with us. God who comes to live among us as a tiny and frail child. That mystery draws us here every year at this time, when we celebrate it without fully understanding it. But we don’t have to understand the mystery to experience it, to live into its promise.
I would like to offer you a full and complete understanding of many things this morning, but one of the things I have lived into this whole year is knowing how much I don’t fully understand. I can neither understand nor explain why our son died six weeks ago. I don’t understand why our nephew died in May at the age of two and a half, after living most of his brief, sweet life with a devastatingly progressive terminal illness. I frequently don’t understand why grief comes to the lives of people I care about. I only know that it does. Griefs come into each of our lives because we are human. Because we live in a world in which hard things happen to people every day.
“This is life’s nature: that lives and hearts get broken - those of people we love, those of people we’ll never meet.” Anne Lamott says that “the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward, and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest care of the more wounded people in waiting room, until the healer comes. You sit with people,” she said, “(and) you bring them juice and graham crackers.”
Many of you have brought me juice and graham crackers when I needed it, and I thank you. And you will keep doing it, because I can tell you that I will need it for a long while. And someday in the future, we will sit together, you and I, and I will bring you juice and graham crackers when you need them. Someone gave me a terrific piece of advice last weekend, at the memorial service for our son. They said, “Be patient with God.” Together, today, we are all here being patient with God in our own way, waiting until the healer comes, because the healer is promised to us by a God who loves us all, even in the midst of our grief, and our anger, and our hard times.
Henri Nouwen said that “waiting is essential to the spiritual life.” This is terrible news for me, because I hate waiting. But he continues on to say that “waiting as a disciple of Jesus is not an empty waiting. It is a waiting with a promise in our hearts that makes already present what we are waiting for. ...We are always waiting, but it is a waiting in the conviction that we have already seen God’s footsteps.”
Sometimes in the midst of all our waiting, in the middle of hard times or great grief, it’s easy to wonder if God is present at all in the midst of it. After all, God’s footsteps can be hard to see in the dark. But, one thing I have come to believe above all is that our pain matters to the One who made us. God did not promise to make my life pain-free, to give me a charmed life where nothing terrible ever happens. He didn’t even promise to take all the pain and suffering away when those hard things happen. I have days where I sure wish he would. But God did promise to be present with me in the midst of it, to fill that pain and sorrow with his presence so that I might bear it. He has blessed me with friends and family, so that I am not bearing up under the weight of my grief alone. He sent the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to be with each of us - in sorrow and in joy. And he sends his own son among us - a tiny boy, born of a young woman, cradled in a manger. Emmanuel. God is with us.
We are here together, today, on this fourth Sunday in Advent because we yearn toward that presence in our lives. Toward that moment when God breaks into our lives, the light in our darkness. Toward transformation. Peter Gomes says that “the promise of Christmas...is nothing less than transformation. That is why we can never get enough of George Bailey and Ebenezer Scrooge at this time of year. Even as they were, we too can be changed. What we yearn for is what Saint Paul once called the peace which passes understanding, a peace, first inward and then outward, which this world can neither give nor take away.”
Most of us, as we are caught in our own pain, and our own lives, have a hard time letting go, and opening ourselves to that radical inbreaking of God. I know I wrestle with that every day. We all have an idea of where we thought our lives would be today, that “snappy happy ever after” of the song. Our reality frequently doesn’t match those expectations. I can say with all honesty that I anticipated a completely different Christmas this year than the one I will have. I can hang on to those old expectations, which were very sweet indeed. Or I can embrace the Christmas my family and I will actually have, in all its imperfection, its ups and its downs, its tears and its laughter. I can hold on to the fantasy of my expectations, or I can live into the place where Christ meets me - the place where I actually am.
Where are you, today? Are you weighed down by the thoughts of the Christmas that won’t be? Are you wrestling with a reality that doesn’t meet your expectations? With disappointments? With grief? Most of us are, if we’re honest. One of the gifts of Advent is time - time to work toward letting go - even a little, of all of our “should be’s”. “I should be giving my children more. I should be more successful. I should be sharing this with someone I love. I should be happier. I should....I should...I should.”
Here we are together, all of us, in the midst of our messy and imperfect lives. The promise of the incarnated Christ is that he comes into each of our lives just the way they are - despite darkness, and insecurity, and difficulty. Today, I ask you to join with me as we cast off some of our “shoulds” and embrace the messy and the imperfect, with all of our hurts, and all of our joys . God will be there, as we do. Emmanuel. God is with us.
Together, we walk through the dark of Advent, knowing that the light is promised to us. To each of us. The light is promised to us, not because we believe, but because we belong. Sometimes the wild improbability of God’s love for us is too difficult for the wan intellectual exercise we think of as belief - particularly when we are walking in the dark. Even on the days when we cannot see the light of God’s presence, when we cannot even hope for it for ourselves, it will be there. Others around us will carry that hope for us, when we cannot, will sing the words of it, when we’ve lost the tune.
This is the last Sunday of Advent. We have spent the last few weeks waiting, listening, watching as people in darkness who yearn for a sign of the light. And the Light of the World is on the horizon now: his name is Jesus, for he will save people from their sins. I wish for myself, for my family, and for all of us a transformative Christmas, when the light of Christ seeps into all the dark places in our lives. Emmanuel. God IS with us.
Amen.
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