A Letter from Pastor Brian
Every Advent, the most beautiful word in the vocabulary of Christmas is often the most ignored. While the attention understandably goes to Joseph’s fidelity, the shepherd’s obedience, the magi’s generosity, and the angel’s luminosity, Mother Mary gets overlooked.
Rather than a meek bystander relegated to a secondary gender role, she is called Theotokos, translated from the New Testament Greek as “God-bearer.” Despite her endless hardships, she consents to use her womb as an indwelling of incarnation.
For God’s love to manifest, human partners are required. Christmas only happens if we, like Mary, offer our bodies for the cause of Christ, and make room for the Messiah to be born through us. Over the past year, I’ve witnessed expectant disciples, pregnant with divine possibility, deliver new life to what God is doing at Haywood St.
Leveraging flesh and blood, they’ve offered their dutiful hands to arrange the altar in preparation for Sunday worship returning, their attentive ears to listen as a sister laments another overdose, their sturdy backs to build out a dedicated room for the salon, their encircling arms to embrace an ailing brother trying to heal in Respite, their creative hearts to pen homemade cards for congregants enduring incarceration.
In the year of relationship to come, may we all be reminded of our maternal instincts, our holy calling to be mothers of God.
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