December 2024

It is Advent, a season of anticipation. Sometimes our waiting seems empty. Sometimes we exclaim with wonder at what appears.

May you attend to the gift of each moment, whether it bring joyous surprise or quiet calm.

Scottish poet Kenneth Steven imagines a medieval artist, working on an illuminated manuscript. “Some days,” the artist tells us, “there is nothing in the pen / except my own emptiness.” He waits, and waits, and then

Just sometimes something breaks inside

like the brittle lid of a casket

and pours out light onto the waiting page.*

What a fitting image for Advent! Sometimes, the waiting of this season can feel like nothing but emptiness. We write the cards and shop for gifts, yet, somehow, everything feels hollow, an echoing emptiness.

Advent is not a season of instant gratification. It is a season of anticipation. Waiting in anticipation is a far different thing than just killing time. Waiting in anticipation is focused, focused outward. We may not know exactly what we are waiting for, but still we are alert, aware, paying attention, waiting for any glimpse of that light pouring out.

“Waiting beckons us to other-centeredness,” I read last week. We look beyond ourselves. We anticipate that somewhere, in some surprising way, the gifts of Advent will appear. Hope. Peace. Joy. Love.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the light will shine. We cannot predict where or when. It may be at a Christmas concert. It may be at a soup kitchen. It may be just a brief respite from life’s struggles. Rev. Molly Smothers calls our attention to the fourth verse of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” which addresses, “… you beneath life’s crushing load / whose forms are bending low,” inviting them (or is it us?) to simply “rest beside the weary road, / and hear the angels sing.” It may be enough, Smothers reminds us, “to simply rest where we are … and listen.”**

Sometimes, just sometimes, the light breaks through, but only if we are watching. Sometimes, just sometimes, we hear the angels sing, but only if we are alert, only if we are listening.

Amen. May it be so. Amen.

-- Bill

*Kenneth Steven, “Illuminated Manuscript,” in Iona: New and Selected Poems (Paraclete Press, 2021), p. 33

**Molly Smothers, “Clarity in Verse Four,” in Abide with Us: An Advent Devotional, ed. Paul Koch (Chalice Press, 2023), p. 18.

A beautifully decorated 14-ft Christmas tree fills the corner in our senior living main building lobby. It surprisingly appeared overnight, complete with a collar of vibrant red poinsettias at the tree’s base. A life size nutcracker guards the front door on the left of the tree; on the right, the necessary nativity scene with the empty manger covered by a woven cloth, awaiting the newborn Christ Child.

While I was standing still, awed by the Christmas scene, a resident walked up behind me and exclaimed, “Goodness Gracious!” “GOODNESS GRACIOUS!”

Of all the ebullient things we could say about the charm of the Christmas tree, the waiting manger, and the Isaiah prophecy that this newborn will be Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isa.9:6), “Goodness Gracious” is perhaps one of the most endearing and enduring.

Admittedly, this is the first time I heard anyone remark “Goodness Gracious” about a Christmas scene. But let’s think about it. God is love. "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." (1 John 4:16). And because God is love, the Spirit of God’s “divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” (2 Peter 1:3). It is a gracious God who gives us everything we need for a godly life. “You, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” (Ps. 86:15).

A look at holy scripture confirms veracity that Christmas in all its awe and wonder is indeed goodness and graciousness. Maybe we’ve never thought of Christmas in that way. This year we can start a new tradition.

As we reflect upon the tradition of the Christmas tree, of the nativity scene, and of the empty manger, let us ponder, as Mary did while awaiting the birth of her son. As we prepare for receiving the Christ Child once again into our empty hearts, consider how can we show more goodness and graciousness, and to live a godly life? How can we make it a point to give thanks, whenever we see a nativity scene, for the newborn God-with-us is goodness and graciousness?

by Jan