Advent; Feel the Kiss

Exhale; Look Up; Feel the Kiss

Every year has its days of clenched teeth and weeks of held-in breaths. Finally in Advent, we can exhale and look up in wonder rather than in supplication. Like a shepherd tired from the day’s rounding and believing that tomorrow brings nothing new, we look up and – gasp! – the star! The angels! The Incarnation – the Creator come down to us, not to watch or to direct, but to inhabit and to serve. How can we not marvel?

Indeed. In his lowly, vulnerable birth, God kisses the earth, and nothing can ever be the same. We should be trembling to know it, trembling – not in fear – but in awe and humility and thanksgiving.

But no, maybe that’s not quite it, maybe God doesn’t just kiss the earth, for a kiss cannot last. Rather, God comes, as bridegroom, who weds himself to us – divinity to humanity – and shares with us that most intimate privilege of marriage, the joining of two into one, the mutual dependence, the mutual commitment. We are One.

But every marriage, even the best, needs constant attention, constant giving…constancy.

Call the repetitious seasons of Advent, then, year after year, a renewal of our wedding vows, complete with honeymoon.

Lord, in this harried, hurried season, help me be opened to your promptings, that you may draw me not away from, but toward, your loving presence.

You consented to come to us in all vulnerability, as a human, helpless baby. I consent to be vulnerable to you.

Grant me wisdom to ponder the mystery St. Paul wrote, but you embodied: “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.” 1 Corinthians 9:22 (KJV)

Advent, Day One