This is my December newsletter article reprinted by request.
"Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!"
-----Luke 1:45
Trinity Friends,
A Rabbi explained to me that in Jewish teachings, one reason that God appeared to Moses in the burning bush was to show that God's Spirit can come through anything even a thorn bush on the side of a barren mountain! God can speak even through a thorn bush!
God's Spirit can come anywhere and to anyone. No one is outside of God’s care. God's Spirit can move anywhere! This is the message of the Christmas story. The point of the Gospel story is not that Mary was more holy or more faithful or more worthy than others. The point is that Mary was a nobody from a nowhere town. The "low estate of your handmaiden" was an economic and social truth. The story of Jesus’ nativity convinces us that no matter who, where or what we are, we can still have a real effect on the world. God came to Mary! God comes to a stable. God comes to small country churches at midnight on Christmas Eve through the Candles and the Songs. We know what it’s like to hope, to anticipate. Read the rest of Mary's Song, the Magnificat, in Luke 1. Her song is about real things of life like economic justice and equality!
Do people respond to a pregnancy with dread or with joy? I've seen both. It depends on the situation. But one thing is for sure, a lot of preparation needs to take place before the baby arrives and you had better be ready! The way people greet a pregnancy is similar to the way people greet life. We can greet life with joy or dread. Many challenges were in store for Mary. Yet, she accepted her call by raising her son to be a force for creating a better world.
When we celebrate Christmas, we do so in the hope that we will find our place in the story. We want to find that this story is not about "remember when" but about "still today". God is still able today to find people who are open to the movement of the Spirit. God is still planting seeds of promise in the most unlikely places. The church still makes disciples.
God can move anywhere, through humble Mary, thorn bushes and people like you. Christmas isn’t about make believe. Christmas is about real things. We make a commitment and a conscious decision to be open to God and to greet life with joy!
