This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
had Mary been filled with reason
There’d have been no room for the child.
-Madeleine L’Engle
As we light our third candle for Advent, we wonder about God’s love expressed to us in the coming of Jesus. We are, I think, too used to thinking about “love” as a warm emotion that wraps us in peaceful feelings. It’s not always so. The love of God especially can be “bright and wild,” disrupting the semblance of peace in order to deeply move his beloved people into the wholeness he desires for them.
I think of Jesus, the embodiment of love, entering the womb of Mary. Her life is interrupted and put on edge—the entire rest of her life! From an unwed pregnancy to her “labor of love” in Bethlehem, and on through the years of being with Jesus until a sword “pierces her soul” (Luke 2:35) at the crucifixion and joy pierces her heart at the resurrection. The coming of the loving Jesus turned her world upside down, so that the entire world could be turned rightside up.
Pay attention to her song after the Annunciation, after she’s had a few weeks to reflect on what’s happening in and through her. She sings of upheaval and change that result in a new order (Luke 1:46-55). The love-of-God-made-flesh reorients the human heart in a radical, society-changing way.
And it happens because a teenage girl said, “Let it be to me according to your word.” She said yes and opened herself to the love of God in Jesus. May we receive grace to do the same, making room in our lives for the “bright and wild” coming of Jesus into our lives.
Please take a moment to read The Weekly, paying attention to the services listed below with their unique times and events.
Your Pastor in Christ,
