In Ways Unexpected - A Christmas Eve Homily

“In Ways Unexpected”

A Christmas Eve Homily by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull

First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 24, 2008

In ways unexpected, Christmas comes. A young woman, at full term in her pregnancy, and a young man, seemingly her husband, made their way from the village of Nazareth to the city of Bethlehem, that he might pay his taxes. These were the years of Roman occupation. Commoners like Mary and Joseph did what the authorities told them to do. They were young, probably teenagers, and not even married. Yet they traveled together, he surely the father of the baby she was carrying.

As babies will, this one wriggled and squirmed and wanted out at the most inconvenient of times. Night was falling. Where would they rest, that she might give birth? All the inns of Bethlehem were full. Contractions were coming with alarming frequency, and they knocked on the door of yet another innkeeper, desperate for shelter. Not lacking hospitality altogether, this innkeeper directed them to a stable out back, a barn. And there, Mary gave birth to Jesus.

All the while, an angelic host was busy preparing a message—not for the media of the day, but for some raggedy band of shepherds far more attentive to their sheep than to the night sky. Legend tells us that the lead angel diverted their attention. After scaring the wits out of them, she sang a calming carol bidding them not to be afraid, but to make their way toward Bethlehem, the city of David, and to seek out a stable, where they would find the babe.

W hen I read as a child that the shepherds did indeed leave their sheep and journeyed without a second thought to Bethlehem and the stable, where they “found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger,” I wondered. How could Mary and Joseph and their new baby squeeze themselves into one small manger?” Well, I figured it out after reviewing a few illustrations of how it might have happened. I didn’t learn about funny syntax for many years, let alone confusing translations. It was enough though that the angels sang, that the shepherds went, and that this beautiful little baby was born in a barn and laid in a space where the animal inhabitants were accustomed to finding their sustenance.

Of course the shepherds couldn’t hold onto this news, so Luke, author of what we know as the Gospel—the good news—according to Luke, tells us that the shepherds spread the word of this birth, the birth of a hoped for Savior, who would presumably save his people from all the ills that had befallen them. Here at long last was the Messiah.

What a beginning for a story that was to unfold just as strangely!

Christmas comes in ways unexpected. Children arrive at times unexpected. It’s not about convenience. The miracles of birth rarely are.

Then there’s that star story, told surely by star struck story tellers. We who are reasoned are dubious. Perhaps some “super nova appeared in the heavens in its dying burst of fire.” We rationalize. Yet the star story tugs at us.

Christmas comes in ways unexpected. “Why not a star!” suggests Margaret Gooding, moving beyond her early belief and her later rationality. Why not?

“Some bright star shines somewhere in the heavens each time a child is born….Who knows what uncommon life may yet unfold, if we but give it a chance!”

Who knows? Perhaps the uncommon life of the Scovel children, millennia later, freezing in the Beacon Hill parsonage of their father, Carl, a Unitarian minister infused with more than his share of Puritanical scrimping on the heating bill. Who knew that his uncommonly imaginative children would plan a kidnapping of sorts, with a ransom ensured to warm their small shivering bodies?

Word came to their father, the esteemed pastor of the esteemed King’s Chapel, that the baby Jesus, in the form of the beloved doll in the Christmas crèche, was missing. “Uh-oh, what demented mind would run off with the baby Jesus?” he mused, unamused.

Christmas comes in ways unexpected. Carl was still learning about Christmas and children. With the ransom note found and the heat turned up came the epiphany brought home by his own uncommon children. Of course, of course, “No monarch, indeed no despot [myself even], can ever be so sure of his rule after a child has been born.”

Expand your geographical vision to the Nebraska plains on a harsh winter’s night many years ago. A lonely little girl named Betty hadn’t been asked if she agreed to her family pulling up stakes in Ohio and heading west as homesteaders. Christmas was coming and in spite of Betty’s longing for friends left behind, it seemed to be the best of Christmas gifts when a new family moved in across the way, with a daughter just her age. Then came the discovery that her new friend, Sarah, was Jewish. They didn’t celebrate Christmas, but lit candles on a glorious candlestick known as a menorah for a festival of lights known as Hanukkah.

All the while, Betty’s father was traveling into town—many miles away—to get candles for the tree. A plains blizzard came on, and he was not to return until dawn on Christmas morning. Christmas came in ways unexpected, for the lights that brought him home were those of the candles of Hanukkah burning bright in the window of their new neighbors, placed there by Betty’s friend, Sarah. Hanukkah had saved Christmas.

Holidays and holy days happen in ways unexpected. Children are born beyond our imagining. Children grow up in ways unanticipated and never cease to surprise us by means we surely couldn’t have taught them. Lights shine from sources unplanned and unanticipated, and the flame of candles from traditions of holiness over which nations have gone to war shine also in uncommon beams that bring us home to our common humanity.

In this time of anxiety, in this time of bewilderment, in this time of injury and illness for so many in our midst, in this time of violence among and within nations, in this time of mistrust between neighbor and neighbor, in this time when we would seem to do well simply to tend our sheep on our very own hillside thank you very much, we need more than ever to heed the echo of an angelic host. We need more than ever to warm our hearth and that of neighbors who can’t afford the heating bill altogether. We need more than ever to make friends beyond the conventions of sameness. We need more than ever to discover behind the façade of an inn a newborn child.

Ordinary miracles all, I invite you to trust that as we gather in this time and space of love and light and story and song, Christmas will come. Christmas is coming in ways unexpected, in ways we could never have imagined, tonight!

Amen.



Sources:

Betty Girling, “Holiday Candles,” in Treasured Stories of Christmas: A Touching Collection of Stories that Brings Gifts from the Heart and Joy to the Soul, The Editors of Guideposts, Inspirational Press, New York, 1997.

Margaret Gooding, “Why Not a Star,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 621.

The Gospel According to Luke in the Bible (King James Version)

Carl Scovel, “The Stolen Infant,” in Never Far from Home: Stories from the Radio Pulpit, Skinner House, Boston, October 2003, 44-46.

Do you see? Do you hear?

“Do you see? Do you hear?”

Reflections by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for Jim FitzGerald and Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 21, 2008

First Reflection

Jan:
Do you see the flame of the candles flickering in the menorah? Imagine what it must have been like to expect the temple oil to last only a day….and then watch it burn for eight amazing days!

Jim:
Those Maccabee children had something to sing about! Do you hear the sounds of our own children’s voices, blending with the voices of our wisest, singing out our thanks that the light lasted? I love this time of legends and light and from our youngest, little coos and “gah-gahs” (and maybe some not so little coos and “gah-gahs,” that we don’t even count on, but somehow these cries blend right in with our Hanukkah music.

Do you see the eager faces of young and old watching the menorah? I wonder what kind of miracles are in store even today as we light our candles of hope.

Jan:
Hope shines atop our menorah and soon atop our Advent wreath as we hope against hope that happenings from so long ago will find their way into our hearts as celebrations in our own time. Do you hear the sounds of hope?

Jim:
I do. Sometimes they’re child-like murmurs. Sometimes they’re the soaring voices of our choir and our congregation. Sometimes I hear the silence itself. Do you hear the silence too?

Jan:
When I listen, when I really listen, I hear the silence. Do you see the faces turned occasionally toward the windows of the Meeting House. Our Common is blanketed with snow for the season at hand. The candles seem to burn even more brightly across the crispness of winter air.

Jim:
It reminds me that today is the shortest day of the year. Today is the Winter Solstice, when we’re farthest away from the warmth and light of the sun. Candlelight matters more than ever. Do you feel the warmth that binds us as we worship, like one big family?

Jan:
I do, and I feel it as our children light the candles of the menorah and as Laura lights our chalice; and I hear it in the words that we speak, in Susan’s welcome and Laura’s chalice reflection, and Steve’s story of how Hanukkah happened and how it’s still happening.

Jim:
I see it as Morgan and Jack light one by one all the candles of the menorah. I even smell it with the pine boughs nestled into the high pulpit. All our senses awaken to this time.

Jan:
It’s almost Hanukkah. It’s almost Christmas. Across the ages and across all ages, we celebrate these holidays and holy days of light, of religious freedom, and of the birth of a baby who was all about love.

Jim:
Our hearts lift to the sights and sounds of this holy time. Every candle lit is an act of hope, and each child born, each child here, is a gift of hope. The warmth of a candle tenderly kisses the joyous sound of the chime that echoes in our bell choir.



Second Reflection

Jim:
Do you hear the echo of the drum? I think all our youngsters stepped up as little drummer boys and drummer girls with the gift of their song.

Jan:
Did you see them as they raised their voices and lifted hearts? It’s like Marilyn said as she introduced her story: Everyone here shares a miracle. It’s the same miracle we celebrate at Christmas. Each of us was born.

Jim:
Each of us has his own drum beat, her own rhythm played out across the years. Can you hear all the rhythms pa-rum-pum-pum-pumming together this morning?

Jan:
I hear them, and as I look out across the congregation I see the hopeful drummer boy, the glowing drummer girl in each and every person here, and I see us all as children, some of us as long ago children, long ago babes, probably adored every bit as much as the baby Jesus.

Jim:
Imagine the day of your birth. Each of you holds your own story of the time you were born. Imagine that “on the eve of your birth, word of your coming passed from animal to animal.”

Jan:
And “the Moon pulled on the ocean below, and, wave by wave, a rising tide washed the beaches clean for your footprints.” Do you see your very own footprints, tiny in the sand of your arrival?

Jim:
Do you see the Advent wreath, an evergreen holder of candles that remind us of an expected arrival? Soon it will be lit, candle by candle.

Jan:
….keeping company with the candles of the menorah. Can you close your eyes and still see all the candles burning bright?

Jim:
If I close my eyes, I can see in my mind’s eyes candles lit in the church of my childhood—especially at Christmas.

Jan:
And I see in my memory’s eyes candles of Hanukkah shining in the windows of city apartments, and if I go further back, the lights of Christmas twinkling through the windows of my small town and ablaze in the living room of my childhood.

Jim:
Of course this is a season of expectancy. We anticipate a miracle of light.

Jan:
We anticipate a miracle of birth, each one ordinary, each one amazing.

Jim:
Our hope is that with the sounds and sights of these holidays of legend and light, we will know peace and know it so deeply that we’ll carry it out from this shortest day of the year through the longest night of the year all the way into the rest of the year.

Jan:
….into all the years to come.

Jim:
We’ve kindled our candles of Hanukkah, with a story to guide us. At this time, Steve Brown will share an Advent story that will guide Sasha as he lights our candles of Advent.


Sources

Debra Frasier, On the Day You Were Born, Harcourt, Inc., New York, 1991.

All About Light

“All About Light”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 14, 2008

Next Sunday, December 21st, the sun will be at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from each of us, if we remain in the Eastern Time Zone of the Northern Hemisphere. A note of explanation: the “equatorial plane” is the imagined line on the surface of our earth that is roughly the same distance from the North and South Poles, a line dividing our earth into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. The precise moment of the greatest distance that we’ll stand from our sun is 7:04 AM a week from today. It is the Winter Solstice, marking the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
…rage, rage against the dying of the light,”

wrote the impassioned 20th century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. While Thomas spoke of resistance to the light of life itself, year after year we counter the dying of the light that we glibly call sunshine as we approach the shortest day and longest night of the current earth-arc around the sun. The sun rises later and later and sets earlier and earlier. As darkness encroaches, our yearning for light intensifies.

In our own lives this week, we have known that “rage against the dying of the light” as we bore the news of a member of this church community whose life hung in the balance and who even now is regaining her sense of light and life at a nearby hospital. We bore the news of a longtime member of this church community and beloved member of this larger community whose life hangs in the balance in the wake of harrowing diagnoses and emergency treatments in Boston. Even as we deck our halls, sing our carols, place candles in our windows, and check our shopping lists—however modest in the economic reality that is now—we know in our bones that we are placing at the very top of our to-do lists resistance to lights out.

We yearn for light. We lean into the warmth of the hearth kindled with a log reminiscent of the Yule log, that pagan rite of countering light’s seasonal waning. We light candles as in no other season. We might not rise to the passion of “rage against the dying of the light,” but we have our methods, we have our rituals, we have our remedies, and we have our faith that light will return to our inmost souls extending to the outer reaches of our habitat and back again to our inmost souls. We have faith hoped for and evidence-bound that light will return, in whatever slow doses, as we transcend the solstice. On December 20th, our day is 9 hours, 4 minutes, and 49 seconds. On December 21st, our day diminishes to 9 hours, 4 minutes, and 48 seconds. Then the next day it expands to 9 hours, 4 minutes, and 51 seconds—a 3-second leap into the rebirth of light.

Ironically, the Winter Solstice signals the birth of winter. We commonly associate winter with less light, yet its beginning is the signal of more light, earlier sunrises, later sunsets, more light to warm us, illumine us, resurrect our spirits, and remind us that it happens every year, every single year, this rhythm of light diminished and light reborn. No matter what cluster of hope, anticipation, anguish or dread we hold personally or communally or globally, the cadence of our planet in its cosmic dance with our sun-star assumes a confident recycling of light diminished and light expanded. Winter is another word for spring. Beneath earth’s hardened surface, roots swell in readiness, warmed by a few more seconds, a few more minutes, of our sun-star’s radiance.

Is it any wonder—wondrous as these rhythms are—that our holidays and holy days mirror earth’s light-dance and hold in cosmic form our oh-so-human resistance, rage even, against darkness with our equally oh-so-human welcome, celebration even, of the promise of light? We worship this morning amid a season resplendent with holidays of light. Today is the third Sunday of Advent, a time of approach to that day when Christian beliefs tell us the Light of the World was born in a lowly manger. This year on the night of the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah begins at sundown—Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights observed by Jews worldwide. Just twelve days from now begins that holiday of relatively recent origin, Kwanzaa, when the first of seven candles are lit, affirming principles of right living among those of us of African-American heritage with lessons of right living for all of us.

Hope is pervasive across all of these holidays. Hope for light, hope for illumination, hope for enlightenment even. It infuses our songs, our poetry, our stories, our symbols of struggle against oppression. Light is ever dominant even as darkness hovers with the approach of the Solstice. The very word Solstice stems from the Latin words, “sol” for “sun” and “sistere” for day—solstice, “Day of the Sun!”

What is the fear as we approach this day? That darkness will encroach until that’s all there is. Surely we in this community have felt that fear as lives and futures hang in the balance, with earthlight seeming to mirror it all, even to mock it.

Our great-great-and beyond great grandfathers and grandmothers feared, raged, and contorted themselves over this apparent dying of the light, no matter how many times they had experienced counter-rhythms. In Britain, they kindled bonfires and kept them burning for days…just in case. In the circles cast by bonfire glow, they sang and danced and feasted. Is it so different for us now with Christmas at hand?

Beginning in 13th century Peru, the Incans observed “Inti Raymi,” “Festival of the Sun,” honoring the sun god Inti and coinciding with the winter solstice. Incan priests performed a ritual “tying of the sun” to a large stone column to prevent it from escaping. The practice died out with the Spanish conquest a few hundred years later. Spanish Christians suppressed these rich earth-bound rituals and destroyed every remnant of them except for Machu Picchu, which, blessedly, remained out of their reach. Over the past half century, the rite of Inti Raymi has been dramatically enacted at a site close to Cusco, capital of the ancient Incan Empire, at the time of the Winter Solstice of the Southern Hemisphere. Just two years ago, Cusco was identified as the site “with the highest ultraviolet light level” of any place on earth. I wonder if subliminally perhaps, recent Peruvians have been honoring this sight where light is close to invasive!

From Cusco to Cohasset, from time ancient to this very morning, we yearn for light. We crave reassurance that darkness is not for good. If we grow dubious, if we succumb to the darkness, there’s even a name for it now—“seasonal affective disorder”—SAD, for short and an understatement for many who suffer from it. Our oh so human needs have inspired remedies that wind their ways through the celebrations of this time—Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa— each of them filled with light, commonly in the language of candles burning bright. In reverie and meditation, in story and in song, we anticipate. We dare to hope. We light our candles of Advent, of Hanukkah, of Kwanzaa. Our souls keep vigil. “Within the flame,” remarked Gaston Bachelard, “even time holds its vigil.”

We are attentive; we anticipate; we hope. On this third Sunday of Advent, we draw closer to that day when our Christian selves celebrate the birth of a child deemed by millions as the Light of the world and connected by myriad Christian theologians with the messianic language of the prophet Isaiah:

“The people that walked in darkness
Have seen a great light;
On those who lived in a land as dark as death
A light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2)

Dawn awakens seasonal hope, messianic imagination, and the custom of candles nestled in a wreath. This practice of placing candles in a wreath of pine boughs comes to us from pre-Christian Europe, where it was repeated annually as a rite of hope that days would once again grow long and the earth would once more give birth to flora and fauna. Christians draw on this pagan custom as a ritual of anticipation for the birth of the Christ child, born in humble circumstance, yet under a star guiding men wise and simple to the manger.

The Christmas tree itself is a legacy of our ancestors’ need to craft a harbinger of seasonal dawn. Arrayed with candle-like lights and originally live candles, it draws us into the magic of the moment. The Christmas tree was planted in our cultural habits in the early 16th century when the first decorated tree was placed in the Strasbourg Cathedral. The year was 1539, during the lifetime of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the Unitarian martyr, Michael Servetus.

A tree itself is candle-like in stature, pointing skywards—a stance of hope and affirmation across the seasons. The fir tree forms a veritable spire of green during the briefest hours of winter light, like the vertical flame of a candle that inspires us to hope amid the oppressive force of extended night.

Hope is what the candles of Hanukkah signal. Some of us have menorahs, or Hanukkah lampstands, in our homes. Next Sunday we’ll light the menorah here, observing Hanukkah’s beginning at sundown. For the eight nights of Hanukkah, we lift the candle known as the shammash, the servant candle, to light one candle a night until all eight candles and the shammash burn brightly, reminding us of the ancient miracle of lights.

Hanukkah means “dedication” and marks the rededication of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem after Judah and his fellow warriors, the Maccabees, triumphed over their oppressors almost 2,200 years ago. A scant portion of oil had been rescued from the original temple, only enough to burn for a single day. Yet when the Jews began the rite of rededication and kindled the oil, it lasted eight days. It was this miracle of lights that led Judah to proclaim a holiday, originally called the Festival of Lights.

It is a holiday of hope against hope. Through the centuries, those who are Jewish among us are called to light the menorah, no matter how trying the circumstances. In a cramped garret in Holland, a young girl wrote in her diary on December 7, 1942.
“‘We just gave each other a few little presents and then we lit the candles. Because of the shortage of candles, we only had them alight for ten minutes.’”

Lighting a candle in community is an act of hope and affirmation for all who know oppression.

It was in a struggle against oppression that Dr. Maulena Karenga created the rites of Kwanzaa almost half a century ago. Kwanzaa is Swahili for “first fruits of the harvest.” It’s celebrated through food and story and song and candle over a period of seven days, from December 26 through January 1. In a candleholder called the Kinara, seven candles are lit over the span of these seven days, symbolizing the principles of Kwanzaa—Unity, Self-determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith. In the words of Dr. Karenga, these are principles by which “Black people must live to…rescue and reconstruct our history and lives.”

Bonfires blaze, trees are adorned, candles are lit—candles of Advent, candles of menorahs, candles of kinaras—as luminous signals that the light will not go out, that light will return and with it, hope for a world reborn as spring, as a baby, as a shift in the angle of earth in our Universe, as possibility. In the words of Dori Jeanine Somers that we spoke earlier this morning:

“…there is that in me which reaches up toward light and laughter, bells, and carolers, and knows that my religious myth and dream of reborn joy and goodness must be true, because it speaks the truths of older myths; that light returns to balance darkness, life surges in the evergreen—and us.

And babes are hope, and saviors of the world, as miracles abound in common things.”

As we approach the darkest time of year, what hovers in our midst feels like a taunting mirror-like “dark night of the soul.” It is our time of times to light our candles, hold hope, and know that the darkest of times is all about light waiting, approaching, shining. Amen.


Sources:

Gaston Bachelard, The Flame of a Candle, translated from the French by Joni Caldwell, The Bachelard Translation Series, The Dallas Institute Publications, 1961, 1984, 16.

Miriam Chaikin, Light Another Candle: The Story and Meaning of Hanukkah, Houghton Mifflin Company Trade & Reference Division, Boston, MA, 1981.

Ronald M. Clancy, Best-Loved Christmas Carols, Edited by William E. Studwell, Christmas Classics, Ltd., North Cape May, NJ, 2000.

“Equator,” from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equator.

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, Translated by Susan Massotty, Doubleday, 1947.

The Book of Isaiah, The Bible, Revised Standard Version.

Liley, J. Ben and McKenzie, Richard L. (April 2006) "Where on Earth has the highest UV?" UV Radiation and its Effects: an update NIWA Science, Hamilton, NZ, in Cusco, from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusco.

Dori Jeanine Somers, “Reflections on the resurgence of Joy,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 653.

“Sunrise and Sunset for U.S.A. – Massachusetts – Boston – December 2008,” http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=43&month=12&year=2008&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1.

Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” The Poems of Dylan Thomas, New Directions, 1952, 1953. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Christy Thorrat, “The Winter Solstice,” in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 251.

“Winter Solstice,” from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice.

http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/winter-solstice.htm

Chalice Reflection & Expectations

Chalice Reflection of Jane Goedecke
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 7, 2008

My first reaction to this morning’s theme “Expectations” was that expectations bring anxiety. The word does connote a “looking forward” but with standards to be met, promises to be kept, goals to be achieved. I don’t know what Jan has in mind for this morning, but I started getting nervous!

Life sends us too many expectations and I, and perhaps, some of you, too, have a tendency to believe things are “expected” of me even when they’re not. I’m going to try using the word “anticipation” instead.

I am anticipating a beautiful winter wonderland after the snowfall. I am expecting the plow man to show up. See the difference?

And this time of year I need to be especially vigilant in eliminating the “E” word. In years past I let the holiday become a mountain of expectations for me. Age and fatigue have helped me become more realistic, but it is an ongoing battle. I invite you to join me in the struggle. Let us anticipate the blessings and joys of this holiday season and let go of the expectations.

I light the chalice this morning in the spirit of anticipation.

“Expectations”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 7, 2008

“If there were no Advent, we would need to invent it,” remarks John Taylor of this season marking the four weeks before Christmas. On this second Sunday of Advent, I’m reminded that we don’t need to invent it; it’s with us to the extent that we tend even to some of the dimensions of this story of the birth of Jesus. We may though need to re-invent it.

Advent means “coming to” or simply “coming.” We speak of the advent of an era, the advent of a new course of action, the advent of a person. Birth is an advent, a coming, a new beginning, an arrival. From the first observance of Advent into the sixth century, it referred exclusively to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Then its meaning shifted, and it was observed as the season of expectation, of preparation, for the coming of the child Jesus—or, in Christian terms, the Christ child. Advent has become a season of expectation, a spiritual pregnancy of sorts, permitting us to prepare for whatever Christmas means to us. Again, in Christian terms, it is preparation for the marking once again of the birth of him who was deemed by so many to be God become human in the form of a humble baby—a form to which we can all relate, since this is how we all began.

Advent in our time commences on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, but if we consider this a time of approach, why not turn to one of the New, or Second Testament, Gospel stories for those first indications of expectation? The Gospel of Luke is the only Second Testament Gospel that records what many term “the Annunciation.” Sometimes we Unitarian Universalists need to pay serious attention to biblical text, even though we can rationalize it away as being one of many stories about a story whose lines have blurred immensely over the centuries. We can revisit that story and discover anew its richness for faith marked by a belief that this was about the Son of God coming into the world and faith marked by an understanding that a child was born who would make his mark on the world in ways that were downright revolutionary—Love being the rare Gospel that it is and indeed, the Gospel, the “good news,” that described the core teaching of Jesus in his brief adult life.

To get a firmer grip on this story, let’s revisit Luke’s account of how Mary discovered she was about to become pregnant. Now this sounds like something that Mary should have learned in a class akin to our OWL series—the Our Whole Lives series in which our Unitarian Universalist youth learn the basics of sexuality from trained and trustworthy adults who are not their parents, which enhances the credibility for almost any adolescent. Mary wasn’t quite a candidate for OWL in time or tradition, but the story goes that she did have what we might freely call a “trained and trustworthy adult” in the form of the angel Gabriel.

Before we jump to metaphor or mythology to describe what happened, let’s check out Luke’s more or less original story, albeit written almost a century after Jesus’ birth. With the oral tradition in full play, we can surmise that the story had been told and retold before being cast into the written word. Storytellers were the historians of their day and took great pains to memorize what had been passed to them that they might pass it with maximum accuracy onto the next generation of those who would keep the story alive, a story that some still call “the greatest story ever told.”

Luke in the early part of his first chapter describes another pregnancy, that of Mary’s relative, Elizabeth, with John the Baptist, a formidable figure in his own right. Luke explains that Elizabeth was six months pregnant when:

“the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph…”

NOTE that Mary isn’t yet pregnant, so it just might make sense that as a young engaged Jewish woman, she was indeed still a virgin, though not for long, since it’s a rare virgin who gives birth to a baby. In fact, a virgin birth deserved feature story status in some ancient edition of the National Enquirer.

Back to Luke…
[Joseph was] “of the house of David: and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he [that is, the angel Gabriel, who served as a messenger of God] came to her and said, ‘Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever;
And of his kingdom there will be no end.’

And Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have no husband?’ And the angel said to her, [and this is where it gets iffy!]

‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
And the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”

Luke goes on to tell the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah, and of Elizabeth proclaiming upon Mary’s arrival that Mary is “blessed among women,” followed by Mary’s spontaneous proclamation of what God had set in play through her and how generations would call her blessed. Then we’re told that Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months, just enough time for Elizabeth to give birth to John and for Mary to get through her first trimester in the trusted company of her kinswoman.

Luke sets the scene for expectation writ large. If anyone is pregnant even now, we commonly say, “She’s expecting.” Pregnancy is all about expectation, all about advent, an anticipated arrival of a child. I don’t doubt that any of us here who have given birth to a child or adopted a child or experienced this vicariously through family and friends know how heightened this expectation is, how keen our senses are, how hyper-vigilant we are to who is to come…that “who” being a big question mark for the span of time from confirmation of pregnancy to birth.

Advent describes a season of expectancy, a season of hyper-attentiveness to what is to come. Every birth, every arrival, every coming of a child shakes our universe—perhaps less so in magnitude than did the arrival of Jesus or Moses or Mohammed or Abraham or even Mahatma Gandhi or Eleanor Roosevelt, but nonetheless each and every child is preceded by a season of Advent.

We are expecting. We mark this in the tradition of our Christian roots by the lighting of Advent candles set into an Advent wreath, a relatively recent tradition said to have begun among German Lutherans. Once again, what has become a religious rite had its roots in pagan rites—specifically, the pagan fire wheel. The circle or wheel or wreath symbolizes eternity, a “world without end,” an “everlasting to everlasting.” Each of the four purple candles—purple being the emblematic color of royalty—is lit week after week until all four candles are burning bright on the Sunday preceding Christmas itself. On Christmas, the pink candle, the center candle, is kindled, indicating that Jesus, the presumed “light of the world,” has come. The waiting is over. Here he is! No more full nights of sleep for Mary or Joseph! Yes, there was Joseph, that back burner partner who hung in (after, most of us assume, getting Mary pregnant in the first place) and helped to parent what would prove to be one challenging youngster.

But let’s back up. Let’s back up to this seasonal time of expectancy. What we know about the story of Luke that has come down through the ages is that Mary was expecting and that she had enough sense to be wary, to be vigilant, to know that life is never the same once a path has been taken that is for the most part irreversible. Remember, you can’t be a little bit pregnant. You’re either expecting or you’re not.

What, I wonder, are we expecting, amid this season of Christmas—and not just Christmas, but the lights and re-enactment of the story of the miracle of Hanukkah and the lights and observance of the recent story and rites of Kwanzaa and the lights and observance by Hindus worldwide of Diwali, a festival of lights that pays tribute to the pantheon of Hinduism. What are we expecting and what can we learn from this ancient account by a fellow named Luke, who received it from his first-century predecessor story tellers?

Expectation is a state of vigilance. Expectation is often accompanied by anxiety, occasionally by the strategies of reflection and meditation, and almost always by some planning that usually goes awry because the path to all our Bethlehems is rife with potholes. Sometimes we escape them; sometimes we don’t.

In John Taylor’s reflection on Advent, he observes that “we are always expecting.” And he writes a nano-breath later that we are “hopeful.” We are hopeful creatures and “hopefulness deserves a festival.”

Maybe so, but expectation and hope don’t completely overlap. Expectation is indeed a state of vigilance and planning. Hope, on the other hand, informs our expectation with a sense that all will ultimately be well. Hope transcends anxiety and hyper-vigilance and even meditation and reflection and lifts our souls into spiritual resilience—not la-la land thinking, not denial, but a resilience of our very souls, a readiness to ride the waves and discover gifts unanticipated in whatever happens.

Let’s go back to Mary. Here she was stuck with a child Jesus who would later be said to run off from his parents at the age of 12, when they took him to Jerusalem. Who did he hang out with? The sages in the temple, whom he confounded with his questions and commentary. Who did he hang out with as a young adult—not accounting for a good two decades that we know nothing about—but a band of brothers who were not exactly perched on the highest rung of Galilee’s social ladder. How did he end up? That’s for another season, another time.

How do we remember him and why? For those of us who are of liberal faith, we connect again and again with his teachings, with his parables that spoke of loving folks who are despised, bringing wholeness to folks who have lost any remnant of hope, sharing what wealth we have—spreading the wealth in fact—so that none will go hungry or become homeless, forging a course as peacemakers blessed as children of God. It’s so much easier to chalk up the arrival of Jesus as the arrival of the Son of God and let that notion occupy center stage so we don’t have to wrestle with the rugged teachings that he imparted and for which he paid dearly. Hope is held by trusting that each of us can move through whatever lies ahead with grace and graciousness that is even remotely akin to what we learn from those accounts of who this babe of Bethlehem grew to be. Hope is held by letting go of rigid expectations and letting be what is and letting how what is evolve into what will be.

This is a season of expectation, but let it not be a time of rigid expectation. The news of our world intimate and global suggests we loosen our expectations and hold hope. All we know is that a child was born. All we know is that we were once children. All we know is that most of us in this Meeting House this morning are grown-ups, riding the waves of what is, marked with scars and souvenirs of waves that were, anticipating but uncertain of what turbulence lies ahead. What to do but light a candle. With every child, a light comes into the world. That light burns brightly, flickers, and is consumed, becoming once again part and parcel of the substance from which we sprang.

As we light our candles of Advent, let us be no less jubilant about a season of anticipation, a season of expectation, and the reality of hope held in each child we cradle, each manifestation of love we practice, each ray of light that illumines our souls as we move through each precious day. Amen.


Sources:

“The Advent Wreath,” in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 235.

The Gospel According to Luke, The Bible, Revised Standard Version

John A. Taylor, “If there were no Advent...,” in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 235.

“Winter Festival and Celebrations,” Church of the Larger Fellowship, in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 235.