Advent Blog: Christmas
by Barbara Callaghan
December 26, 2022
Sometimes we imagine that on that first Christmas the world stopped and watched in awe, taking front row seats to the heavenly drama that unfolded. We can see them there taking it all in: the barn animals, the smell of hay, the cries of a new born, and a mother hoping her baby will be able to latch on and feed. We imagine they hear the angels as clearly as the shepherds did, and that they looked up taking in the heavenly hosts, hoping they could see the star too. We think that it was THE event of not just that night, but of their lives. But mostly, those in mainstream society, regular life, were unaware, having no idea that the one who would turn the very idea of power on its head lay asleep in a feeding trough.
We think it was this huge thing, but really it happened on the back back stage of the main act. The main act being the tightening grip of control of the Roman Empire. The decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered was not about taking a census so that the needs of the inhabitants could be met. It was not about folks going to their hometowns, like in a Hallmark Christmas movie. The registration was about gaining more control for whatever purposes the empire needed it. Caesar’s decree was a warning to all inhabitants, and it was heard as such. All must go and be registered, no matter how old, or how pregnant, or how feeble. No matter how much suffering it caused, everyone had to go and do this – each to their hometown.
But Jesus wouldn’t be born in the middle of the registration. He wouldn’t be born in the spotlight or an inn where he would be seen and counted in the census. No room in the inn meant that God came in a way that would not be seen, would not be found out, would not be registered or counted. God, in the form of baby Jesus, would be born unaccounted for, sparing also his parents from being a number in Caesar Augustus’s abacus.
No one knew. The angels could have changed that. They could have gone right into the heart of the town and announced the good news for all to hear. But they didn’t. Instead they deposited the good news with the least deserving, the least accepted, the least seen among the inhabitants. Instead of seeking an audience in the limelight, the angels found an audience that might hear them above the clamor of the registration and the pervasiveness of fear. An audience that had escaped all of that because they didn’t matter enough to be counted. The shepherds were the outcasts of society, living outside of civilization. Living with animals, on literally no one’s list of who’s who. And to them that day the angels brought the good news that God put on flesh and become one of them in so many ways.
They set out to follow the star because they had to find this baby king, Emmanuel, that was also on the outs of society, that also slept with animals, and who also would not be part of the emperor’s calculations. It would be a long time before the full impact of this off the grid, unheard birth, would be known. It would be a long time before the baby who kept escaping the jaws of power would turn the very idea of power on its head, giving power back to the powerless, and ultimately taking away even the power and fear of death.
Each year, we like the average person then, might miss the way Christ comes now. Because Christ does come again, and each year the current incarnation seeks to find us. It is never quite what it was back then, or when we were a child, or in some frosty-scened memory in our minds. Christ most often comes in the places we think unimportant, the places we’d rather not go—even the places in our lives we would rather no one see, the parts of ourselves we would rather stay hidden. Christ comes always in the places where shame or fear have set up camp, where hopelessness has taken root, where worries threaten to choke out life. And because he will not play by the rules, he can thwart all those things and make himself at home in the midst of the rubble where new life comes again and again and again.
Christmas reminds us to look where we might not think to look for how God is coming even there, even now. Wherever our darkness, our deepest night, may feel to be the truest thing, is precisely where the light of Christ flickers and will never be overcome by what we think is big and scary. And this is the joy that is both ridiculously beautiful and revolutionary – and sends us forth with the light of Christmas illuminating all our own internal backwater places, to find the Christ in all things, especially among those who aren’t thought to amount to much of anything. Those who by modern terms don’t count. That is where Christ is now. Let us not rush past him, but open up to the holy interruptions of what we might otherwise miss.
Advent Blog: LOVE
by Abby Wester
December 18, 2022
In this Advent season, love is a beautiful thing to keep in mind as we think about our preparations for Christmas. Giving can be a way to express love towards another. Through giving a gift that is perhaps personal or sentimental, we use an opportunity to remind the people in our lives, “I love you. I am here for you.”. But what happens when the gift looks different than we may have expected? What happens when maybe the gift wasn’t something that relates to us at all? When someone gives a new appliance that we might not have asked for, before we jump to the conclusion that this person really doesn’t know us at all, we might take a moment to look a little deeper into the gift itself.
In Matthew 1:18-25, Joseph learns of Mary’s pregnancy. Perceiving this as a betrayal from his betrothed, as the child was not his, Joseph prepares to quietly separate from Mary. In Joseph’s love for Mary, before he even knows the full story of Mary’s child, Joseph still acts to care for her wellbeing by planning to separate quietly instead of the custom at the time which was public humiliation. Gabriel, when he visits Joseph in a dream, tells Joseph that Mary is pregnant through the Holy Spirit and that she will give birth the Jesus, the Messiah. The circumstance that Joseph hoped to undo, in reality, paved the way for the greatest gift to humanity—Jesus. Gabriel’s message to Joseph is the perfect reminder that sometimes the gift we think we receive is far more than what meets the eye. Sometimes, the gift we receive does not take the shape we hope or expect it will take. Sometimes, through love, it’s even better.
As we see in this week’s scripture, there is value in acting with love first, and looking deeper and opening our hearts to the possibilities of love. Without Joseph’s love for Mary, he would have ruined Mary’s future in every way. Without Joseph’s faith and love, he would have missed out on the birth of the Messiah and his beloved carrying this child. Through Joseph’s willingness to open himself up to the possibility that Mary had not betrayed him, as his thoughts had led him to believe, Joseph was able to celebrate in the love directly expressed by God through the bringing of Jesus Christ. This Advent season, may we each open ourselves up to the possibilities of what we might find when we look deeper and seek to find the love in our surroundings. While we live in such uncertain times, sometimes the act of love is merely to give others the chance without assuming the worst in others. To have faith, to foster hope for a brighter future, and to show love by patiently waiting to see how the rest of the story unfolds.
Advent Blog: JOY
by Katie Elliott
December 11, 2022
Joy is something we talk a lot about at Christmas time. We work hard to make Christmas a joyous occasion. We decorate, buy presents, and bake cookies. We make plans and try to execute them perfectly. We do all of this, so that we and the people we care about can have a day filled with joy. This is especially true if we have kids or grandkids coming over.
All too often, however, Christmas Day doesn’t live up to the joyful celebration we imagine. We are too stressed about burning the cookies to enjoy the day; or people are late to dinner and everyone ends up hungry and grumpy; or the kids who were so excited about presents and cookies end up in tears because they are overtired. Sometimes, no matter how hard you work, you can’t manufacture joy.
In the gospel of Luke, the author writes the story of the Angel Gabriel coming to Mary to tell her that she is going to have a child. It is a big moment, full of good news, but it is hard to read it as a joyful moment. Gabriel tells Mary not to be afraid, but it is hard to imagine that Mary can switch off her fear just because the angel tells her too. From Mary’s perspective, Gabriel’s proclamation probably sounds confusing, overwhelming, and daunting. She agrees to carry the child, but says little else to the angel.
According to Luke, Mary immediately heads to see her cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist. As soon as Elizabeth hears Mary’s voice, the baby she is carrying jumps for joy. Elizabeth is too excited to contain herself, and the first words she says to Mary are a blessing. She affirms Mary and affirms what a good thing is happening. Elizabeth’s joy spills over to Mary, and Mary also begins to rejoice. Mary finds joy not during the angel’s grand proclamation, but after the simple blessing of her cousin.
Joy is not always where we want it to be, or where we think that it should be. We cannot force joy to appear or make ourselves joyful. However, we can notice joy where it is. Joy is often found in the small moments, like the moment of two cousins greeting each other. During this Christmas season, I invite you to look for those moments of joy and lean into them. Joy can be found in small moments of connection or little bits of good news. Joy can be found in familiar songs or silly dances. Joy can even be found in laughter over burned cookies or calming an overtired child. Joy can be found wherever you are. Take the time to notice it.
Advent Blog: HOPE
by Rachel Barton
November 27, 2022
It’s hard to talk about Hope right now and not sound trite. Jeremiah 29:11 is an insufficient response to a world where people bring guns to schools, fieldtrips, and dance parties. It is hard to imagine plans for good and not for destruction in a world where we do enough harm to each other that the color orange must serve double duty as a reminder of gun violence and the cultural genocide of Indigenous children.
What can hope be in such a world? What kind of feeling could face the reality of this moment with its eyes open, dwell alongside grief and anger, and persist long enough to imagine another way to be?
What but hope could do that? Hope, the deliberate belief that it does not have to be this way, is one of the only ways to persist in the face of tragedy, grief, and anger. It does not require us to trample or smother those feelings, but it does require us to stubbornly hold on to the idea that the way things are is not the way things have to be.
How do we cultivate hope? We can’t do three sets of twenty hope push-ups every day and develop our hope biceps, but we can do this: dwell in hopeful stories, and dwell alongside hopeful people.
When we dwell in hopeful stories, like this week’s story about the birth of John, or the powerful song of Mary that comes after it, we gain vision and imagination for a world that looks different than the world we’re in right now. The Magnificat is a great place to start: Mary sings of a world where the mighty are cast down from their thrones, and the hungry are filled with good things. We need a story that helps us imagine that kind of world can exist before we can get to work building it. Hopeful stories help.
Hopeful people help. Whenever I’m asked how I stay hopeful, I say, “people.” People who show up, and stick around, and bring snacks to share. People have great capacity to do harm, but we also have great capacity to do good. And if you look around you, you can see that great capacity to do good pretty much everywhere.
We’re lucky at Hancock to be surrounded by people whose lives show us what this kind of hope looks like. We get to live alongside people like Barbara, who’s the kind of person who will walk with you through profound joy and profound suffering. People like Priscilla Thayer, who believes that when someone’s hurting, the best thing to do is to show up with a homemade meal and a listening ear. People like Bev Aker, who knits prayer shawls that hold our congregants as they move through deep grief. We are surrounded by a cloud of hopeful witnesses at Hancock Church, people who deliberately choose to believe that the world does not have to be the way it is, and live lives that love another way of being into reality.
As we enter into Advent, may our eyes be alert to the goodness at work in each other, and together may we find hope in that.
Passages Linked in this blog:
Jeremiah 29:11 NRSVUE – For surely I know the plans I have for – Bible Gateway
Luke 1:5-24 NRSVUE – The Birth of John the Baptist Foretold – Bible Gateway
Luke 1:46-56 NRSVUE – Mary’s Song of Praise – And Mary – Bible Gateway