Christ Comes

The fast of Advent is nearly over as we come to celebrate the feast of Christmas, in our land this is the time of  winter gloom when the sun does not get very high above the horizon and brings little warmth or light; then comes the explosion of angels in dazzling light who herald in Christmas morning.

Here are some of my favorite Advent poems which speak of the wonder and mystery of Christmas that can so easily be lost  in our over commercialised world. 

He is here!

Christ comes, not in sleigh bells or quaint Christmas choirs, nor the tinkle of cash tills.

Christ comes with contracting uterine muscles and a spurt of water and blood.

Christ comes with increasing labour pains,

Christ comes to a young woman in a mixture of ecstasy, pain and joy.

Christ comes in the entire muddle and ordinariness of our everyday lives.

Christ comes unexpected into His created world,

Christ is here to be found and worshipped.

Come with the sheep farmers

Come with the star gazers.

Come with the single mothers and confused fathers,

Come He is here now.        Come

This is the time of the almost unnoticed birth, the creator God slips almost un-announced into His created world to save and redeem it. The miracle of all miracles announced only to the poorest of the poor. Loves furnace hidden in a little room, is one of my favorite Advent poems. 

Loves furnace in a little room.

Forget not Trinity holy and glorious

That heaven’s bright prince came down to bestow on us

His love, as babe, into Mary’s fair womb

For nine months, he who is angels lord

Was hidden, love’s furnace, in a little room

Humbler than all, who all adored.

A pure lamb, he stole down to earth

To free us from our sin so blind .

No city home will shield his birth

His mother a stable for bed must find;

There poorest of the poor she lay

Nor wine nor meat for hungers sting

In the rude confines of the cattle bay

Where God was born apostle’s king.

Cold and exile He did not scorn

In the donkey’s manger that holy morn.

Tadg Gaelach O Suilleabhain.

Another favorite comes from the Celtic prayer book  as we pass the shortest day and the two longest nights, Christmas is almost upon us 

This night is the long night

When those who listen await His cry

This night is the eve of the great nativity

When those who are longing await His appearing

Wait with watchful heart.

Listen carefully through the stillness;

Listen; hear the telling of the waves upon the shore.

Listen hear the song of angels glorious-

Ere long it will be heard

That His foot has reached the earth;

News- that the glory has come!

Truly his salvation is near

For those who fear Him,

And His glory shall dwell in our land.

Watch and pray that the Lord shall come.

Those who are longing await His appearing.

Those who listen await His cry.

Watch….

Wait …..

Listen….

This night is the long night.

So as the first chapter of John's gospel reminds us the king comes into His world largely unseen and rejected.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own,[b] and his own people[c] did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Malcolm Guite's lovely Advent poem reminds us of the crazy irony of this:

O Rex Gentium

O King of our desire whom we despise,

King of the nations never on the throne,

Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone,

Rejected joiner, making many one,

You have no form or beauty for our eyes,

A King who comes to give away his crown,

A King within our rags of flesh and bone.

We pierce the flesh that pierces our disguise,

For we ourselves are found in you alone.

Come to us now and find in us your throne,

O King within the child within the clay,

O hidden King who shapes us in the play

Of all creation. Shape us for the day

Your coming Kingdom comes into its own.

So as we approach Christmas let us come to the stable with the shepherds and kneel before  Christ our Saviour and King.

Maranatha

Maranatha is such a portmanteau word, it comes from the Aramaic and is found only once in the bible at the end of Paul's first letter to the  Corinthians when he grabs the stylus from the scribe and writes the word with a flourish. O Lord Come.

It can be a deep cry from the heart in times of weariness and trouble, Come Lord Jesus come into my situation now, I cannot survive without you.

It can be a loud affirmation. Christ has come into history, Christ is here in my heart and Christ will come in His glory at the end of this present creation.

The voice of my beloved!

    Behold, he comes,

leaping over the mountains,

    bounding over the hills.

9 

My beloved is like a gazelle

    or a young stag.

Behold, there he stands

    behind our wall,

gazing through the windows,

    looking through the lattice.

10 

My beloved speaks and says to me:

“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

    and come away, 

Song of Solomon 2

Or it could be a cry of anguish as illness turns slowly into death and all hope ceases, until, He does come and with one voice of command brings life forth out of the cold tomb.

If only he had come....

If only he had come, she knew he could heal him, but now it was hopeless. With a heavy heart she cut up strips linen which would bind his dead body, ready for the cold stone tomb. They had no ointment to embalm the body, in a fit of extravagance she had broken and poured the contents over the feet of their friend the teacher. People said it was a wicked waste but he had blessed her for it, said her deed would be written down and remembered for centuries to come; but now she was confused, a terrible fit of dereliction was descending upon her. She knew they had to get the body bound and in the tomb quickly, already the flies were buzzing round the body and the smell of putrefaction was beginning to fill the house, already friends and relatives were gathering around the house preparing for the long drawn out funeral ceremony, weeping and wailing filled the air, but her tears did not flow, instead they burned inwardly like acid poison, burning into her heart and stomach. She knew she must rise and join the other mourners but a heavy weariness filled her legs, she dragged herself up and out to greet them, and still he had not come.

Four long days dragged by, Mary wished she was lying on that cold slab instead of her brother, Martha had kept herself busy feeding and organising the mourning party, but she was descending into a leaden trance, doing and feeling nothing.

Then the call came up, “the teacher is coming”, Martha ran off to meet him, but she remained, all energy and will drained from her body. In a while her sister returned, and dragged her out, and she followed reluctantly, to see the teacher.

When she saw his warm, but sad compassionate face, the dam that had held her tears broke, and the tears and heavy sobs flowed, like streams from her eyes. She flung herself at him, her face buried in his chest and Jesus’ tears mingled with her own.


The story finishes with a wonderful note of triumph as Jesus He pre-enacts His own resurrection story with a loud shout; "Lazarus come out."

 “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

  

  

Emptied Himself of all but love

Kenosis by Lucy Shaw

In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.

He is so new, his silk skin has not yet

been roughed by plane and wooden beam

nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.

He is in a dream of nipple found,

of blue-white milk, of curving skin

and, pulsing in his ear, the inner throb

of a warm heart’s repeated sound.

His only memories float from fluid space.

So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door

broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,

wept for the sad heart of the human race.

Kenosis refers to the deepest mystery in the universe when the infinite God of the universe became a tiny foetus in Mary's womb.

The God who is larger than the universe contained in a little cluster of cells. The baby so lovingly described in Lucy Shaws beautiful poem as yet untouched by all the world will heap upon Him, is truly a tiny baby and truly omnipotent creator and sustainer God.
Jesus himself affirms that if you have seen Him you have also seen the Father.

Kenosis comes from the Greek word ekenōsen meaning emptied and is found in Philippians 2:5-8  

Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of 

death, even death on a cross.

My title comes from the much loved hymn by Charles Wesley: And can it be:

He left His Father’s throne above,

So free, so infinite His grace;

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam’s helpless race:

’Tis mercy all, immense and free;

For, O my God, it found out me.

’Tis mercy all, immense and free;

For, O my God, it found out me.

Many people have criticised Wesley's theology, in that  by emptying Himself to become human he became less than God. However Wesley qualifies this by saying, "emptied Himself of all but love" .

Surely love is par excellence the very being of Godhead. John says in his epistle that God is love

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7

In fact kenosis is at the very basis of the Godhead as each person of the Trinity pours out their being into the the other persons of the Trinity in a perpetual triangle of self giving love.

By His act of pouring Himself out to death even death on a cross, as Hebrews says:

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Hebrews 2:10 

Just as Jesus poured Himself out taking all the burden and guilt of sin and death on the cross.

So the Father pours back into Him,the mighty life of the Trinity. The mighty power of the resurrection, so that we can be made alive in Him.

So as Jesus demonstrates before the last supper, by washing the disciples feet, just as he came to serve and give His life as a ransom for many; so we as His followers are called to love and serve our fellow men in the same way.  

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble and meek.

The angel Gabriel had astonished Mary by not merely announcing that she was pregnant but her son would:
 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.” Luke 1

Mary's understanding was that her son would re-establish the true Kingdom and would
"bring down the mighty from their thrones and exalt those of humble estate;"

Her son would be no ordinary king and His kingdom would be more than a worldly dominion but would be the Kingdom of heaven.

Her son was to be the child born to a virgin as Isaiah predicted:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold its
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. isaiah 9

He was to be a warrior king like David but not against the Romans or the puppet King Herod from whom, very soon, Mary and Joseph would flee in terror as refugees into Egypt.

His fight was against the spiritual prince who had wrested sovereignty from his ancient ancestor Adam, in far off Eden, a fight which would initially take place in the desert as He was tempted by worldly might and glory and reach a conclusion in another garden, where He triumphed over everything the temptor could throw at Him. He set his face resolutely to die on a Roman cross, and be completed by His Father as He raised him triumphantly from the grave, overcoming death, sin  and the grave for ever.

The territory which He had to offer was not just ancient Israel it would be both New Heavens and New Earth. 

The new promised land, the Kingdom of heaven, which He would start His ministry proclaiming; would be present in the hearts and minds of all who believed in Him as he made His home in their inmost beings as a foretaste of all that will come when He returns in His final triumphant parade bringing to completion all that He has already accomplished.

Each day His true followers bring forward that Kingdom as they bring Heaven down to Earth in the familiar words of the Lord's prayer. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  

     
Let each of us today do what we can to bring forward His coming again, with kind words and deeds, so that we too will soon be looking into His adorable face, just as Mary did with her baby, those many years ago.  

Advent Hoar Frost

We were not expecting the sudden transformation as we, bleary eyed, pulled up the blind to see a world transformed from winter-grey to dazzling white

Each twig, jewel encrusted with dazzling diamonds. Each spider’s web a wonder of symmetrical shining beauty. A newly created sunrise of pure scarlet slowly lightening to burnished gold, then fully dazzling blaze of winter sun.

We were briefly amazed by the diamante world which melted slowly back to grey. But beauty lingers and we wait expectant  in this cold Advent time for a much more glorious awakening summoned by trumpet into a changeless world of unimaginable beauty, illumined and sustained by the return of the Lord Jesus into a newly recreated heaven and earth.

 For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,
and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem
and be glad in my people;
no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping
and the cry of distress.  Isaiah 65

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”  Revelation 21

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”  Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” John 14

1 Lo! he comes with clouds descending,
once for favoured sinners slain;
thousand, thousand saints attending
swell the triumph of his train.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
God appears on earth to reign.

2 Ev'ry eye shall now behold him,
robed in dreadful majesty;
those who set at naught and sold him,
pierced, and nailed him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
shall the true Messiah see.

3 Ev'ry island, sea, and mountain,
heav'n and earth, shall flee away;
all who hate him must, confounded,
hear the trump proclaim the day:
Come to judgment! Come to judgment!
Come to judgment, come away!

4 Now Redemption, long expected,
see in solemn pomp appear!
All his saints, by man rejected,
now shall meet him in the air.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
See the day of God appear!

5 Yea, amen! let all adore thee,
high on thine eternal throne;
Saviour, take the pow'r and glory,
claim the kingdom for thine own.
O come quickly, O come quickly;
alleluia! come, Lord, come.  Charles Wesley

Advent: A time of waiting

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!

    O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?
 But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared.
 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
 my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.

Psalm 130 ESV

As I write this our English skies are darkened as November descends into December our days are but little brightened by a sun which, if ever visible, lies low in the sky.

Our Church year draws to a close and on Sunday we enter the season of Advent one of the holy fasts of the church. Barely palpable behind the massive festive build up of a commercialised winter festival.

Now is the time for Christian souls to shun the commercial hubbub and spend time waiting for the coming light which will break into our winter gloom.   So we wait for the tiny infant.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

    and in his word I hope;

⁶ my soul waits for the Lord

    more than watchmen for the morning,

    more than watchmen for the morning.

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord!

    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,

    and with him is plentiful redemption. Psalm 130

So, let us wait as darkness slowly gives way to light

Let us seek out the weak points between worlds,

those membranes that give way, to strange meetings

to hear the flutter of angel wings in the silence

As we wait for the coming of the king into our hearts and lives

How beautiful upon the mountains

    are the feet of him who brings good news,

who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,

    who publishes salvation,

    who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

⁸ The voice of your watchmen—they lift up their voice;

    together they sing for joy;

for eye to eye they see

    the return of the Lord to Zion.

⁹ Break forth together into singing,

    you waste places of Jerusalem,

for the Lord has comforted his people;

    he has redeemed Jerusalem. Isiaiah 52

Advent Sunday Christina Rossetti

  Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: go ye out with lighted lamps and garlands round about to meet Him in a rapture with a shout.

 It may be at the midnight, black as pitch, Earth shall cast up her poor, cast up her rich.

 It may be at the crowing of the cock Earth shall upheave her depth, uproot her rock.

For lo, the Bridegroom fetcheth home the Bride: His Hands are Hands she knows, she knows His Side.

 Like pure Rebekah at the appointed place, Veiled, she unveils her face to meet His Face. Like great Queen Esther in her triumphing,

 She triumphs in the Presence of her King. His Eyes are as a Dove’s, and she’s Dove-eyed;

He knows His lovely mirror, sister, Bride. He speaks with Dove-voice of exceeding love, And she with love-voice of an answering Dove. Behold, the Bridegroom cometh: go we out with lamps ablaze and garlands round about to meet Him in a rapture with a shout.

As the message version of John 1:14 says: “the word became flesh and moved into our neighbourhood.” So, the same God who got His hands dirty tenderly kneading clay and forming humankind, played in the mud around the well, making mud-pies with His little friends. The same hands that were engrained with the toil of the carpenter’s shop, made soil into mud to open the eyes of a blind man.  The same hands which broke bread and blessed wine, were blooded and marred by cruel nails which tore into them.   As we contemplate the two advents of Jesus we see a person who is fully human as well as fully God. Someone who gets His hands dirty in the messiness of our lives and problems. Someone who is always present, always loving, always ready to accept us as we are always ready to come into the middle of our lives, to save and heal us. He doesn’t just want to come and live in our neighbourhoods; He wants to come as our intimate friend.  We do not just celebrate Jesus as a little baby who came in some distant past or a coming glorious king who comes in some undisclosed future; but a king who is here now, wanting to bring his loving burning presence into the very centre of our hearts and lives as our Saviour and King.