Easter was a bit odd for me. I knew that I was still finishing off the second "week" of the Spiritual Exercises so was still meditating on aspects of Jesus public ministry and knew that I would be coming back to pray with Jesus passion and death in the third "week" which would be a few weeks after Holy Week.
And so for the past few weeks I was left hanging with that thought "Let's not let Jesus do this on his own", as I continued to contemplate Jesus ministry, the increasing hostility of the religious rulers, leading inexorably towards his passion. Now I am officially moving into the third"week" I don't want to lose some of the insights I've had in the second week where the grace I have been seeking is to "See Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly.
In the first "week" when I was considering "sin" and how it would feel to be utterly disconnected from God, I sat with this passage for some time. I imagined the son coming to his 'senses' - smelling the pigs, hearing his stomach growl with hunger, looking at the mud and the state he was in - and setting out.
I had shamed my father saying to him in effect, "I wish you were dead". I shamed him in front of the whole community and then when I got what I wanted I squandered it, the money that he had worked all his life for, without a single thought or concern except for my own desires. Then, finding myself starving, feeding pigs of all things, I realise that in my father's household servants are better off than I am. I set out on the long road home and while I'm far off.....................
............I am met by the most insignificant person in the household who says to me "Get lost! You're dead to us. You have dishonoured your family and shamed us in front of the community. You made a choice." And I am cast into complete destitution.
And I deserved this, I brought it on myself. The community would approve of the father's actions - he did the right thing. But I have lost connection with my true self - the self that I understand because I am my father's son, I am part of this community and my actions have excluded me from love and warmth, comfort and belonging.
The feelings sitting meditating on this passage in this way, was complete brokenness and loss. Grief at being separated from the Father.
As I prayed more recently, seeking to see Jesus more clearly, I returned to this passage and this time I imagined the son setting off; hesitating, doubting whether this was the best thing to do, stopping and considering turning around again, considering just giving up and dying. His feelings are shame and self loathing. How could I have done this thing, shaming my father in this way.
Then I see my father running - lifting up his robe and running - my father is shaming himself in front of the whole community. To lift up his robe and run is considered shameful in the culture and here my father is shaming himself in his absolutely reckless, loving desire to get to me.
His response to my shame is to shame himself; to take my shame from me by taking it on himself.
Jesus presents a new image of God; the Father who shames himself to get to us. Whose love has no limits, whose love is all generosity and compassion.
Jesus - the very image of God.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Monday, 29 March 2010
Holy Week
Don’t give up before Easter.
We have come so far
Don’t give up before we get there.
This is an ongoing story
We don’t say, ‘Goodbye and see you again next week.’
It’s not as simple as that.
Next week, none of us might be here
fickle as a crowd at Passover
This is the story everything moves towards:
stables and wildernesses, mountaintops and bedsides.
So far the gospels have simply been introductions;
introductions to this story of the cost of love.
Everything leads here.
Let us not let Jesus do this on his own.
Let us accompany him.
Let us be here as he faces the temple and the anointing,
the betrayer and the denier,
the bread and the wine.
Let us not let Jesus face these on his own.
It is the least we can do
in response to what Jesus does for us:
giving of himself,
completely.
So this service does not end today
but continues tomorrow and each day this week.
You cannot have Easter without the passion:
stones don’t roll unless the tomb is filled,
dawn doesn’t break unless the darkness rolls in,
resurrection doesn’t happen unless crucifixion is first.
You cannot know how to celebrate Easter
without first living the passion.
So let us journey with Jesus this week
Just as we expect him to be here for us
may we be there for him
to keep the faith alive.
May we hold on for him
when he has to let go
This is a journey of faith
may we have the hope to travel it.
Go now
come back soon
it has only just begun.
copyright Roddy Hamilton
We have come so far
Don’t give up before we get there.
This is an ongoing story
We don’t say, ‘Goodbye and see you again next week.’
It’s not as simple as that.
Next week, none of us might be here
fickle as a crowd at Passover
This is the story everything moves towards:
stables and wildernesses, mountaintops and bedsides.
So far the gospels have simply been introductions;
introductions to this story of the cost of love.
Everything leads here.
Let us not let Jesus do this on his own.
Let us accompany him.
Let us be here as he faces the temple and the anointing,
the betrayer and the denier,
the bread and the wine.
Let us not let Jesus face these on his own.
It is the least we can do
in response to what Jesus does for us:
giving of himself,
completely.
So this service does not end today
but continues tomorrow and each day this week.
You cannot have Easter without the passion:
stones don’t roll unless the tomb is filled,
dawn doesn’t break unless the darkness rolls in,
resurrection doesn’t happen unless crucifixion is first.
You cannot know how to celebrate Easter
without first living the passion.
So let us journey with Jesus this week
Just as we expect him to be here for us
may we be there for him
to keep the faith alive.
May we hold on for him
when he has to let go
This is a journey of faith
may we have the hope to travel it.
Go now
come back soon
it has only just begun.
copyright Roddy Hamilton
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
"Who is this?"
Been spending more time with gospel narratives in my continuing quest to "see Jesus more clearly"; the passage where Jesus walks on the water (following on from my previous post) and when Jesus is asleep in the boat during the storm and the disciples are fearful.
It's an interesting thing but I've found on many occasions during my retreat, that as I pray with passages or themes that God "gifts" me with an experience of the thing I'm praying with. The really curious thing is that I often don't see it until I start to reflect back with my Spiritual Director (who I meet weekly - the exercises are a guided retreat), and it becomes blindingly obvious - in an "Ahh! that was what that was all about!" kind of a way.
I realised that on reflection, what had been a very difficult week on many fronts, was an experience of buffeting from many quarters. I was in a storm and so reflecting on what Jesus was doing during this time was very helpful.
What did I see?
Well I saw that if God appears asleep - it doesn't mean he doesn't care, it just means he's not worried.
But I was also conscious that God defies our easy characterisation of him. We try and resolve the "Who is this?" question by trying to impose some order on God. We try to contain him in some way. "It must be a ghost." Ghosts we understand, but a God who walks across a lake, through a storm, well that's a whole concept we can't seem to get our heads around. Because God is surprising, unexpected, uncontainable. When we try to impose restrictions on God we actually bind ourselves.
Jesus walks across the water, defies the disciples categories and then Peter... I love Peter - he dares to meet God in the storm; to meet God in the place of non-restriction; to meet the unbound God. He asks to come to Jesus in the storm, on the water, to come to where God is. Jesus says "Yes. Come!" I imagined at that point that there was joy from Jesus and maybe just a hint of relief. Someone wants to defy the easy categories and walk out to where I am; someone who is willing to take a chance, cast off the self imposed restrictions.
"Do not be afraid, take courage. I am here"
I sat on the bus travelling to Glasgow (again) and gazing out at the blue, blue sky; lifted my eyes to the hills and saw the snow shining in the sun, the trees almost ready to come to life - the tiniest buds forming; saw the geese flying across the sky; the dull green of the grass almost ready to shake off the restrictions of winter; felt the warmth through the window. And suddenly I was longing to be out in it, just like Peter, didn't want to be confined by the bus, to be gazing out from behind the glass. Longed to be in the midst of it - in the storm, where the life is.
And I heard Jesus shouting over the wind and the waves "Yes. Come!"
"Who is this?" is not a question I answer once - it is the journey.
It's an interesting thing but I've found on many occasions during my retreat, that as I pray with passages or themes that God "gifts" me with an experience of the thing I'm praying with. The really curious thing is that I often don't see it until I start to reflect back with my Spiritual Director (who I meet weekly - the exercises are a guided retreat), and it becomes blindingly obvious - in an "Ahh! that was what that was all about!" kind of a way.
I realised that on reflection, what had been a very difficult week on many fronts, was an experience of buffeting from many quarters. I was in a storm and so reflecting on what Jesus was doing during this time was very helpful.
What did I see?
Well I saw that if God appears asleep - it doesn't mean he doesn't care, it just means he's not worried.
But I was also conscious that God defies our easy characterisation of him. We try and resolve the "Who is this?" question by trying to impose some order on God. We try to contain him in some way. "It must be a ghost." Ghosts we understand, but a God who walks across a lake, through a storm, well that's a whole concept we can't seem to get our heads around. Because God is surprising, unexpected, uncontainable. When we try to impose restrictions on God we actually bind ourselves.
Jesus walks across the water, defies the disciples categories and then Peter... I love Peter - he dares to meet God in the storm; to meet God in the place of non-restriction; to meet the unbound God. He asks to come to Jesus in the storm, on the water, to come to where God is. Jesus says "Yes. Come!" I imagined at that point that there was joy from Jesus and maybe just a hint of relief. Someone wants to defy the easy categories and walk out to where I am; someone who is willing to take a chance, cast off the self imposed restrictions.
"Do not be afraid, take courage. I am here"
I sat on the bus travelling to Glasgow (again) and gazing out at the blue, blue sky; lifted my eyes to the hills and saw the snow shining in the sun, the trees almost ready to come to life - the tiniest buds forming; saw the geese flying across the sky; the dull green of the grass almost ready to shake off the restrictions of winter; felt the warmth through the window. And suddenly I was longing to be out in it, just like Peter, didn't want to be confined by the bus, to be gazing out from behind the glass. Longed to be in the midst of it - in the storm, where the life is.
And I heard Jesus shouting over the wind and the waves "Yes. Come!"
"Who is this?" is not a question I answer once - it is the journey.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Seeing Jesus More Clearly
The 'grace' that I am seeking in the second 'week' of the Exercises is the Ignatian prayer - that I might "See Jesus more clearly, love him more dearly and follow him more nearly". As usual Ignatius has real insight - to see Jesus more clearly is the thing that helps us to love him more, and as we love him more, then we seek to follow him more closely.
In practice this means that I have spent the past couple of months imaginatively contemplating passages from the gospels that show me Jesus. Last week I had a few passages that I was meditating on through the week, but one of them stayed with me and each time I came to pray, the images from this passage would come to me. They become like memories, powerful experiences of Jesus. The passage was Matthew 14.13-21 and I saw it in 3 parts.
Firstly - I was in a grove with Jesus and the disciples, we were eating and talking and laughing, it was hot but there was a breeze from the lake and the trees provided shade. We looked up and were being approached by some people, as they drew nearer we recognised them - they were friends, the disciples of John. Jesus and the others rose, greeting them with a kiss and inviting them to sit.
They told us that John was dead.
They began to tell us how it happened - Herod's boastful promise, that he never expected to have to keep, but his bluff was called and it was more important to him to save face than do the right thing. John's disciples had just come from burying John and had come straight away to find Jesus.
I watched Jesus face. What was he feeling?
Sorrow and grief - John and he were inextricable linked from before their births. Cousins, only 6 months apart; both with miraculous conceptions. John, who Jesus grew up with as a boy travelling together to Jerusalem for Passover; John who Jesus publicly aligned himself to in his baptism at the beginning of his ministry; John who he spoke warmly of and defended; weeping over Jerusalem because they killed the prophets; encouraging John in his imprisonment - the blind see and the lame walk. John the prophet to his Messiah.
Anger - that John should die in so pointless a way - for the vanity of a man who was corrupt and weak.
And something else - Jesus realising that this went further because it fore-shadowed something that he knew he would face one day soon.
"As soon as he heard, he left in a boat for a remote place, to be alone"
Jesus weighed down by sorrow, anger and a sense of his own life coming to an end - looks for a place to be alone, to pray.
Secondly - Yet when he gets there he is confronted by crowds of people. What is his reaction? He wants to be in a remote place because he needs time to grieve, to reflect and to come to terms with his cousin's death. What is his reaction?
He has compassion on them.
Not only does he feel compassion - he embodies compassion by healing their sick; by staying with them until evening; by feeding them rather than sending them away hungry. He demonstrates his care for his disciples - making sure they get into the boat to cross the lake; and then waiting himself to send the people home.
In his grief, in his anger, in his turmoil he puts the needs of others before his own. He doesn't count equality with God something to be grasped, he humbles himself. He is not among us as someone who is served but comes to serve. Jesus, the very image of God, embodies radical, costly love.
Thirdly - I stayed with him on the shore as the darkness gathered and the stars appeared and the last of the people made their way home. A breeze was beginning to spring up - quite softly. He stands alone, looks out over the lake and sees the boat with his disciples getting smaller as it moves away from him. Only then he turns and begins to climb. When he has climbed some way up the hill, he sits down. He is alone. He thinks about John, allows himself to dwell on his memories; he turns his face to the Father and the Holy Spirit and lays himself bare. He knows what he has to face and it comes to him - full force - he knows where this is leading. He stays with this and takes comfort from the Godhead - loses himself in that relationship; the love and community within God. And stays there until eventually the wind begins to whip at his clothing. Then he looks out and sees the boat being tossed on the rising waves.
Jesus rises and pulls his head covering around him and makes his way down the hillside towards the lake. A storm is rising; he sets his face and walks into it.
In practice this means that I have spent the past couple of months imaginatively contemplating passages from the gospels that show me Jesus. Last week I had a few passages that I was meditating on through the week, but one of them stayed with me and each time I came to pray, the images from this passage would come to me. They become like memories, powerful experiences of Jesus. The passage was Matthew 14.13-21 and I saw it in 3 parts.
Firstly - I was in a grove with Jesus and the disciples, we were eating and talking and laughing, it was hot but there was a breeze from the lake and the trees provided shade. We looked up and were being approached by some people, as they drew nearer we recognised them - they were friends, the disciples of John. Jesus and the others rose, greeting them with a kiss and inviting them to sit.
They told us that John was dead.
They began to tell us how it happened - Herod's boastful promise, that he never expected to have to keep, but his bluff was called and it was more important to him to save face than do the right thing. John's disciples had just come from burying John and had come straight away to find Jesus.
I watched Jesus face. What was he feeling?
Sorrow and grief - John and he were inextricable linked from before their births. Cousins, only 6 months apart; both with miraculous conceptions. John, who Jesus grew up with as a boy travelling together to Jerusalem for Passover; John who Jesus publicly aligned himself to in his baptism at the beginning of his ministry; John who he spoke warmly of and defended; weeping over Jerusalem because they killed the prophets; encouraging John in his imprisonment - the blind see and the lame walk. John the prophet to his Messiah.
Anger - that John should die in so pointless a way - for the vanity of a man who was corrupt and weak.
And something else - Jesus realising that this went further because it fore-shadowed something that he knew he would face one day soon.
"As soon as he heard, he left in a boat for a remote place, to be alone"
Jesus weighed down by sorrow, anger and a sense of his own life coming to an end - looks for a place to be alone, to pray.
Secondly - Yet when he gets there he is confronted by crowds of people. What is his reaction? He wants to be in a remote place because he needs time to grieve, to reflect and to come to terms with his cousin's death. What is his reaction?
He has compassion on them.
Not only does he feel compassion - he embodies compassion by healing their sick; by staying with them until evening; by feeding them rather than sending them away hungry. He demonstrates his care for his disciples - making sure they get into the boat to cross the lake; and then waiting himself to send the people home.
In his grief, in his anger, in his turmoil he puts the needs of others before his own. He doesn't count equality with God something to be grasped, he humbles himself. He is not among us as someone who is served but comes to serve. Jesus, the very image of God, embodies radical, costly love.
Thirdly - I stayed with him on the shore as the darkness gathered and the stars appeared and the last of the people made their way home. A breeze was beginning to spring up - quite softly. He stands alone, looks out over the lake and sees the boat with his disciples getting smaller as it moves away from him. Only then he turns and begins to climb. When he has climbed some way up the hill, he sits down. He is alone. He thinks about John, allows himself to dwell on his memories; he turns his face to the Father and the Holy Spirit and lays himself bare. He knows what he has to face and it comes to him - full force - he knows where this is leading. He stays with this and takes comfort from the Godhead - loses himself in that relationship; the love and community within God. And stays there until eventually the wind begins to whip at his clothing. Then he looks out and sees the boat being tossed on the rising waves.
Jesus rises and pulls his head covering around him and makes his way down the hillside towards the lake. A storm is rising; he sets his face and walks into it.
Monday, 15 February 2010
"Cogito, ergo sum"
I sometimes think that Descartes was responsible for a lot of the evil in the world - I don't believe he intentionally put us on this path, but I do believe that he set something in motion a few hundred years ago which has resulted in the all pervasive notion in the West that the individual is at the centre of everything. (actually I think that personal computers and mobile phones are a direct consequence of Descartes!); he was very much a man of faith, schooled by the Jesuits, (the order founded by St Ignatius) - but the statement "I think, therefore I am" has pervaded our western culture and sensibilities to such an extent that we have exalted the individual above all, to the detriment of seeing ourselves more widely connected and responsible as part of a larger "community".
Reading the gospels I'm ever more aware of the cultural differences between ourselves today in the west and the experience of Jesus in the middle east at the beginning of the 1st century. We've lost something of what it is like to live in community to be aware of "the other".
Reflecting more on my last post about what we can do to live in a way that is much more concerned for and orientated towards others, I came across a story related by Mother Teresa;
"I will never forget the night an old gentleman came to our house and said that there was a family with 8 children and they had not eaten, and could we do something for them? So I took some rice and went there. The mother took the rice from my hands and then divided it into 2 and went out. I could see the faces of the children shining with hunger.When she came back I asked her where she had gone. She gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also". And "they" were the family next door and she knew they were hungry. I was not surprised that she gave, but I was surprised that she knew...I had not the courage to ask her how long her family hadn't eaten, but I was sure it must have been a long time, and yet she knew - in her suffering...In her terrible bodily suffering, she knew that next door they were hungry also."
The African theologian replies to Descartes - "I am, because we are."
Jesus taught us to pray "Give us this day our daily bread" - the prayer is for our bread, it includes our neighbours.
Kenneth E Bailey writes;
"Bread is a gift. the one who prays this prayer affirms that all bread comes as a gift. It is not a right and we have not created it. Such gifts are in trust for the one who gives them. All material possessions are on loan from their owner; the God who created matter itself. This perspective on the material world is critical for the joyful life commended in the gospels."
Reading the gospels I'm ever more aware of the cultural differences between ourselves today in the west and the experience of Jesus in the middle east at the beginning of the 1st century. We've lost something of what it is like to live in community to be aware of "the other".
Reflecting more on my last post about what we can do to live in a way that is much more concerned for and orientated towards others, I came across a story related by Mother Teresa;
"I will never forget the night an old gentleman came to our house and said that there was a family with 8 children and they had not eaten, and could we do something for them? So I took some rice and went there. The mother took the rice from my hands and then divided it into 2 and went out. I could see the faces of the children shining with hunger.When she came back I asked her where she had gone. She gave me a very simple answer: "They are hungry also". And "they" were the family next door and she knew they were hungry. I was not surprised that she gave, but I was surprised that she knew...I had not the courage to ask her how long her family hadn't eaten, but I was sure it must have been a long time, and yet she knew - in her suffering...In her terrible bodily suffering, she knew that next door they were hungry also."
The African theologian replies to Descartes - "I am, because we are."
Jesus taught us to pray "Give us this day our daily bread" - the prayer is for our bread, it includes our neighbours.
Kenneth E Bailey writes;
"Bread is a gift. the one who prays this prayer affirms that all bread comes as a gift. It is not a right and we have not created it. Such gifts are in trust for the one who gives them. All material possessions are on loan from their owner; the God who created matter itself. This perspective on the material world is critical for the joyful life commended in the gospels."
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Imaginative Contemplation
One of the features of Ignatian spirituality is imaginative contemplation. To use the imagination in contemplating scripture is to turn the stories of Jesus into an experience. It is about the "application of the senses" to a passage. By picturing our self in the scene and by listening and looking we find ourselves touched and changed from the encounter.
It's not that we let our imaginations run wild, but rather we enter into the passage with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and allow him to speak to us and show us something new or surprising; something which speaks to our heart or emotions. I find this a challenge as I'm very drawn to the cerebral - to thinking and using my mind, to applying my intellect. But Ignatius encourages us to allow God to speak to us in our inner most being. The journey is an interior one.
One of the passages I was meditating on a few weeks ago was the passage where Joseph is warned in the middle of the night to get up and take the child and his mother and flee. To feel the emotion of the situation, to enter into the fear, to the sense of having to leave everything in the dark of the night and flee for your life and the life of your child; to go to a strange land. And to then to enter into the passages about the children being slaughtered, the horror, the anguish, the grief, the disbelief; Joseph's fear on returning from Egypt, to learn that the land was now ruled by the son of the man who was seeking to murder your child.
The feelings have stayed with me for these past weeks - it's almost as if there is a residue.
I was thinking about the fact that in many, many places in the world people live like this all the time. They have no security, they are fearful for their children, they live in countries where the government is corrupt and their lives are insecure, not knowing what will happen next, displaced and hopeless.
And I was reading psalm 147 which says
And I am so conscious of how blessed we are in this country. We might moan about the weather, or the rubbish on telly, or the the traffic driving to work. But we really don't understand how blessed we are. We are secure, well fed, our children are educated and have so many opportunities; and most of the time we are not even conscious of it.
How do we Christians in the West live in a way that really makes a difference to the poor and displaced and fearful and that also fully comprehends how incredibly blessed we are?
It's not that we let our imaginations run wild, but rather we enter into the passage with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and allow him to speak to us and show us something new or surprising; something which speaks to our heart or emotions. I find this a challenge as I'm very drawn to the cerebral - to thinking and using my mind, to applying my intellect. But Ignatius encourages us to allow God to speak to us in our inner most being. The journey is an interior one.
One of the passages I was meditating on a few weeks ago was the passage where Joseph is warned in the middle of the night to get up and take the child and his mother and flee. To feel the emotion of the situation, to enter into the fear, to the sense of having to leave everything in the dark of the night and flee for your life and the life of your child; to go to a strange land. And to then to enter into the passages about the children being slaughtered, the horror, the anguish, the grief, the disbelief; Joseph's fear on returning from Egypt, to learn that the land was now ruled by the son of the man who was seeking to murder your child.
The feelings have stayed with me for these past weeks - it's almost as if there is a residue.
I was thinking about the fact that in many, many places in the world people live like this all the time. They have no security, they are fearful for their children, they live in countries where the government is corrupt and their lives are insecure, not knowing what will happen next, displaced and hopeless.
And I was reading psalm 147 which says
He has made your city secure,
He blessed your children among you,
He keeps peace at your borders;
He puts the best bread on your tables.
And I am so conscious of how blessed we are in this country. We might moan about the weather, or the rubbish on telly, or the the traffic driving to work. But we really don't understand how blessed we are. We are secure, well fed, our children are educated and have so many opportunities; and most of the time we are not even conscious of it.
How do we Christians in the West live in a way that really makes a difference to the poor and displaced and fearful and that also fully comprehends how incredibly blessed we are?
Saturday, 2 January 2010
The Reversal of God
First blog of the new year - so Happy New Year! Think this will be a year full of possibilities, promises fulfilled, deeper places in God and radical change in the church! - I'm hoping.
I know new year tends to thunk right in the middle of the Christmas season (maybe more so in Scotland), but my contemplation in the second 'week' of the exercises is around the Christmas narratives. This past week I have been looking particularly at the shepherds and the wise men.
The thing that really stood out for me in the shepherds' story is this vast array of heaven's army appearing in the sky to the poor (in every sense of the word) shepherds - the glory of the Lord surrounding them, the terrified reaction; the pronouncement of the angel that the Lord, the Saviour, the Messiah has tonight appeared and that this will bring great joy to all people. What is the sign? Is it that a vast army has been assembled to bring freedom from Roman oppression, crucifixion and the burden of taxation and set the Jewish people free at last? That some great spiritual teacher has appeared among the Pharisees? or a new radical High Priest has taken over at the temple? Perhaps the nationalistic God that is portrayed in some of the narratives in the Hebrew scriptures has appeared to smite Judea's enemies; or a mighty prophet has arisen bringing God's pronouncements? What is the sign...........?
................."You'll find him wrapped snugly"
Eh?
The Great Reversal.
The God who comes in weakness and powerlessness - the God who is wrapped snugly - who comes to the weak and outcast and humble and ordinary and powerless and seemingly inconsequential and is received with joy, wonder and rejoicing.
When the wise men appear in Jerusalem among the rich, the important and the powerful, the people of consequence and authority - the news "deeply disturbs" them.
And Jesus ministry as it progresses brings even more comfort to the poor and even less comfort to the powerful.
The reversal - the anarchic God; the God of the unexpected. Wrapped Snugly!
This years conundrum - How do I embody the reversal of God?
I know new year tends to thunk right in the middle of the Christmas season (maybe more so in Scotland), but my contemplation in the second 'week' of the exercises is around the Christmas narratives. This past week I have been looking particularly at the shepherds and the wise men.
The thing that really stood out for me in the shepherds' story is this vast array of heaven's army appearing in the sky to the poor (in every sense of the word) shepherds - the glory of the Lord surrounding them, the terrified reaction; the pronouncement of the angel that the Lord, the Saviour, the Messiah has tonight appeared and that this will bring great joy to all people. What is the sign? Is it that a vast army has been assembled to bring freedom from Roman oppression, crucifixion and the burden of taxation and set the Jewish people free at last? That some great spiritual teacher has appeared among the Pharisees? or a new radical High Priest has taken over at the temple? Perhaps the nationalistic God that is portrayed in some of the narratives in the Hebrew scriptures has appeared to smite Judea's enemies; or a mighty prophet has arisen bringing God's pronouncements? What is the sign...........?
................."You'll find him wrapped snugly"
Eh?
The Great Reversal.
The God who comes in weakness and powerlessness - the God who is wrapped snugly - who comes to the weak and outcast and humble and ordinary and powerless and seemingly inconsequential and is received with joy, wonder and rejoicing.
When the wise men appear in Jerusalem among the rich, the important and the powerful, the people of consequence and authority - the news "deeply disturbs" them.
And Jesus ministry as it progresses brings even more comfort to the poor and even less comfort to the powerful.
The reversal - the anarchic God; the God of the unexpected. Wrapped Snugly!
This years conundrum - How do I embody the reversal of God?
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