Roy A. McAlpine
December 6, 2009
The Second Sunday of Advent
Year C

Baruch 5:1-9
The Song of Zechariah - Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6

In the words of today’s collect...May we prepare the way for our salvation and greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer…  Amen.

A friend of mine, a colleague in hospital chaplaincy, told me the following experience he had had.  He was asked to visit a patient who was having a rough time:  she was under 40 and had inoperable, terminal cancer.  A single parent, she was raising three sons, one of whom was now in college.  She needed personal support to meet the challenge of her overwhelming circumstances.  Knowing this, he went in to her room, and found her curled up on her bed, weeping silently.  He introduced himself, and said, “May I take your hand?  May I just sit here with you?  You don’t have to say a thing.”  The tears came down her cheeks, and the silence didn’t last long.  She started to talk and the words came tumbling out, articulate, questioning….  My friend said it sounded like a long lament and he found himself absorbed in her words, her tears, and her pain.  What could he say?  Her pain and sorrow and questioning were real.  He sat there in silence, holding her hand.  Then they talked a little about her sons, with her showing him pictures; and finally she asked him to pray for her.  He prayed with her and left her room.  The next day, he told me, he saw the woman with an attendant in a large recreation room.  As he came up to her, she smiled a bright – and very beautiful – smile at him.  She seemed like a different person – relaxed and happy.  They spoke for a short while and he left, promising to visit again.  My friend told me the story as a way of reflecting on it himself, with someone who would just listen.

What I heard in the story was that my friend offered his presence to the patient.  He didn’t just visit, but he listened with absorption; he was with her in his heart.  He didn’t “do” anything for her, nor did he ask anything of her other than permission to be with her.  What my colleague offered was what hospital chaplains strive to offer – themselves.   

Now we are in the time of preparation for the mystery of the Incarnation, that central event in Christianity when God moved away from Glory, took flesh and became human.  This is a mystery nearly impossible to believe:  it is now and it was even 2,000 years ago.  Not a mystery in the Agatha Christie sense, but a mystery in that it seems to collide with our common knowledge and expectations about life.  A mystery causes us to wonder, and, if we stay with that wondering, leads us on to a deeper understanding … about the nature of God. 

Let’s look at the story of the Incarnation and, for a moment, suspend both belief and disbelief, and look at what happened 2,000 years ago, and will happen in three weeks.  These events challenge us, if we are willing to attend to them.  For the coming of God as a baby means God comes to us as …
      A Savior so vulnerable,
      A Holy One so dependent,
      A Lord of the Universe so seemingly small,
      A God Almighty so physically weak. 

This God, appearing contrary to our preconceived notions, elicits a response from us, at the very least, a moment of surprise.  God’s presence as a baby, if we are aware and honest, crashes into our expectations of who God is, or, more important, who we think God should be. 

This act of Incarnation – a baby reaching out to us – issues an invitation to enliven our relationship with God.  Not a command, not a challenge, not even a bet, but an invitation.

I suggest to you that this Advent may be for us both a remembrance of the coming of the Incarnate God AND, in the present, a preparation for our own New Relationship with that Incarnate God:  one that is new for us individually, wherever we are in our particular circumstances, and for us as a community of sisters and brothers – of children and elders – in this faith community.

What new being will this God/Baby draw out of us?  The challenge of this time of preparation is to discern, to ask God and ourselves in reflection, “How will I let my heart be inspired by this God whom I profess to believe in?… Is my relationship with God alive and honest?  Is it central to my flourishing as an individual human being, in my actions, my dreams, my responsibilities, my thoughts and the roles I fulfill in my present world?”

To further reflect on these questions of our relationship with God, let’s look a little deeper at the story:

What does God actually do in the Incarnation?  God comes to be with humanity; even, at birth, being utterly dependent on some particular humans.  The whole being of God is born in Jesus.  They are not separate.  God holds nothing back.  And, God, the creator of all, knows the nature of the humanity to which God is born.  It is not a mistake or an illusion.  God knows. 

What does this tell us about God? 

First, that God, in faithfulness, chose and chooses to be fully present to us in a way we can understand:  as a human being.  God’s is the full divine presence expressed over a human lifetime in Jesus, whereas the chaplain in my story gave of his human presence for only a few moments.  One of God’s names – Emanuel, “God with us” –  recognizes God’s presence to us from birth to death and resurrection – both God’s and ours. 

Second, God’s Incarnation tells us that God gives of the one divine being without precondition.  God is utterly accepting of and vulnerable to the humanity God knows so well.  This is radical acceptance.  So, becoming human, being incarnate, indicates both God’s deep presence with us, on our human terms and in our human condition, and God’s radical acceptance of who we are. 

So how might we renew or grow and practice our relationship with God in our lives today?

      •That we try, no matter how imperfectly, to follow God in our particular circumstances as Jesus urged us to do when he said, “Follow me!” 
      •That, like God, we give of our substance, our real selves, not that part we no longer have use for.
      •That, like God, we offer ourselves to our fellows; and that, like God, we accept them, as best we fallibly can, without prejudgment or pre-condition. 
      •That, like God, we approach each other without a guarantee of a just response, or even any response at all.
      •That, like God, as the reading today from Baruch reveals to us, we, by our real presence, encourage one another in real hope. 
      •That, like God, who let go of God’s glory to be with us, we reach out, letting go of that which holds us back from one another, i.e. our narrowness, our busyness, our self-preoccupation, our comfort or our isolation – even our New England reserve! 

This is how God leads us:  by giving us an example and allowing us to follow, if only we will try.

And following, as best we can, God’s example in God’s Incarnate life, may we be led to the greatest mystery of all:  to the radical acceptance of ourselves and others ... In Love.

May it be so.

Copyright © 2009 by Roy A. McAlpine