by Christie Purifoy | Dec 8, 2011 | Advent, book of quotations, Books, Jesus
The following words can be found in Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas. I’ve had this small volume on my Amazon wish list for several years, but this is my first season to read it. I should have clicked purchase long ago.
J. B. Phillips on Advent:
“What we are in fact celebrating is the awe-inspiring humility of God, and no amount of familiarity with the trappings of Christmas should ever blind us to its quiet but explosive significance. For Christians believe that so great is God’s love and concern for humanity that he himself became a man. Amid the sparkle and the color and music of the day’s celebration we do well to remember that God’s insertion of himself into human history was achieved with an almost frightening quietness and humility. There was no advertisement, no publicity, no special privilege; in fact the entry of God into his own world was almost heartbreakingly humble. In sober fact there is little romance or beauty in the thought of a young woman looking desperately for a place where she could give birth to her first baby. …
That is why, behind all our fun and games at Christmastime, we should not try to escape a sense of awe, almost a sense of fright, at what God has done. We must never allow anything to blind us to the true significance of what happened at Bethlehem so long ago. Nothing can alter the fact that we live on a visited planet.”
We live on a visited planet.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 7, 2011 | Advent, Family, Jesus, motherhood
Is Advent a hushed season? A time for quiet reflection?
I’d like it to be. I love quiet like few other things. “Silent Night” is my kind of carol.
Of course, my children prefer “Jingle Bells.” The five-year-old, especially, loves singing it at top volume at the dinner table.
I suppose there’s room for both of us this time of year. Room for quiet as I read the Advent devotional each night by candlelight (well, we’re at least aiming for quiet each night). Room for joyful noise from kids too excited to keep it all in. Presents! Parties! Bunkbeds at Grammy’s house!
Scripture, I fear, is not on my side in this tug-of-war. Once again, the child-like response may be the more spiritual (regardless of my own headache at one more round of “Jingle Bells”).
Mary did not wait in silence. Having responded with child-like faith to the angel’s strange pronouncement, she sang a song.
The silent one? Zechariah. Having heard the impossible news that he would have a son who would prepare Israel for the coming Christ, he said with the reasoning of an adult, “How can I be sure of this?” And, so, his mouth was shut (I suppose in order to keep him from uttering any more foolishness). His tongue remained tied until he held his miracle baby in his arms.
Somehow, this time of year, our house is actually noisier than at any other time. The volume, in every sense, has been turned way up. As much as I’d like to dial us all back down, I do believe (deep, deep down) that joyful noise is the only honest response to the story we’ve been given. Do you truly believe that God himself once visited us? That God both created and then walked upon the dirt beneath your feet? How can silent solemnity be the most appropriate response to such glorious ridiculousness?
Yes, I do mean to write ridiculous. We Christians put so much effort into trying to make ours appear to be a rational, reasonable faith. Personally, I think the whole idea of incarnation is so marvelous, so impossible, so unimaginably good, that to call this faith reasonable seems to do it a disservice.
Alas, my faith is not reasonable. God is not reasonable. A King born in a stable? Totally unreasonable.
Remembering this, I want to laugh like Sarah laughed.
Maybe tonight, after the Advent reading, we’ll sing a rousing rendition of “Jingle Bells” by candlelight.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 6, 2011 | Advent, Jesus, Scripture, Waiting
Living in a one-hundred-year-old apartment in the city, we took our baths in a narrow, enameled tub. Back then, I found the idea of a jetted, whirlpool bathtub very appealing. I live in suburbia now, and I have just such a tub. Alas, the reality is less exciting than the fantasy.
I think I tried using the jets once. As it turns out, I don’t much like soaking in bubbles with the sound of a motor in my ears. Now the jets only get turned on when the big kids want to terrify the two-year-old during bathtime.
Even worse, without an apartment-building-sized boiler, we don’t actually have enough hot water to fill this fancy whirlpool bath to the top. I’ve learned the hard way to open only the hot water tap and not to let it run past halfway, lest I find myself with a tub full of lukewarm water.
Still, I do occasionally indulge (minus the jets and with the tub less than full). Recently, my soak was disturbed by the shrieks of my arguing children. I sank down beneath the water hoping to block out the noise and was surprised by the enveloping silence.
Immediately, I was a kid again. At what other stage of life do you spend so much time going pruney beneath the bathwater or shutting out the sounds of Marco-Polo cries at the swimming pool?
I’d forgotten how loud this kind of watery silence actually is. There is a whole other world in this silence: the rush of blood, the wheeze of each breath. It is a noisy world within a world, though it is generally unnoticed, unheard.
I typically imagine silence to be a kind of emptiness. A kind of nothingness.
The gap between Old and New Testaments suggests that God was silent for many, many years before the birth of his son.
I wonder what this silence signified. Emptiness? Distance? Or, could it have been, a world within a world?
When the infant Jesus was presented at the Temple, there were two waiting for him. Two, prepared to recognize and honor him: Simeon and Anna.
In these two we glimpse the truth. God’s silence weighed so heavy on them that they knew he was neither distant nor inactive. They knew their Christ was coming.
One day, he arrives. The silence erupts. The angels sing.
On this day, many can see what had always been there unnoticed and unheard. Songs of joy and prayers of thanksgiving are lifted to the heavens over one tiny head.
But Simeon and Anna are not surprised. They have long been listening to the sound of blood pumping and breath rising. They know that God’s silence is anything but empty.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 5, 2011 | Advent, Jesus, Poetry, prayer
I recall that the One to whom we cry is no longer an infant, and this feels both wonderful and terrifying.
We begin to see him as he now is in dreams and poetry, for only metaphor can give us a glimpse of the truth: “His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire … his voice was like the sound of rushing waters” (Revelation 1:14,15).
Here, on this second Monday of Advent, is a poem from Madeleine L’Engle. She who dared to imagine and yet still dared to pray.
Come, Lord Jesus
Come, Lord Jesus! Do I dare
Cry: Lord Jesus, quickly come!
Flash the lightning in the air,
Crash the thunder on my home!
Should I speak this aweful prayer?
Come, Lord Jesus, help me dare.
Come, Lord Jesus! You I call
To come (come soon!) are not the child
Who lay once in the manger stall,
Are not the infant meek and mild.
You come in judgement on our all:
Help me to know you, whom I call.
Come, Lord Jesus! Come this night
With your purging and your power,
For the earth is dark with blight
And in sin we run and cower
Before the splendid, raging sight
Of the breaking of the night.
Come, my Lord! Our darkness end!
Break the bonds of time and space.
All the powers of evil rend
By the radiance of your face.
The laughing stars with joy attend:
Come Lord Jesus! Be my end!
– Madeleine L’Engle
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 4, 2011 | Advent, prayer
A prayer for this second Sunday of Advent:
Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
from The Book of Common Prayer
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 3, 2011 | Advent
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.
