Our stockings are hung by the streaming Netflix Birchwood Fireplace with care.
‘Tis the season for holiday parties, Christmas movies, and my personal favorite Christmas album, Chance the Rapper’s Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama. It’s the season of Advent, a time of waiting, longing, hoping for the joy of Christmas and the promise it brings.
Not the promise of presents, but rather the promise of presence: the presence of an incarnate God.
I feel like I miss Advent every year. I get so wrapped up in wrapping up work projects or travel plans that I don’t feel ready for Advent until it’s already over. This is a pretty consistent theme in my life: looking ahead only to realize I’ve missed the very moment in front of me. Or maybe I’ve placed such huge expectations on myself for Advent that I felt like I missed it. I have yet to magically transform into a patient contemplative zen person over the course of 4-5 weeks each year. But this year feels ever so slightly different. Maybe I’m slowing down as I get older (unlikely) or maybe I’ve lowered my expectations for the season (more likely).
I’ve been thinking a lot about Mary.
Mary was just minding her own business, probably running around trying to plan her wedding to Joseph, when all of the sudden her world was turned upside down. An angel bursts onto the scene (I like to imagine angels kicking down doors, which would explain why everyone loses their minds when they appear) and tells her God likes her a lot and she’s going to bring his son into the world. I love that Mary doesn’t just instantly jump to “This sounds totally realistic- sign me up!” No, Mary earns some extra points in my book because her first question is all about logistics. Her hesitation makes me like her even more. She wants to know how exactly God plans on making this happen. She hasn’t had sex yet, on purpose, and she has some questions. The angel gives her a rough outline of the plan, that God’s spirit would make everything happen, and reminds her “Nothing is impossible with God.” Mind you the angel isn’t giving timelines or specifics here, I would’ve lost my mind, just a vague understanding of next steps. And here’s the best part, Mary says yes. She agrees. She is completely overwhelmed and doesn’t understand how all of this works but she’s open to the process.
Advent is an invitation to join Mary’s journey.
I definitely think that Mary was a real person, but I can’t help but wonder if she is also a metaphor. What if each Advent season is an invitation from God to join in the journey that Mary started? The incarnation, Christ coming to dwell among us, was not a one time event. It is a continual phenomenon, one that we as human beings are invited to participate in time and time again. Mary set the tone but we get to join in her chorus. Advent is the opportunity to remember that God approaches each of us and says, “You, you are so special to me. Will you join me in this great plan?”
The shame of religion is to think that the incarnation happened once, or that God is any less present or invitational now than he or she was back then. Christ is already within all of us. The key, like Mary, is to say yes to the invitation and allow this Love to grow within us. The details of this Christ expression don’t matter. As Richard Rohr says, “God is not in competition with anybody.”
There weren’t any time frames, specifics, or details. Just an invitation to show up and be present in the process. Maybe Mary thought the whole thing was a dream, a hallucination from being exhausted from wedding planning. When things remained silent and still I wonder if she thought she messed it up, that God had changed his or her mind. Even when her stomach began to grow she might’ve doubted the entire thing until it was too obvious to ignore. It was a quiet behind the scenes plan. Nothing flashy or extravagant, just a whisper to an ordinary person to keep letting Love in.
It would’ve been so easy for Mary to discount God. Up until this point, this was NOT how God had shown up in the world. She had preconceived notions, expectations, and limitations. God showed up in the tabernacle. God looked this way or talked this way or was only for these certain people. But the beauty of Advent, of the invitation to Mary, is for God to move into a completely unexpected place yet again.
Will are all Mary.
We are co-authors in this remarkable story, if only we will allow the Christ and Love within us to grow. The specifics don’t matter. The timelines don’t matter. All that matters is an openness and willingness to participate in the incarnation, day in and day out. To allow our understanding of this Love to get bigger with each passing day. With each day and Advent season, Christ reminds us that he is moving into unexpected places and wants us, like Mary, to simply say yes. He is showing up in different neighborhoods, under a new name, and breaking out of the box we prefer to keep him in.
Is it so hard to believe that God approaches us and reminds us that we have already found favor with him or her? That we simply need to say yes to experience the incarnation of Christ already present within us because we are made in the image of this Christ? Could it be that we are being called to go further and deeper into our truest nature and experience our truest selves? Unfortunately for many of us, the most challenging part of this theory could be that God finds us favorable just as we are. I am ashamed to admit that the thought of God approaching me and saying, “I already really like you” is much more difficult to fathom than “will you bring Christ into this world?”
This Advent season my hope is to just say yes to the gift of the incarnation, to this expansive and mysterious journey. If you’re tempted, like me, to think that Christ is not within you, that you don’t matter, or that the incarnation and Christmas story are stories of yesteryear, may be remind ourselves: