The Third Week of Advent

I'm always aware of the blessing and privilege of being an MCC pastor, but this Advent I've felt that blessing more keenly than ever. I think that part of this awareness has to do with our chosen theme for worship for this year: Sacred Desire, Spiritual Yearnings. As we've shared over the last two weeks the stories of Elizabeth and Zechariah and of their son, John the Baptist, I've been deeply moved by the depth of their desires and the extent of their yearnings. Now, as we prepare to relive Mary's story this week and Joseph's next week, I've been more aware than ever before of the freedom that I have to give voice to the Nativity story with words that so many pastors feel they must shy away from--words like knowing, covenanting, consummating, blood, flesh, birth and the holy of holies, that we somehow have come to believe we can use only on Good Friday, passion.

Last weekend I shared with you a passage from Marjorie Holmes's beautiful novel, Two from Galilee. Today I want to share another. In this scene, Mary is certain that she is, as the angel announced, pregnant. Now she is faced with the impossible task of telling Joseph, not only the one to whom she is engaged, not only the one who will literally hold her life in his hands, but the one whose love she craves body and soul.

Numb with astonishment, Joseph could only gaze at her for an eternity. Then he spoke one word. One alone, which later seemed to him almost as unbelievable as the thing she had told him.

"Whose?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" His hands, dangling at his sides, felt wooden...."Mary, are you mad? Or do you think I am?"

"Perhaps," she said.

"Perhaps I am mad. At first I thought so. How can it be? I asked myself that I am the chosen one? How can it be? There are fairer girls in Israel, and certainly purer ones. Girls whose only wish has been to serve in the Temple, to fast and pray. No, there had to be some mistake, I told myself. Yes, I have been very close to God--especially in childhood; there were times when I felt sure he spoke to me. But it is human love that I have longed for as I grew older." She had been staring into the darkness. Now she lifted her eyes to meet his. "Flesh and blood love, Joseph. Your hands, your arms, your lips, your body close to me even as it is close to me now."

I know, I know. The more practical among you can strike down mine and Marjorie Holmes's romantic notions on several fronts. You can speak of arranged marriages, the history of marriage as a matter of property transfer, domestic servitude, on and on. But listen! Don't allow yourself to buy into the mythology that surrounds this account of virgin birth. (Notice, I didn't say, "Don't buy into this myth of virgin birth." I said, "Don't buy into the mythology that surrounds this account of virgin birth.")

Don't allow yourself to miss the passion that invades this story from every angle, the passion that burns between Joseph and Mary, the passion that Joseph and Mary have for Yahweh and for the promised Messiah, and greatest of all, the passion that burns within Yahweh with such power that God's only release for it was to break into the human story in a way that could not be denied or explained away.

People, believe the good news: The Christmas story is not a simple purity tale; it is the greatest love story ever told, and that's the Gospel truth.

Love and Peace,