What story are you in? Whose story? Are you in a story of
fear or a story of joy?
Is this passage from Luke two stories:
one of fear, anxiety, and power;
one of joy, gratitude – and truth?
You could look at it that way – or you could look at it as
one story –
one story of how the people of God move through times of
uncertainty, anxiety, and fear; through temptations to greed, pride, envy, and
all the rest;
to a place beside the birth site of Jesus,
to a time of joy, fulfillment, and peace,
that like God’s presence is already but not yet visible
among us.
Advent after all is a time of joyful anticipation,
expectation, and preparation for God’s presence yet to come…
but it is a time also to remind ourselves that
that presence has always been with us –
that the God who is to come, proclaimed by John and heralded
by angels,
is already among us, already present.
The Hidden Christ –
the one seen in the face of a stranger, in an outstretched
hand of welcome, -
is among us, waiting to be known:
to be newly born at Christmas,
surprisingly revealed in Epiphany, and
finally recognized on the Cross and in the glory of the
Resurrection.
That Christ is present with us now.
Baruch 5:1-9
or Malachi 3:1-4
Canticle 4 or 16
Philippians 1:3-11
Luke 3:1-6
