Open Your Eyes this Advent Season

We used Luke 2: 8-14 for our discussion time this past Wednesday night at Church. The passage tells the story of the angels announcing the good news of the birth of Christ to "shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night."(NIV).

We know that being a shepherd was not the greatest of jobs, but there was an additional stigma attached to that profession by the Hebrew laws regarding cleanliness. See, shepherds live out with their flocks (remember). There wasn't much available to them in the way personal hygiene products. Additionally, shepherds didn't own the sheep. The owner of the sheep was safe and warm and ritually clean in his home.

This discussion opened my eyes to the reality that from Christ's very conception, the Immaculate Conception, God has used Him to focus attention on the invisible people in society. A teenage Hebrew girl living in a small village, the shepherds. These people weren't the poorest in Hebrew society. They were working class people. People who struggled to keep their heads just above water.

In our modern culture invisible people are the store clerks, the people that pick up our trash. The bulldozer driver at the construction site. The school crossing guard. People we walk past, drive past, and bike past every day. Hundreds of times a week, each one of us encounter these people and hardly think twice about them or their lives. Often these invisible people frustrate us by taking too much time to ring up our purchase or stopping us so 1 kid can cross the street in on the way school.


All throughout the Gospels, we cannot look at Jesus without seeing these invisible people. Christ ate with them, slept in their homes and attended their weddings.


Far to often Christian Churches today focus their ministries on the poorest of the poor. Now, I'm not saying poor and homeless should be ignored. I am saying that often, when we focus on the very poor, we fail to see the marginally poor. Families that aren't a paycheck away from loosing it all but a days wages away. Single moms and dads struggling to raise their kids, earn a living, and take classes in hope of a better life for their families. Invisible people. Invisible to us as we hurry past them on our way to Church. Invisible to the Church as it looks past them when designing ministries.


As we wait for Christ this Advent Season, let our eyes be opened to the invisible people around us. Take the time to engage them, to appreciate them as children of God, and be the Light of Christ to them that day.

A Mother's Love

As we get closer to the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ, my thoughts have been focused on Mary. How many times I have seen a pregnant woman caress her child while it is still in her womb. Rubbing her belly and transferring deep feelings of love to her unborn child.

Mary must have done the same thing. It is so hard to imagine how she felt as her time to give birth drew near. Growing inside her womb was God's perfect expression of love and life. I'm certain Mary caressed and sang to Jesus in her womb.

I'm sure she must have felt a fair bit of fear as well. What exactly would this birth bring? How would her community respond to the birth of Christ? How would the world respond to His birth? I can see Mary lovingly and gently rubbing her belly, caressing her child, the Christ child, and letting those fears fall away and be replaced by hope through the power of God's love.

Third Sunday of Advent

James 3:5-8
5Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. 6The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
7All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, 8but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

This week’s Lectionary reading from James has an interesting almost imperceptible connection to the Season of Advent. For Christians the Season of Advent is a season of waiting. Awaiting the light and love of Jesus Christ to come into the world and to walk among us. Here in James I find waiting of a different kind.
My speech has the power to anger, hurt, shame, and discourage. As a Christian I am called to create a space between my emotions and my actions; my emotions and my speech. A space where I am to wait and consider the affects my words and actions will have on others. To discern if my need to vent and lash out is more important than maintaining the dignity of others.
Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit has created this space within me. I confess that I, far too often leap over that space and use speech that harms others. At the time I feel justified. Most of the time I begin to regret my words even before they have left my mouth. If anyone reads this post that has been hurt by my words, please forgive me.
As I move toward this third Sunday of Advent, I will practice waiting in my speech. Waiting and controlling my emotions. Waiting for the Holy Spirit to temper my emotions and give me words that best express my feelings without hurting the feelings of others.