“All is calm, all is bright.”
(Some are calm, some are bright)
“He has filled the hungry with good things”
(Lots are still hungry, children in Virginia, Syrian and Sudanese refugees, children fleeing El Salvador, many in our own land and millions around the world hungry for justice)
Racism, refugees, resettlement, terrorism, occupation, cries for injustice and reconciliation.
It is FAR more than helping rich, old Scrooge enjoy life again, though the Carol of his transformed life certainly challenges my own daily generosity for others!
Isaiah cries, “Oh, that You would rend the heavens open and come down!!” “Try out OUR night of despair ……how about it , Lord!”
Good Friday is about high noon. Easter is about the dawn.
Christmas is about the night.
How the dawn from on high enters fully into our darkness,
like a divine promise entering fully the water of our baptismal font,
like a Savior fully entered into a babe wrapped in cloths laid in a manger, like a word of forgiveness fully entered into a loaf of bread wrapped in cloths laid in a paten, like a Carol of hope sung over the light of an infantile wick sparked again by the Spirit inspiring our soul.
The divine fully with, in, under the mortal; the infinite filling the finite.
Advent is hell without the Emmanuel of Christmas.
So are our lives.
Come Lord Jesus!
O Come O Come Emmanuel!
Come Lord Jesus!
-Bishop Jim Mauney
