Tag: Birth

The Creator of Light

Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. 18 He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.

James 1:17-18 (NRSVue)

It has been awhile since I updated this blog because I had lost access to log into it. Today, however, I was able to get back in, so here comes another blog post from your occasionally intrepid pastor.

God has given birth to us. Isn’t that an odd thing to think about? Didn’t our mothers give birth to us? The answer is yes, but God has given birth to us again.

When we were first born, whether it was in a hospital, a house, or somewhere else entirely, the first thing we likely saw upon birth with our tiny infant eyes was light. We were, by the process of birth, transferred from darkness into light. We transitioned from seeing nothing to being able to see everything. Though we were too young and too new to the world to be able to process and understand anything we were seeing, we saw light being reflected by objects and we saw the shapes and the textures of the world, and it was light that made such perception possible. It is God who has given us the good gift of life and sight. God, who created the heavenly lights, gives us life again in the new birth.

In the new birth, God the Creator transitions us once again from darkness into light. Before, we were lost. Now, we are found. We were blind, but now we see. It is the life of joy and peace that we sing about in the well-known hymn I am now referencing. God has birthed us into this new life.

Because this new life is new, we might not perceive everything the way we should when we first experience the new birth. We see the light, and the things upon which that light is now shed that we could not see before, but in the beginning we often only see the shapes and the textures, not really understanding this new view God has given us of the world. As we continue to grow in grace, God the Creator of lights illumines more and more of our world, so that we gradually come to see the world from the perspective God had intended for us all along.

May you continue to grow in the love and grace of the God of light, so that God’s light may shine into the darkness through you.

AMEN

What About Joseph?

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.”

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25 (NRSV)

We are just over one week away from Christmas. This coming Sunday, December 18, we will celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Advent. It seems like just last week was the first Sunday in July. Time certainly does fly!

I wonder if time was flying by for Joseph. We focus so much on Mary during Advent and Christmas that we often forget to think much about Joseph. After Joseph had learned of Mary’s pregnancy and agonized over what to do about it, he had decided to divorce her quietly in order to spare her and her family the shame that would come upon her house if he publicly exposed Mary as having committed adultery. But then an angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him the truth about Mary and the child she carried. The angel told Joseph to name him Jesus because he would save God’s people from their sins.

So, Joseph had a big decision to make. Should he proceed with his original plan to end his marriage to Mary in a way that would keep the blame off of her, or should he listen to this messenger from God, stay with Mary, name her child Jesus and raise him as Joseph’s own?

In the end, Joseph decided to follow the instructions of the angel. They named the child Jesus. They had to go through a lot, and Joseph was there every step of the way. He put aside his own feelings and impulses and chose to follow God in a way that must not have made much sense to Joseph at the time. Joseph’s deep relationship with God was stronger than any doubts Joseph may have had.

Because Joseph chose to follow God instead of his own ideas, we still today choose to follow God as disciples of that Holy Child who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried, and on the third day rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Creator Almighty.

Let us give thanks this Advent and Christmas for God’s calling on the lives of so many, especially Joseph and Mary, and for their child, who spent his first night on earth sleeping in a farm animal’s feeding trough, and who we now are blessed to call Christ our Lord.