manger

You Keep Using That Word…

~ Heather Davis ~ 11 Comments

Among my (admittedly many) favorite quotes from the movie, The Princess Bride, the sword-wielding Spaniard’s response to the rotund little Sicilian’s exclamation, “Inconceivable!” ranks pretty near the top:

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. 

– Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride

Which reminds me…

This coming Sunday marks the official beginning of Advent, which is probably my second favorite season in all of Christendom; surpassed only by the culmination of Lent on Resurrection Sunday. In many ways, the two seasons are inseparable to me.

Almost annually, I find myself saying something to the effect that I cannot gaze upon the Babe in the manger and fail to see the shadow of the Cross. Nor can I separate my thoughts from the helpless child of the First Advent without eagerly anticipating with fierce joy and dread reverence the future return of the King of kings.

One of my personal traditions during Advent is to reflect on the many Messianic prophesies of the Savior and upon the events and people recounted in the story of His birth.

Which brings me back to Inigo Montoya… sort of.

When I think of Mary, the mother of Jesus, I often wonder if she might respond similarly to our fictional fencing friend if she heard the ways we tend to use the word blessed in the Christian community.

What do I mean? In answer, let’s take a peek at an early portion of the Nativity from Scripture:

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
(Luke 1:41-42)

When Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, heard Mary, she exclaimed to her young relative, “Blessed are you among women…!”

And so Mary was, without a doubt, eternally blessed to be the mother of the Son of Man. And yet…

Take a moment and mull over the temporal implications of her blessing.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
(Matthew 1:18)

From a social standpoint, Mary’s obedience to God in this matter of motherhood was nothing short of annihilation for the reputations of both herself and her family.

An unmarried woman showing up pregnant was simply not acceptable in her culture. If no one believed her story about an angelic messenger and the Holy Spirit and the miraculous virginal conception (and honestly, would you believe your daughter or friend?), well then she was in serious danger of a grisly and uncomfortable death by stoning.

From a socially acceptable standpoint, her best bet was to appeal to her betrothed and ask him to claim the child as his own. Of course, she would be asking him to discredit himself as a Torah-observant Jew and a citizen in good standing, not to mention critically injuring both his reputation and his business… and his ability to care for her and the Child.

This scenario leaves only the ticklish business of convincing her future husband that the pregnancy is an actual miracle; a pregnancy without promiscuity, if you will.

Evidently, however, Joseph did not initially embrace the joyous news:

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.
(Matthew 1:19)

Once Joseph received his own angelic visitor and was convinced that his bride-to-be was honest in her claims to virginity, the social stigma would have still remained and made life in their community less pleasant. I have to wonder if they were not somewhat relieved to take the journey to Bethlehem and so escape being the prime source of juicy gossip around the town well…

At any rate, we’ve only touched on the social ramifications of this blessing. There were many others.

Besides the likely scenario of being ostracized by her community, Mary, who was blessed among women, relaxed in the comfort of a well-stocked minivan as her husband drove the couple-hour trip to Bethlehem where they promptly checked into the region’s most renowned birthing center.

No, wait… actually, she endured a long and likely strenuous trek of approximately 150 km (96 miles) during the awkward third trimester of her pregnancy. Fun. Then she gave birth surrounded by the aroma of manure and livestock, laying her newborn Son in the animals’ feeding trough so she could recover from her labor. Many years later, she was blessed by watching her firstborn tortured, maimed, and crucified for crimes that He did not commit.

Nonetheless, she was blessed.

When we use the word, “blessed,” it bears reminding that not all blessings are comfortable or convenient in the short-term. In Christ, we are truly, eternally blessed, and because of this some of our blessings may temporarily seem more like curses.

Nonetheless, every blessing is a blessing because it is preparing us for eternity with the Lord we love.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven… ”
(Matthew 5:10-12a)

And so, in light of Monday’s public proclamation of my intention to honestly give thanks to God in all circumstances, I want to share one of my blessings with you.

I am blessed with chronic pain from both migraine and arthritis in various joints, though I am still in my 40s.

Naturally, I am not precisely excited and thrilled with this blessing, but I do know my God will use it for His glory… as long as I cooperate with Him. And I will.

I trust Him, even in pain. If nothing else, it certainly makes the “friendship with the world” James warns us against less appealing!

And besides, my Father really does know what is best.

 

 

Christmas

~ Heather Davis ~ 4 Comments

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
(John 1:14)

To me, this verse encapsulates both the wonder and the irony of Christmas. It is a beautiful mystery that God should choose to present His glory in a tangible form to mankind through the rather commonplace miracle (if there are such things) of the birth of a Baby.

In that manger so many years ago lay the Divine irony: that the glorious Creator of all things would stoop to take part in His creation, but not as one would expect a God to arrive; clothed in splendor and honor and wielding great power. Instead, He chose to come as a Man and with all man’s limitations, including beginning life as a an utterly dependent, helpless infant. The Almighty in diapers. Just imagine!

Furthering the paradox, the King of kings was not even born into human royalty. Instead, He came humbly, born into a family most likely socially tainted by the scandal of His mother’s implausible claim concerning her pregnancy, born not into silken sheets and sturdy housing, but in a pen for animals.

His earthly parents were even too poor even to afford a lamb to sacrifice for Mary’s purification  as the Law demanded (Leviticus 12:6-8, Luke 2:22-24).  Nor did He choose a life of popularity, wealth, and ease, but one of poverty, hard work, and difficulty.

This is perhaps the most perplexing facet of the Christmas story; that the Most High God decided not only to become a man,  but also to participate fully in the human experience, including both physical and emotional pain. And though He came to His own creatures, they knew Him not and many even scorned and mocked this, the most gracious act of love in history.

He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
(Isaiah 53:3)

It is for this reason that He is a God like no other, for He understands humanity not just theoretically or as its Creator, but by becoming one of us; by living as a man.

But He is also a Man like no other, for Jesus understood what it meant to be human and to feel the weight of grief.  Yet He also understood something we cannot: He understood, too, what it meant to be Divine.

Do you see the absurdity of this gift? Crazily and against all logic, the Creator subjected Himself to human limitations in order to provide for rebellious humanity the briefest glimpse of Divine life here in the dust of the earth. By living as a man as man should have been — without sin –and then willingly giving Himself up for our ransom, He extends an invitation to all mankind to a future hope beyond grief.

Even crazier, this invitation remains open to those who despise Him still, for it is not His will that any of His beloved should die apart from Him.

Besides understanding a depth and breadth of grief that we never could, He also understood the full power of temptation in a way that none of us can for the simple fact that none of us have withstood temptation to the utmost and prevailed.

Without exception, we have all fallen; we have all given in to the allure of some personal weakness and sinned. However, our Lord never did. Alone among man, He has endured the full force of temptation and remained standing at the end. He, alone, knows the precise limits of temptation and the entire weight of resistance.

He became Man as man was meant to be — pure, sinless, in perfect fellowship with the Father. Perhaps, even, He became more human than any of us simply because the image of God given to humanity was marred and distorted at the Fall, but it was restored in the Person of Christ.

“He is the radiance of the Glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature…” (Hebrews 1:3a).

Oh, my thoughts are tangled and almost too complex for words. Still, I do hope you will hear my heart and the great awe I have for my Lord. May He be as real and as amazing to You!

There is more, so much more, but for now let it suffice to say that for me, Christmas is always a time of joyful solemnity, because when I look at the Babe in the manger, I always see the shadow of the cross falling over His infinitely precious features.

But I also to see beyond that ancient instrument of torture and death to the victory — the Light of the world walking out of the darkness of the grave, bringing hope to all who love Him and who struggle yet under the living death of this world.

May the hope of Christ restore your heart this Christmas. Merry Christmas, my friends!