DECEMBER 17TH | BRING US BACK TOGETHER
“I WILL SEND MY MESSENGER, WHO WILL PREPARE THE WAY BEFORE ME. THEN SUDDENLY THE LORD YOU ARE SEEKING WILL COME TO HIS TEMPLE... HE WILL BE LIKE A REFINER’S FIRE OR A LAUNDERER’S SOAP. HE WILL SIT AS A REFINER AND PURIFIER OF SILVER; HE WILL PURIFY THE LEVITES AND REFINE THEM LIKE GOLD AND SILVER.”
We are masters of pretense. We try to be what we think we should be, always wanted to be or who we think others think we are.
When the human race fell in the Garden of Eden, we became separated from our true selves, from each other and from the earth. Not only were we faced with lives of struggle with the land and those around us, now we must fight with ourselves to be real. To let ourselves be loved for who we are.
Madeleine L’Engle wrote in A Circle of Quiet, that perhaps the burning bush wasn’t destroyed because it was unselfconscious and egoless. It was simply a bush. And perhaps that’s what the purifying fires of judgement are about. Those who have become complete artifices of themselves will burn away. But those who have fought to part the veil and glimpse their true selves will find themselves whole, no longer separated into two parts.
Sometimes we can glimpse our true selves. When spending time with kindred spirits. When reading a brilliant book. When dancing in the falling snowflakes. Then, the veil parts for a moment and I grin at the sky, feeling as though I might explode. But most of the time I strive toward the image of who I want to be.
Immanuel, God with us, comes to bring us back together not only with himself, but to rejoin us with ourselves. When we love an idea of ourselves, there is little space for Jesus’ birth to truly come alive in us. We must rest in simply being who he created us to be.
So as we prepare to celebrate God coming in human form, let’s put aside the images we hold dear. If we like to think of ourselves as better than our neighbor, lay that down; Jesus comes as a baby in a manger. If we struggle to see our worth, lay it down; Jesus comes as a baby in a manger. If we are afraid of what others think of us, lay it down; Jesus comes as a baby in a manger.
Who are we when we put aside our ego, and simply be in all our fullness as beloved children of God? Open yourself to the gift of God with us, and his promise of wholeness. Take a moment to be yourself, whether that means catching snowflakes on the tip of your tongue or baking for the joy of it or resting for a moment in the light of Christmas.