Elizabeth’s Story

All the long years of pitying glances rolled away in the glory of this conception. There was an absolute rightness in it. The angel appearing in the holy Temple, in the right place, and at the sacred time. The promise of the holiness of the child.

God had indeed remembered his promises, his old ways of working. I dreamed of a future for this child. He would restore the ancient purity of ways, the law strictly observed, and Israel called back to the true pure path. The comparison which I could not help making was between my husband and myself and the greatest of all our ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. We had always tried so hard to live holy lives, Zechariah and I – and now we were to be rewarded. And yes, Zechariah had, to some degree made a bit of a mess of it, but he had surely be forgiven, or my belly would not have been swelling with a baby.

Conceived like this, my child would surely be – well, he HAD to be the long awaited Messiah, didn’t he? As great and greater than Elijah, Moses, Isaac, Israel himself.

So great was my joy that I was generous when word reached me that my young cousin Mary was – well, that she had- well, Mary came to stay for a little.

She stood in the doorway. My heart seemed to stop still. My baby leapt in me like a fish breaking water. Every certainty stood on its head. Purity was swallowed in love. Repentance was engulfed by forgiveness. The reward of virtue went down before the glory of self offering. What I was, what my child was, that too went down. Now, what had been first would be last. And she, who by rights would have been last, she was the first. Impurity had become healing, rebirth.

My child? What could I and he do but spread ourselves out in the service of she and hers.

‘Who am I to see the mother of my Master?’ I cried. Every certainty was lost in a huge hope.

Gabriel’s story

The two great spheres of time and eternity touched and I leapt across. I had made myself as small as I could, fitting myself into a shape as unalarming as I could manage, until the whole of my spirit cried out in pain at its restriction.
Standing before her, I spoke at once, saying: ‘I am honoured, God-chosen.’ and I saw the fear in her eyes. I saw ahead through her sphere, and I knew the terrible path she was agreeing to. I saw through eternity. The slight, indomitable figure, the childish confidence of faith, and the parched  agonized end and beyond. The choice made with a whole heart, and the choice made again and again as the cost and the pain mounted.
She made to reverence the glory of my reduced frame.  I knelt before her.

Nativity

Today we had our yearly Nativity play by the younger members of our congregation aided by a few of the more elderly.

This year however it wasn’t so historically accurate. We had two female magi and no shepherds (partly due to the fact she forgot her lines but I believe it was because she felt it was too cold for her sheep to travel to the nave alter, I mean manger).

It was acted out this year through mime and rhyme, Joseph had a few cups of tea and we had the  Arch angel Gabriel and the star doing a mini version of “Heads, Shoulders, Knee and Toes”.

Yet ever year I think of what it would have been like that cold evening for the expectant parents: tired, weary, fearful yet I believe, ready. Bless Mary, the young girl, and from all accounts we’ve come to realise she may have been as young as 14, who accepted the role as Mother to the Saviour of the world.

Think about the same situation into our society today, let me break it down this way: a young mother unexpectedly pregnant, a young man thrust into fatherhood before he was thinking about it. We see it all the time, young parents, but we walk past them and, I think unintentionally sometimes, sneer or look down at them, without knowing their story, how can we do this to them and yet praise our Lord and light an Advent candle today for His mother Mary, who on the face of it, were in a very similar situation.

Light and darkness

During Advent I have been very aware of light.  These thoughts started with the Christmas lights in George Square, Glasgow.  As I waited to cross the road on the way to work, I realised that I could see the coloured lights on the edge of the square.  They did not make much sense, like the cliche they looked like the back of the tapestry, just a mixture of colour without any pattern.  To me they looked like the false lights of Christmas, set up well in advance of Christmastide, with no idea of Advent as a time of waiting and expectation.  Missing the point.

But I became more aware of light generally as the days went by.  The days last weekend, when the sun did not appear to rise above the horizon.  Monday when the sun bright, but low.  The darkness of the evenings as I make my way home.

Thoughts of what the Bible says about light and darkness: The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear?  (Ps 27:1) 

The central thought came last Thursday evening as I sat in a candlelit church:  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it (Jn 1:5).  In the darkness aware of the light all around knowing that night is not dark to God, we wait again for the celebration of the coming of Christ, who is with us as we wait.

This light of Christ that is the true light.  Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.’  (Jn 8:12)  The light that is worth the wait.