Luke 1:26-55

Luke records the angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, Elizabeth’s prophesy, and Mary’s song in rich detail. We are introduced to very important details about Jesus’ nature in this passage. Gabriel explains to Mary that He will not be an ordinary human. He will be born of the Holy Spirit—and He, indeed, will BE holy. He will be called the Son of the Most High. God will give Him the throne of David and He will reign over Jacob and His descendants not just for a lifetime…but forever.

The supernatural nature of this pregnancy is affirmed when Mary hastens to see Elizabeth, who is miraculously pregnant herself. Before Mary says a word about the pregnancy, Elizabeth prophesies that Mary is the “the mother of [her] Lord” and says, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill His promises to her!” Mary responds in glorious worship.

You can read the written text of this passage in the New International Version here if you would like to follow along or meditate on the Scripture further after you listen.

3 Love-Steps— Christmas by Memory [Advent Week Four]

[If you would like to listen to this post, click here ]

This is the week of love and angels, so it seems only fitting to describe the invisible.

Every Christmas, a memory I rarely talk about returns— it’s hazy, a memory experienced as a longing in my heart before a dreamy recording in my head. A memory, I believe, that’s a little gift from God.

When I was in middle school I attended my older sister’s senior Christmas concert. The chamber choir my sister sang in performed a Christmas hymn written in the 1800’s. A girl opened the piece a cappella— that’s where the memory starts…and the rest is a blur.

Maybe it was the purity of her tone, her countenance, or the way the sacred sound filled the huge secular high school auditorium. Maybe it was the darkness surrounding me and the light ahead. Maybe it was the very the presence of God. It sounds incredibly cheesy, but I like to think angels were dancing and that they dance often when our God is being exalted. I was enraptured and I’m still enraptured as I sit in the memory again and hear the composition by Christina Georgina Rossetti beam into the darkness:

Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, Love divine;
Love was born at Christmas;
star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, Love divine;
worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
love be yours and love be mine;
love to God and others,
love for plea and gift and sign.

I wish…I wish I could bring you there. I don’t know what you feel, if anything, when you read those words. Maybe you hear them.  Maybe you’re disappointed— really, that’s the persistent memory?

I know, it’s a fairly popular song.

And, love is a popular word.

Love is a common word— it is easy to read without clinging to the mystery.

Maybe the reason this memory is so precious is because when the word “love” hit the air it didn’t sound common at all— it was sacred, abundant.  

As I look at the song again in its entirety I’m struck by the way the song progresses and yet seems circular. The third verse ends with love for plea and gift and sign…it ends with what God has done for us, which is right where the song begins.

Each verse like a step in a three step dance that we repeat over and over again with our God.

If Christina came up with these steps herself, we might have reason to be skeptical, but her hymn echoes the truth of the Word. I see strong parallels to 1 John 4:9-12,19:

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us… We love because he first loved us.

Here is the dance:

1.    The first approach, the extended hand: There He is— Love, all lovely, Love divine.

Holy and wholly lovely. Wholly divine.

Jesus.

Christ’s all-loving and all-lovely step toward us. It happens once, but doesn’t it also happen over and over? Christ’s pursuit— His initiation through the lavishing of love.

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2.    The second verse is a response to His deep love— worship we our Jesus.

Our Jesus. Possessive, intimate— love given and love received. Not stark, cool love— relational love. He is not just a historical figure and He is not a lofty idea. He is our Jesus, my Jesus.

The verse ends with a question that probably seems a bit confusing: But wherewith for sacred sign?

I interpret this as by which sacred sign shall we worship Him?

Christina Georgina Rossetti answers her question in the final verse of the hymn.

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3.    Love shall be our token.

Not only love to God, but love to others.

Our love is not something meant to remain in our hearts. Love is our token— the outward expression of the heart’s response.

One, God’s loving approach

Two, Intimate and love-filled worship

Three, Outward expressions of love for God and others

Can you hear it on repeat in your soul?

Will you put your hand in Jesus’ hand and follow Him?

He came to earth as a baby, but He reigns as omniscient, omnipotent King— a King inviting you into what He came for and died for. Life and love to the fullest.

I hope you have a very merry Christmas!

With love,

Donielle Hart

Never Abandoned— Joy in His Presence [Advent Week Three]

I spent precious time with such beautiful souls today— truly, women who radiate, who bless, who love God down out their feet, up through their eyes.

But, the time came for them to leave— all people leave. We leave each other for short amounts of time and long amounts of time. Everyone leaves their bodies. Some slowly, some quickly, with and without goodbyes. We will reunite with some.

Anyway, they left— I went grocery shopping and picked up antibiotics.

Here I sit with a small Wendy’s chili, pills, and my laptop.

Here I sit, thankful for so much, in despair about a few, and tired.

Red and starry sprinkles sit on the table, cocoa is crusted to the sides of the crock pot in the sink, the miscellaneous items I tossed in the closet before guest came over are (try not to judge) still there.

I thought about putting all the green-red party goodness away, prepping food for tomorrow, putting the chairs back in their places, but I knew if I didn’t sit and listen now, it wouldn’t happen.

Listening requires energy. More specifically— a pushing away of my human instincts (good and bad) in exchange for the Spirit’s prompting. The Spirit’s timing. The Spirit’s lavishing.

Yes, He is inviting me here. Inviting me to sit and listen. I’m writing to you, but I’m writing for Him. I’m writing for Him and He’s gifting me with the task and privilege because He wants to love me and fill me as I sit and pour out for Him. He knows it’s not always easy, but He still invites me because He knows He’s worth it.

I know it— it runs from my fingertips to my heart. He reaches toward all of us, but He’ll never touch us unless we say yes. He reaches toward me, invites me. The “yes” takes energy— indeed, the listening is sacrifice…the sacrifice that makes room for His gift, the gift of HOLY-blood bought reconciliation and union that keeps on giving and filling.

This week of advent is the week of Joy and the Shepherds Candle.

When the angels appeared to the shepherds, the shepherds were going about their work…in the night. My guess is they were either sleeping or tired when the angels appeared to them, but that did not keep them from listening to God’s message given through the angels— the Savior, Messiah, and Peacemaker was born! And, what’s more, they were told where He was.

The message was essentially— the Messiah is here and you can go to Him.

The Messiah has come to us and we can be with Him! Glory to God!

Is that not the very core of our joy?!

During more difficult, teary moments today my heart and my soul felt pain. BUT, in moments when I was able to refocus on the truths of God and His Spirit alive in me (the Comforter and Counselor), I was filled with joy.

Joy doesn’t remove pain immediately or even on this side of Paradise, but it does lift our eyes to the astounding beauty of our wounded-once-and-for-all Healer.

Joy—I’m graciously handed the Gift moment by moment.

Joy because Jesus descended from His throne room to a world that hated Him for me.

Joy because Jesus stretched His arms out wide so I could always have access to His arms.

Together, forever.

Emmanuel— yes, in Him is fullness of Joy.

Emmanuel— not just a name, but a promise.

He says, “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.”

My friend, He is not far from you.

If you have received Him, He is in you.

Listening may take effort, freeing our hands and hearts of idols will require effort, but believe me, you loved-by-God , He has arrived and His arms are stretched wide for you— run to Him for your joy, darling. Run to Him for everything.

He will hold, He will transform, He will multiply, and He will make what’s dead sing.

“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth

peace to those on whom his favor rests.”

 

What time will you make each day this week to listen to God and allow Him to wrap you in His joy?

What is holding you back from God’s arms? Is it your schedule, your creature comforts, your fear or distaste of intimacy? Will you write it down and consider giving it to God? He’s worth it.

Christ’s Advent at Your Christmas Party [and on the last day of your achy body]

We prepare for who is coming.

Many of you, I think, experience this: You set a date for a gathering. You envision friends or family at the table, their smiles. You picture soft lights and imagine breathing in delicious smells— so you make sure your star lights have batteries, make a grocery list, and pick a cookie recipe. You prepare for what you set your mind on.

We prepare for who is coming. And, in the process of preparation there is something of the celebration itself— a foretaste. When I’m excited for an event, I have deep joy and delight in my preparation. I want to invite comfort and joy, I want the people at my table to be filled with love…and maybe experience a taste of Love Himself.

I visualize the goodness and try to prepare so it just might become a reality.

But, I seriously fall short of goodness when I only prepare materially and mentally.

Let’s be realistic…as I prepare, I also taste spiritual germs on my breath and others’ threatening to spread our soul-sicknesses, fractures in hearts, death cycles, my social anxiety creeping up my neck and squeezing.  We can experience a foretaste of anxiety rather than celebration. A foretaste of the broken can steal our preparation for goodness.

So, when I am wise (by the grace of God), I prepare my heart—I beg for my broken heart to be prepared and repaired. I pray for God to shift my focus from the wounds to the Warrior-Healer-Carpenter. For my roof to be patched, my windows to be sealed tight, and my door to be unlocked— for my home and my presence to be a haven from the cold.

I want these precious people I envision sitting at my table to experience a little bit of Emmanuel. And, as my great-grandmother Vivian would say, a little taste of heaven.

We prepare for who is coming because we love them.

Yet, we also are filled with God’s love in the process of preparation— as we ask God to help us prepare out of love for Him, He lavishes us with more love to give. As we confess our brokenness and invite Him to repair our hearts we have peace with Him.

YES, isn’t this one of the greatest treasures?  When we prepare for Christ’s coming at our Christmas party or His guaranteed Second Advent, we experience ever-increasing peace with Him because we experience more and more of Him.

Isn’t that what we really, deeply want as we hang lights and make menus and vacuum under the chair?

Peace with God.

We have peace with God through Jesus— the Holy Spirit is with us through Jesus. God has come, God is here.

BUT, never forget, God is coming.

He is coming to work in your broken heart, at your invitation. He is bringing joy as you sweep. He is washing feet and pouring grace at your Christmas party.

And that is not all!

He is coming on the clouds as King! He is coming to establish a new, unimaginably radiant Earth!

He is coming to be with us in a way we have yet to experience— a way only He can prepare us for.

He fills us and moves in us to prepare for more of HIM. For the true life He intended. And, guess what? In this process of preparation, there is a sweet, sweet foretaste of  His peace and His glory because He Himself is our peace and He is inexpressibly glorious.

How do you prepare room for God to work in you?

What time will you set aside this week to re-focus and re-center on Christ as your motivation?

I invite you to open up a gift I prepared for you! Click here for simple daily scripture readings I put together on preparation:  Advent Week 2 Scripture Readings 

If you would enjoy hearing this content read, click here to listen: https://m.soundcloud.com/doni-owens/christs-advent-at-your-christmas-party-and-the-last-day-of-your-achy-body

Love and peace,

Donielle Hart