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

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

Advent [Expectation, Prophesy, Hope]

During the first week of Advent, we are invited to remember prophesy of Jesus’ birth and the expectation and hope of a Messiah among the people of Israel.
But, that is not all– WE have hope through Jesus’ first coming because He paid for our sins and made a way for us to be reconciled with God. And, the story doesn’t end with His resurrection and ascension. He is not done!

I celebrate Jesus’ birth, but I am also filled with an aching longing paired with a life-giving hope.

One day I will be entirely free from my sins. I will be with my Lord, Savior, Lover, and perfect Friend. I wait for heaven, Jesus’ second coming, and the New Earth with expectant hope…and awe. 

 

“Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
(Philippians 3:20)

 

“We know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”
(1 John 3:2)

 

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
(Romans 8:22-25)

May you be filled with hope and joy in the gift already given and the gift to come.

Love,

Doni

Room

When I’m scared of what God has to say, I fill the spaces. Sometimes I fill the spaces with good things— Bible study, recited prayers, exercise, baking.

God can speak to us through Bible study, when our hearts are open. God can transform us through prayer, when our hearts are open. Baking and exercise can be acts of worship. But, God does not enter hearts uninvited, even when mouths are professing His name.

In John chapter 8, we read about a hard conversation Jesus had with some Jewish people (potentially a mixture of Pharisees and laymen). The people he was speaking to likely studied the scriptures, prayed, and followed the Law to varying degrees…however, their core issue was deeper than outward actions. Jesus said to them, “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word” (John 8:37).

Not because they hadn’t studied enough, not because they hadn’t prayed enough, not because they had broken too many laws— no, they wanted to kill Jesus because they did not have room for Him in their hearts, minds, and souls.

There are times I study the Word in the same way some of the Pharisees did— I attempt to leave Him less room instead of more. I don’t want to leave room for His words to echo, I don’t want to leave space for His Spirit to transform and direct me.

I forget that my Savior, in all His goodness and mercy, truly seeks to SAVE ME and that my fear should be a joyful, trembling, awe-inspired fear that draws me nearer to His light. 

When I seek to increase my sense of self-righteousness, I leave no room for HIS righteousness.

When I seek to solely increase my knowledge, I leave no room for His peace that passes understanding.

When I seek to justify my plans and desires, I leave no room for His perfect plans and desires.

And, the opposite is true— when I sit in the presence of God, with my hands and heart wide open to receive Him, He grants me His strength to walk in paths of righteousness, He grants me His indescribable peace, and He corrects my thoughts and makes them obedient to His good, perfect, beautiful will.

Jesus died not to make us good people or solely to save us from Hell, but to be with us and transform us through intimacy with Him!

In the words of Isaac Watts, “Let every heart prepare Him room.” 🙂