O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

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Advent, Book of Malachi, dawn, Emmanuel, expectation, fulfillment, lift up your heads, midnight, O Antiphons, Paul, Romans, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, waiting

Today ends the season of waiting for the advent of Christ. We have been singing, “O come, O come, Emmanuel!” for nearly a month now and the seven titles from the O Antiphons culminate in this calling forth of the One whom they/we recognize as “God with us.” All of the readings today strain forward to his coming. Malachi (3:1-4) foretells that suddenly there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek and the messenger of the covenant whom you desire. The psalm refrain tells us to lift up your heads and see! as the psalmist pleads: Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me! Finally we hear the gospel story of the birth of John the Baptist who runs before Jesus, preparing the way for him.

I say it’s over when today is only the 23rd. We celebrate Christmas on the 25th. One could characterize this waiting period as having two parts: remote and proximate preparation. All through Advent we have been calling on God to open our hearts to the reality of Christ’s presence in our midst (remote preparation). Tomorrow we spend the day, as Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “on tiptoe” (proximate preparation) – in conscious attention for the fulfillment of the covenant promise. I have always loved the verse from the Book of Wisdom that says, “When all things were silent and night was in the midst of her course, your all-powerful Word, O God, leapt from heaven…” There is a silence at midnight that is unparalleled and conducive of great wonders, usually experienced by our inner selves. That is why our religious tradition gathers us at midnight, or thereabouts, to welcome Emmanuel in a ritual that speaks of light in the darkness and peace for all on earth.

So my goal is to begin to feel, by dawn tomorrow, the shift from conscious waiting to ardent expectation, and to spend tomorrow – no matter what activities claim me – readying myself for that moment when Christ leaps into my heart in a new and fuller way, perhaps in the night. Hyperbole? Maybe…but who of us knows what gifts have been prepared for us and when they will be given? I think it’s worth the wager to be there when it happens.

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The Refiner’s Fire

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Book of Malachi, Christmas, fire, God, Lord, Malachi, Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Refining, Second Coming, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There is a caution in the readings for today. It’s about promise and possibility but also about responsibility for what is given. The psalmist seems eager when he sings: Your way, O Lord, make known to me. Teach me your paths! It reminds me of how enthusiastically I sing O come, O come, Emmanuel…with the image in my head of a sweet baby in a cradle of straw – no thought to the entire package of His coming. The implication of the seriousness of the Incarnation of Christ is foretold in the book of Malachi, which is what caught me this morning. When it speaks of the Lord coming soon, it then asks a question.

Who can stand when He appears? For He is like the refiner’s fire, or like the fuller’s lye. He will sit refining and purifying silver…”

What it does not say but what is patently clear is that WE are the silver that needs refining. Perhaps we are like Zachariah in this morning’s gospel who heard something from God (Elizabeth’s pregnancy in her old age) that was just too incredible to trust as true revelation. We know what happened to him! His refining took place all during the months before the birth of John the Baptist when he couldn’t speak. It was during that time, surely, that he learned the depth of what it means to trust and to serve the Lord.

In the very brief time left before Christmas, can we make ourselves ready for this force, this refining fire? Can we bring ourselves to a willingness to trust that whatever needs still to happen in order that we might be purified of the dross of our lives is for our good? Although the refining process will go on, today is the perfect day to stand up and step toward the fire of the One who loves us mightily and knows our deepest beauty and value.