12/01/2023
kgckraus@gmail.com
God With Us
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
—JOHN 1:1-5 (NRSVUE)
In this community, we talk a lot about before and afters. There is a life before. In the Before Times, jokes might have come easily and you might be quick to laugh. A time when it felt easy to make plans far off in the future and hope was easy to come by.
And there is a life after. Which might be what you are experiencing today.
The first Christmas since the divorce or after the kids started their own family traditions. The first Christmas with one less stocking to fill, or perhaps realizing the perfect gift didn’t actually fix the broken relationship. Your house may be lacking the joy (or people) you had hoped for. Maybe today you woke up and decided to go back to sleep because living in the after is hard work (we understand and we are so sorry). No matter what you are experiencing, today, we also recognize a different before and after.
Advent is a season of divine anticipation. A before marked by waiting with bated breath for Jesus to be born, for the world to be made right. And Christmas is the ultimate after. One marked by realized joy and celebration. As we finally place baby Jesus in our nativity scenes and light the Christ candle on our Advent wreaths, we are reminded that Jesus’ birth means that God is with us, the Emmanuel.
God is with us in our before and afters. God is with us in our pain and joy. God is with us during our beginnings and endings. God is with us when we find the courage to hope for a bigger story even in our own impossible situations. God is with us when we are surprised by the joy that embraces our sorrow and loss. God is with us when we feel a peace that passes all understanding, even when our lives have come undone. God is with us even when our circumstances don’t change. God is with us when we realize God’s love for us, so much that God sent Jesus to us.
The best news is that the love, peace, joy, and hope that comes with God’s presence doesn’t have to end when the clock strikes midnight tonight. It can’t be boxed up and put in storage until next year. We can practice recognizing, embracing, and looking for the presence of God throughout the year. For our God is always with us from this day until the end.
This is the day we’ve been waiting for. Let us rejoice.
PRACTICING ADVENT TOGETHER
Gather your family together over dinner, invite over some friends, or FaceTime your grandkids.
Turn down the lights, gather around the Advent wreath, and read Luke 2:8-20 aloud.
• Light all the candles around the wreath, saving the Christ candle (the white candle in the center) for last and read this blessing from The Lives We Actually Have (p. 224) as a prayer:
God, this is a kind of magic
the way this day shines so strangely,
how it sparkles beyond our understanding.
(Yes, it was a disaster
the way the food turned out this year
and how what’s-her-face said (I told her not to)
What shouldn’t be repeated.
Again this year.)
But, somehow, this day
never fails to awaken a longing
to love well—or at least better—
all those here with us, and those far away,
and to remember with gratitude
those now gone, gone, gone and missed.
What is this mystery?
Our God who set the world spinning
should come down for this one reason:
to love us into a newness.
Not for gain, nor our capitalist fantasies,
but the hope that freely, lavishly,
that we might learn to see, feel, and live Christ’s love.
Thank you.
Christ the Giver and the Gift.