The insomniac...

It is just before 4 a.m., I have been awake since 2.  Burdened with such needs for prayer for friends and loved ones 3-5a.m. tends to be my "holy" time of prayer.  I don't plan it that way. I don't want it that way, but this has been my lot for the past several years. I have embraced it.  Well, ok, I have gently, hugged it because let's be honest, I have no choice.  Well no good choice that is.

It is dark outside, my pellet stove is going, and I am nestled into my "special" chair, the chair we bought when I was going through chemo, and the chair in which I met--reluctantly--with my Lord in my dark night of the soul, to borrow a phrase from days long past by various people of God describing the struggles, the doubts, and the discouragements of even the most admirable of “saints.”

My position in my special chair, the darkness, even the time of year was pretty much identical to "that night."  The only significant difference this night is the absence of my mini-Schnauzer Gus, who has since preceded my departure from this life.  He was witness to "that night."  It was an agonizing night, pain unspeakable, from a post-op side-effect the result of a surgical intervention a couple days before. When one is either immune to most pain killers and allergic to opiates, there is no relief.  

As the hours went on I was crying out to the Lord both literally and prayerfully asking, begging, pleading for some relief, just diminishment of the pain.  It seemed, as I remember a seminary professor once saying, that that ceiling was brass with my prayers just bouncing back never making it to the throne room of God. I expect some of you have been there a time or two yourself.

This night, however was different, very different.  Gazing into the flames hypnotically licking the glass of the window of my warmth, there was no pain, not physical anyway, only the awareness that comes with hindsight that sometime in the never-ending extremity of my anguish, I awoke from a slumber.  I wasn't even aware of it, I couldn't tell you exactly when it happened, only that it did.

I cannot look back on that night--even when so graphically portrayed in all the HD glory of my wonderment, as anything but one of the most holy meetings with God in my life.  The circumstances do not fit such a description but as far as I am concerned, it was--again in hindsight--the mingling of His holy Majesty--shrouded in the eternal "musterion" of His Deity.

I do not ever want to repeat it, but I review "that night" as a highlight of my walk with the Lord and wouldn't rescind it if I had the choice.  Maybe that is what faith is.  It doesn't always makes sense, and yet the Creator makes it sensible in His own way and own time. To God be the Glory.

Why "Merry Christmas?"

For the past week or so I have been concentrating on Luke’s Christmas narrative between Gabriel and Mary. Visiting a well-worn pericope and meditating on it allowing the Lord to take my thoughts wherever He  may lead, is a beneficial practice. (Note--I am not implying present day inspiration of the infallible type.) 

The angel Gabriel makes a rather startling visit to Mary with words from which one could fill the pages of a book.  The heavenly messenger announces to her, "Hail, favored one! The Lord is with you."  (Luke 1:28)  Like I said, well know, well-worn, ho hum, a little yawn perhaps, but let’s get on to the good stuff right? But let’s pause.  A unique and peculiar favor was set upon the adolescent by the singular, unilateral decision/action on the part of the Almighty.  The result; she was “highly favored.” 

Gabriel’s words to Mary, though I have read them innumerable times, resounded, “Immanuel—God With Us.” How had I never seen this before? Mary wasn’t just special, she wasn’t just favored, she was “highly favored” not because of anything Mary brought to the table, but because God was with her.  Mary’s favor wasn’t defined only by the fact that she was a unique vessel used by the Creator to bring a baby into the world for our sake, but the very presence of God in an abiding way was her favor. Now let’s go back several centuries.

When Israel was facing certain destruction from their enemies, the prophet Isaiah gives prophetic utterance to assure them their doom is not on the horizon and gives them Divine reassurance.  The prophet speaks:  ""Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel."  (Isaiah 7:14)

IN THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE DAY, a sign coming hundreds of years later wasn’t going to assuage terrible fear and shaking knees.  God’s people needed to know NOW that God was in fact with them, God was on their side. And so Mahershalalhashbaz (no I didn’t just fall on my keyboard) is born fulfilling the words and conditions of the prophetic encouragement thus giving God’s people tangible proof that He was indeed with them taking up their cause.

Back to Mary’s day:  The virgin is told she is highly favored because God is with her and in His being with her God would come to Earth--God in the flesh—“Immanuel, God With Us”—making all who embrace Him “highly favored” for God is with us as well.  

And that is why we say, “Merry Christmas!”