A Devotion for Risky Love
Luke 1:26-38 (NRSV)
This announcement to Mary is what we in the church now call “The Annunciation.”
Now, we have the gift of hindsight when we read the Annunciation, we know that Mary bears a child, the King of Jews, Jesus, was indeed born at the perfect time
But I’m sure Mary looked around her – at her life and circumstances – and said
“Really? Here? Now?”
“First, I am a young, unwed girl, poor and uncertain. At a time where rulers are battling and the land is being fought over? Now?”
And the very place of labor and birth – a stable, a smelly, dirty place amongst animals? Here?”
And Mary, after getting over the initial shock – the Greek word Luke uses to describe her reaction means something like “profoundly unsettled, agitated, disturbed, or terrified.” In other words, she is completely freaked out – of hearing an angel call out to her, responds “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Was Mary just very brave? Or just very excited about being a mom? Maybe, but more than that, maybe Mary’s response to the call to bear the Christ child is not just as a matter of bravery or sentimental love, but rather a revolutionary, all-encompassing YES.
A YES, not because she was fearless – I’m sure she was scared out of her mind, or confident in her own capabilities, but a YES in spite of fear, in spite of her own inadequacies. You see, Mary let love be born even though she didn’t know what would come next. She knew that she would bear a child who was the son of God, who was love incarnate- but the details of it all probably seemed fuzzy at best.
Madeleine L’Engle says it best:
The Risk of Birth
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a nova lighting the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by greed & pride the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
Mary still says yes, yes to the risk of love being born in a world of hurt. She says yes to the risk that love might survive in midst of darkness. Mary names the impossible possibility. God is about to enter into the riskiness of this particular human life overshadowed by sickness, poverty and political oppression, and through it, God will redeem everything.
Advent, 5 years ago was probably the first year that I could fully grasp what this “risky love” looked like and felt like. You see, on Nov. 9th, 2013, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. My labor was hard, but she was healthy, and she was here. A week after she was born, 4 short days after we left the hospital, that baby girl spiked a fever and it kept rising. One long ER visit, many tests, and hundreds of tears found us sitting in a room in the Pediatric ICU with a very sick baby. I remember asking God or what a dear friend likes to call “silent pray-yelling,” “Why?” God, why would this baby, who I carried for 9 months, who I labored days for, who I fell in love with even before I saw her face, why would I have to watch this baby suffer? What kind of love is this?”
When Travis and I got pregnant with both of our kids, I of course, knew that they could and would get sick; I knew they would be hurt, would suffer. And yet I still longed for their birth – despite all of the risks that parenting and birth, and life meant, I still wanted in.
And so, it was in that hospital room that I realized what a risk it was to love something so much. It is a radical thing to let love in, to allow it to rule. But it is far and away, the closest to the heart of Christ that we can come.
You see, in risking love, we do the very thing that God has done. We pour out our very being, and lay down our lives for another. Our God, who put on flesh for us, was born and died for us, risked his very life for us.
And I know for many of you, this season is a difficult one. Whether it is because this has been a year of loss and you cannot be with someone you love – or because it is actually painful TO be with family or friends, this might be a time of year you’d rather skip. Christmas in particular can put a magnifying glass on our emotional state. If we’re in a joyful season already, we may feel that much more joyful; but if we’re in a place where hurt and pain are present, this time can make the days that much more difficult.
To those of you who are sitting in a season of hurt, hear the words of the angel Gabriel: “Do not be afraid.” Gabriel, God’s messenger, speaking on behalf of God, does not say that the news that he has to share is not scary, that it is not going to be difficult to hear, or difficult to bear.
Instead, he calms Mary, and us, in our fear. He comes to be with us, in that fear, meets us where we are. The Incarnation – literally God putting on flesh – muscles and skin and breakable bones and emotions, experiencing all the ways in which we are fully human – this is God settling our fear not by seeking vengeance or retribution, but by entering into it with us.
God waits with us as we bear the weight of life.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, later in his life, Jesus uses a lot of metaphors and stories that center on dirt– the parable of the talents, where something of value was found buried in the dirt. And the parable of the farmer who sows seed on the dirty, rocky ground.
Jesus is very familiar with dirty, grimy, dusty places, because it is from these very places that he was born. You see, God did not clean the world, sanitize the scene, straighten out affairs, before sending His son. Nor does God expect or require a spotless scene in which to enter into our lives. No, in the midst of brokenness, uncertainty, and very tangible darkness and grime, that’s when love was born.
And so, I want to offer this word today of risky love as two sides of one coin– that this love that has come to us in Christ Jesus, it is both a promise and a challenge.
First, it is a promise that if you are in a place where God seems distant, or it seems that this Christ child could never make a difference, that love could never break through – listen to Gabriel’s parting words to Mary: “With God, all things are possible.”
God has entered into the muck of our lives and creation and has remade and is remaking all things new. The love that God risked when Jesus was born is the very love that can enter into whatever brokenness might be staring you in the face right now.
God has risked Godself before in offering Christ to us and continues to risk great love so that we might have life and have it abundantly.
This risky love is also a challenge – if you feel like you’re in a place where the seas are smooth and life is A-OK, where might you risk love? Where might God be beckoning you to risk greatly? To risk hurt or shame or disappointment or grief so that you may, like Christ, draw close to another’s suffering? To offer grace to someone who hasn’t asked for it; to turn a cheek or break bread or bear grievances – these are all risky. And they are where the Christ child calls us.
For it was no time for a child to be born, this is no time for a child to be born….and yet love took and still takes the risk of birth.
In Advent love,
Chaplain Amy
Now, we have the gift of hindsight when we read the Annunciation, we know that Mary bears a child, the King of Jews, Jesus, was indeed born at the perfect time
But I’m sure Mary looked around her – at her life and circumstances – and said
“Really? Here? Now?”
“First, I am a young, unwed girl, poor and uncertain. At a time where rulers are battling and the land is being fought over? Now?”
And the very place of labor and birth – a stable, a smelly, dirty place amongst animals? Here?”
And Mary, after getting over the initial shock – the Greek word Luke uses to describe her reaction means something like “profoundly unsettled, agitated, disturbed, or terrified.” In other words, she is completely freaked out – of hearing an angel call out to her, responds “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
Was Mary just very brave? Or just very excited about being a mom? Maybe, but more than that, maybe Mary’s response to the call to bear the Christ child is not just as a matter of bravery or sentimental love, but rather a revolutionary, all-encompassing YES.
A YES, not because she was fearless – I’m sure she was scared out of her mind, or confident in her own capabilities, but a YES in spite of fear, in spite of her own inadequacies. You see, Mary let love be born even though she didn’t know what would come next. She knew that she would bear a child who was the son of God, who was love incarnate- but the details of it all probably seemed fuzzy at best.
Madeleine L’Engle says it best:
The Risk of Birth
This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a nova lighting the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.
That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn–
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.
When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by greed & pride the sky is torn–
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.
Mary still says yes, yes to the risk of love being born in a world of hurt. She says yes to the risk that love might survive in midst of darkness. Mary names the impossible possibility. God is about to enter into the riskiness of this particular human life overshadowed by sickness, poverty and political oppression, and through it, God will redeem everything.
Advent, 5 years ago was probably the first year that I could fully grasp what this “risky love” looked like and felt like. You see, on Nov. 9th, 2013, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. My labor was hard, but she was healthy, and she was here. A week after she was born, 4 short days after we left the hospital, that baby girl spiked a fever and it kept rising. One long ER visit, many tests, and hundreds of tears found us sitting in a room in the Pediatric ICU with a very sick baby. I remember asking God or what a dear friend likes to call “silent pray-yelling,” “Why?” God, why would this baby, who I carried for 9 months, who I labored days for, who I fell in love with even before I saw her face, why would I have to watch this baby suffer? What kind of love is this?”
When Travis and I got pregnant with both of our kids, I of course, knew that they could and would get sick; I knew they would be hurt, would suffer. And yet I still longed for their birth – despite all of the risks that parenting and birth, and life meant, I still wanted in.
And so, it was in that hospital room that I realized what a risk it was to love something so much. It is a radical thing to let love in, to allow it to rule. But it is far and away, the closest to the heart of Christ that we can come.
You see, in risking love, we do the very thing that God has done. We pour out our very being, and lay down our lives for another. Our God, who put on flesh for us, was born and died for us, risked his very life for us.
And I know for many of you, this season is a difficult one. Whether it is because this has been a year of loss and you cannot be with someone you love – or because it is actually painful TO be with family or friends, this might be a time of year you’d rather skip. Christmas in particular can put a magnifying glass on our emotional state. If we’re in a joyful season already, we may feel that much more joyful; but if we’re in a place where hurt and pain are present, this time can make the days that much more difficult.
To those of you who are sitting in a season of hurt, hear the words of the angel Gabriel: “Do not be afraid.” Gabriel, God’s messenger, speaking on behalf of God, does not say that the news that he has to share is not scary, that it is not going to be difficult to hear, or difficult to bear.
Instead, he calms Mary, and us, in our fear. He comes to be with us, in that fear, meets us where we are. The Incarnation – literally God putting on flesh – muscles and skin and breakable bones and emotions, experiencing all the ways in which we are fully human – this is God settling our fear not by seeking vengeance or retribution, but by entering into it with us.
God waits with us as we bear the weight of life.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, later in his life, Jesus uses a lot of metaphors and stories that center on dirt– the parable of the talents, where something of value was found buried in the dirt. And the parable of the farmer who sows seed on the dirty, rocky ground.
Jesus is very familiar with dirty, grimy, dusty places, because it is from these very places that he was born. You see, God did not clean the world, sanitize the scene, straighten out affairs, before sending His son. Nor does God expect or require a spotless scene in which to enter into our lives. No, in the midst of brokenness, uncertainty, and very tangible darkness and grime, that’s when love was born.
And so, I want to offer this word today of risky love as two sides of one coin– that this love that has come to us in Christ Jesus, it is both a promise and a challenge.
First, it is a promise that if you are in a place where God seems distant, or it seems that this Christ child could never make a difference, that love could never break through – listen to Gabriel’s parting words to Mary: “With God, all things are possible.”
God has entered into the muck of our lives and creation and has remade and is remaking all things new. The love that God risked when Jesus was born is the very love that can enter into whatever brokenness might be staring you in the face right now.
God has risked Godself before in offering Christ to us and continues to risk great love so that we might have life and have it abundantly.
This risky love is also a challenge – if you feel like you’re in a place where the seas are smooth and life is A-OK, where might you risk love? Where might God be beckoning you to risk greatly? To risk hurt or shame or disappointment or grief so that you may, like Christ, draw close to another’s suffering? To offer grace to someone who hasn’t asked for it; to turn a cheek or break bread or bear grievances – these are all risky. And they are where the Christ child calls us.
For it was no time for a child to be born, this is no time for a child to be born….and yet love took and still takes the risk of birth.
In Advent love,
Chaplain Amy
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