Have I been here before? The Advent scripture readings on Sundays are familiar. . . I know the cycle of preparation for the birth, the dressing down by John the Baptist, the scary predictions of the end times in the OT . . . I’ve been here before. Or have I?
I come to this 2019 Advent season carrying different burdens and celebrating different joys from the year past. Every year at this time I feel a mix of familiarity and newness. Always, wonder fills me with amazement at the ancient story of the shepherds and Jesus birth and the angels singing “Do not fear”. Do these angels know that in a few nights Joseph, new to parenthood, will have a nightmare that feels all too true and that he will awaken his wife and child and lead them into another country where they will settle in until the crisis in their home territory has passed. Do the angels know this?
Wonder fills me, too, as I look at my tree full of memories. Lit with warm LEDs, nearly every branch holds an angel or a star. There is the angel we brought back from a college visit to Boulder CO. There’s an angel with a violin that a family at my father’s second parish gave me as a child because I had just started lessons on the violin. There are capiz shell stars from my first husband’s ornament collection. There are Moravian star ornaments that Jessie and I made years go. Homespun angels, handmade paper angels, embroidered fabric angels, stars of rusty tin, stars of fancy gold-embossed glass, a Haitian angel with broad hips and colorful wings made from a recycled metal can.
Wonder. Surprised by angels of light in a dark sky, the shepherds’ wonder triggers in them both awe and fear. “What does this mean? What is this for? Why to us? What should we do?” Curiosity wins out over fear and the shepherds go to look for a child in the middle of that strange night. Down the road in a quiet, private space used for sheltering animals, they find a young family and a newborn baby suckling his mother’s breast. I wonder what sense did they make of the angels’ message then? And what about me? What sense have I made of this? Haven’t I been here before?
Yes . . . and no. Yes, I have followed the path of Advent to Christmas Eve many times before. Yes, I have heard (and read) the birth story countless times and imagined myself at the baby’s birth. But the story of the shepherds and angels and baby and his life on earth continues with challenges and dangers that the young parents could not have imagined. We who have traveled their story know very well what is to come in their lives . . . . but not in our own. Although I may know their story, I have no idea of my own to come in 2020.
So yes I’ve been here before. And yet no I haven’t been here before. I am about to step over a threshold into a new year that holds as yet unknown joys and challenges. And I am filled with wonder . . . both awe and a bit of fear.
I am listening for angels who will sing “Fear not” to me. I bid them to come close and sing loudly so I cannot miss the message. “Fear not, Jane. You are loved. You are not alone this year or any year. The one who is born in Bethlehem is with you always.”
Thanks be to God!
P.S. Oh, and angels . . . please sing your “Fear not” message with a catchy tune so (like an earworm) I can never forget it :^)
Pilgrimages and Paths 