“Pregnant Again, A Creative Process Unfolds”

“Pregnant Again, A Creative Process Unfolds”

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C, December 22, 2024 rm

Micah 5:2-5a       Psalm 80:1-7       Luke 1:39-55

First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho

Pastor Andy Kennaly

I’m pregnant again. This is what I tell my wife almost every week. Sermon preparation is a creative process that unfolds over several days. We even use terminology like, “The Pastor delivered the sermon,” as a new teaching is shared. A creative process unfolds, from first inklings, to seeds of ideas, nudges of hunches, to more developed thoughts, organized outlines, and a finalized message that hopefully presents a coherent theme. Sometimes, the word ‘unfold’ feels more like ‘unravels’ as the process can be chaotic or feel rushed or forced. But unfold is a better word because even through the dynamics of days, weeks, months, and years, the overlap of love and faithfulness proves life is relentless in expression, and benevolent, even in its mystery.

Do you notice that almost the whole time we’ve been here for the worship service this morning, we’ve used words. Words of welcome, words offering the sentiment of the season, words that share the story of scripture, and words that carry the melodies of songs. Some of the words are familiar, some of the tunes strike a chord as we revisit them every year. There is something about words that our mind cannot get past. Our brains create concepts and thoughts, and our rational way of thinking depends on words to bring definition, to offer shape and structure, and in this way, we find a sense of control.

But words only go so far. Their strength, to define, is limited because that very process is built on negativity. To define something, you mostly decide what it is not. So, words are judging, and along with the thoughts that get attached to the, words exclude just as much if not more than they include. Our brains decide the difference, so our mindset is most often dualistic, caught constantly judging. The more we talk, the more dualism is reinforced. Silence is a great release from the tyranny of noise.

What time is it? (pause, wait for people to shout out clock time) Hmmn? What time is it? (pause, repeat what they said).

What color is it? (pause, repeat) What color is it?

Both questions, what time is it, and what color is it, are questions that attempt to point out the season. While the standard answer when someone asks what time it is involves looking at a clock and giving a chronological answer based on the moment of Earth rotation at some point in the day or night, there are other answers. We are also in seasons. Autumn has officially yielded to winter, and Advent wraps up just as we unwrap Christmas. Seasons have their own sense of time.

The color for Advent depends. Sometimes church traditions observe blue as a color for Advent, especially in the Anglican church, but usually it’s purple because most people think preparing for Christmas is like a mini version of Lent leading up to Easter when purple focuses on repentance. Blue has more to do with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and royalty. But Christmas day and the season of Christmas uses white, a shining, bright white that symbolizes transfiguration, a major change as God’s divinity is revealed.

To ask “what color is it?” is a time question that doesn’t need words but uses colors as liturgical symbols, as tools of the church to help us worship. Technically, if someone who were not color-blind were to instantly appear right here on the floor, they could look around and notice three purple candles, one pink one, and the white one in the middle, but only the three purple ones and the pink one are lit, so the Fourth Sunday of Advent it is. They could look around and see these purple paraments, my (purple or blue) stole, and along with decorations like the tree, poinsettias, and manger scenes with the wise travelers not quite there yet; they would know it’s almost Christmas, we’re getting close.

Symbols have an intensity about them that communicate time without the need for judgment through words or the chronological measurement of clocks. Some things happen in the world that are qualitative more than quantitative, and the revelation of Christ is among those happenings. The birth of Jesus in very specific ways helps us drop the specifics. The historical scene of Mary and Joseph gathered around their newborn declares a larger truth about the nature of Nature, about the creation of Creation, about the reality of Reality.

Thomas Merton was a monk at a monastery in Kentucky and he did a lot of writing. His words try to point to that beyond words, and in a book called, Entering the Silence, he points us to the larger story of Christmas, which is about Christ becoming flesh, about Spirit that merges with matter. He says,

“When my tongue is silent, I can rest in the silence of the forest.

When my imagination is silent, the forest speaks to me, tells me of its unreality and of the Reality of God.

But when my mind is silent, then the forest suddenly becomes magnificently real and blazes transparently with the Reality of God.

For now I know that the Creation, which first seems to reveal him in concepts, then seems to hide him by the same concepts, finally is revealed in him, in the Holy Spirit.

And we who are in God find ourselves united in him with all that springs from him. This is prayer, and this is glory!”

(Thomas Merton, Entering the Silence: Becoming a Monk and Writer (Journals, II: 1941–1952). HarperOne, 1996, p. 471)

Today we read certain scriptures about specific people and places, like Bethlehem of Ephrathah who are one of the little clans of Judah, and like Mary, who rejoices for God has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant. What it says in these specifics applies in more general ways as a pattern. What happens to Bethlehem and Mary points to larger truths about what happens to us as we engage with the Spirit in creative processes that bring life in Christ’s name. That God lifts the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, but sends the rich away empty is a call for humility, for offering, to make ourselves available for the work of the Christ. Advent is archetypal.

As we prayerfully gather in the presence of glory, many symbols of the season touch our heart like the warmth of flames that burn to reveal light, or the life of flowers and plants brought indoors during the longest nights of the year. Especially with the commercialization of the Christmas season, may we not get caught in the distractions and limitations of our own conditioned thoughts, but be open and awake to the Christ gift that transcends time and space. May the intensities of the season inspire our living as Jesus continues to be born in us, co-creators, day by day, in every way, for Love has spoken with power beyond words.

Thanks be to God! Amen.