Advent Basket Day 13 & St Lucia Day

I'm off again early this morning for a women's breakfast at church. The coffee machine is broken and I figured it out last night at a MOPS Christmas event at church. So I'm feeling the need to be there early to help with the coffee. I typically help with the decorating at these women's events, but today, women volunteered to decorate a table with their own china and stuff. Then this afternoon some artist friends are coming over and we're felting!

Today's Advent reading is Matthew 5:13 and Colossains 4:6. The miniature is a little salt shaker. The paper reads: "What is this used for? We are to be salt?"

Because of our Swedish heritage, we've celebrated St Lucia day for years. I have a Lucia doll that's 30 years old. Tradition has the oldest daughter wear a candle wreath on her head and serve breakfast treats in bed.

Lucia, or Lucy, means "light." Lucia was born in the third century in Sicily of Greek parentage. She was brought up Christian by her mother in times of great persecution. Lucia had been betrothed to a pagan. With her mother's permission she gave her dowry away to persons in need. Her betrothed was furious and denounced her as a Christian. She was martyred in 304, still clinging to her faith in Christ. Lucia held the Light of Christ for all to see in the cultural darkness.

The Scandinavians really celebrate her day. At this time of year the sun barely makes it over the horizon (Monte is there now, and will be able to tell me about it, and I just video chatted with Kimberley. WOW, technology is amazing - across the ocean, seeing and talking to one another for free! She held her computer up scanning the hotel lobby for me to see the setting and the decor.), so they hold great festivals of lights. It is believed her story reached them through missionary Vikings, and was strengthened by a legend:

In the Middle Ages there was a famine in Sweden, "Varmland." Just when the starving people were giving up hope, a huge ship appeared. The boat contained food, and clothes. They saw a maiden in white with a glowing crown and long golden hair at the ship's helm. Once the cargo was unloaded the ship vanished. They believe the maiden to be Santa Lucia.

Years ago, I used to always make something ahead, like lucia buns or muffins, and had the coffee pot ready to push the on-button (but I'm home alone and drinking tea and heated a rhubarb, blueberry scone from Great Harvest Bread). We also talked of possibilities the kids could do for themselves like hot cocoa. Then Heather (and Travis) could "surprise" us in the morning.

After reading Matt 5:14-16, sing "This Little Light of Mine." You could read Matt 10:26-33 to connect with Lucia standing in her faith even to the point of death. It killed her body but not her soul. I also think of Jesus' parable of the 10 bridesmaids who took their lamps to meet the bridegroom. Five were prepared, awake, and aware to see the bridegroom.

If we're turned in on ourselves, we cannot reflect the light of God's likeness. But if we're awake and aware in Jesus, we can see God in our midst in our daily lives and reflect His image to those we come in contact with.

Advent Basket Day 12 & Happenings

I'm going to be leaving tomorrow morning early to take Monte and Kimberley to the airport. They are flying to Norway. Kimberley and her husband Paul are from Calgary, Canada, and have been here before, and on geology field trips with Monte and Stan. Paul is a professor, and Kimberley returned to college and just graduated in geology, and the Norwegians want her to come over to Norway cuz she's being hired to help in their Calgary office. Kimberley is delightful, and I'm thinking they just want to have her bubbly personality as a part of the team, not to mention her brilliant brain!

So I'll be (almost - today is Dawson's last day of college and he'll be around off and on) home alone for awhile. I always enjoy these times of aloneness. I do the hermit, contemplative thing quite well.

Heather called from Texas today to ask me about making gingerbread houses. She's about to do it with a friend. We did it when they were growing up, always on the lookout for candy and things that would be cool for decorating. Like Triscit or Wheat Thin crackers for roof shingles, or straight pretzels for log cabin look or fencing. Great memories.

Advent day 12's scripture read is Philippians 2:1-11. The miniature is a cross. The paper says, "This reminds us of Jesus' love."

Advent Basket Day 11

Today's Advent bag miniature is a heart - "This is a symbol of love. Jesus speaks of love." Read Matthew 22:37-40.

I like sitting and imagining, often putting myself in other's shoes. Well in Jesus' sandals I've already posted during Advent about Jesus growing up knowing his genealogy. Jesus heard, probably asking Mary to tell him the stories over and over, of Tamar or Rahab or Ruth or Bathsheba ... And women weren't usually listed in genealogies, but throughout the Gospels you see Jesus living out the results of those stories.

And I visualize Jesus growing up watching his mother every Friday evening lighting the Sabbath candles just before sundown, saying a blessing, as did every woman of every Jewish household every Friday evening. And too, like every other good Jew, Jesus probably said the Shema two times a day.

When asked by an expert in the law the most important commandment Jesus shaped his own version of the Shema. Typically Jews quoted Deuteronomy 6:4-9 two times a day. Jesus summarized it and added a verse from Leviticus 19:18. So instead of a Love-God Shema, Jesus made it a Love-God-and-Others Shema. Making loving others a part of his own version of the Jewish creed shows that he sees loving others as central to our spiritual formation.

So, a daily mantra or Shema we might say is the Jesus Creed:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.

So as I sit, walk by the way, lie down, and especially when I rise, I will say to myself Jesus' Shema. As Jesus said, "There is no commandment greater than this".

Advent Basket Day 10

Today's Advent read is John 9:1-7. The miniature is a small bar of soap. And the paper reads, "Do you like to wash? Happy time when met Jesus."

Yes, Jesus can bring healing and happiness. The disciples were asking questions of "Why?" which I've heard is not a good question to ask. They were looking for someone, something, to blame. Jesus said, "You're asking the wrong question ... Look instead for what God can do".

Read the whole chapter - not so happy a time! His simple story of mud and washing was not accepted. "All I know is, I once was blind ... but now I see." 

Who is blind here?!

Advent Basket Day 9

Focusing on Jesus' ministry daily advent, the bag for December 9 has a piece of a road map in it. I had ripped a piece from a Colorado map that shows Evergreen and then folded it up.

Read John 14: 1-6. "We use a map when we travel. Jesus can be our guide."

The word Trinity may not actually be in scripture, but what it means is there, and this chapter 14 of John spells it out beautifully. Though to the disciples it's still all a riddle, to us, it takes us past the "We ... Us ... Our" we've been given prior to this passage.

Jesus is soon to leave the disciples. They've lived with Him for three years. While they're hoping for their physical place in time to change for the better, with Jesus as ruler, they've missed the deeper meanings of Kingdom that Jesus keeps talking about. They'll put it all together as they wait in the upper room after Jesus leaves them ...

Sit with John 14. Jesus tells the disciples, "it's to your advantage that I go away ..." 

The world seems a mess. "Let not your hearts be troubled ... Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives ... I am the way (the road), and the truth, and the life ... I will not leave you as orphans ... Because I live, you will live ... I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you ... Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

Ambrose / Immaculate Conception

Yesterday, Dec 7, was Ambrose's calendar day. He was trained in rhetoric and the law, was a governor, and became Bishop of Milan in 374. He was a great preacher and lecturer. It was he who converted Augustine, showing him that a person of intelligence could find the Christian faith totally satisfying. When baptizing people, he first washed their feet, which was not customary.

The one thing that sticks out to me is that Augustine was amazed at Ambrose reading silently to himself. The history of the written language is fascinating. We just think it's been forever as currently is, but originally, everything had been oral. Homer and Plato were the first persons to have things written (prior to that only history of kings and kingdoms and laws were written - like on papyrus and in clay). They were uncomfortable with their writing. And still it was not read silently. It boggles my mind. They say we're returning to a more oral society with the media today. I think we've got a good mix.

Ambrose lived at the time Arianism was strong. In his locality he set up separation of church and state since the state was made up of many Arian/pagan people. Ambrose is one of the Fathers of the church. He wrote many commentaries on scripture, and books on the Trinity. Since Arianism did not believe in the deity of Jesus, Ambrose was a strong contender for the Nicene Creed and it's wording - even promoting devotion to Mary as Jesus' virgin mother. Ambrose also championed congregational singing and composed a number of hymns. The singing in his church was written about by people.

Ambrose also introduced allegorical interpratation of scripture to the west. He admitted a literal sense, but sought everywhere a deeper mystical meaning that he converted into practical instruction for Christian life. Ambrose also broke away from a strong legalism, and Augustine, his pupil carried on writing about grace.

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. You'd think of Jesus and the Incarnation, but no, it's what's believed of Mary's conception. It seems that Mary's parents did not 'couple' in 'human mire' - taking no pleasure in the act and not conceived with the taint of original sin. Thus a fit vessel for God's son to be hatched in. It's been a hotly debated thing for years.

We've come a long way baby! I don't know how many people still think of sex in marriage as dirty and evil. If God did not like our humanness, why did he choose to enter history as a seed in a womb and go through the birth process and be laid in an animal feed trough, needing to be nursed and burped and diapers changed, and announce his birth first to the lowest of society, dirty shepherds! There's such joy in sex as the Sacrament of Marriage!

My thoughts remember the picture on the Sistine Chapel where God stretches out his hand to Adam, calling him out of the dirt of the earth, kissing into him his breath of Life. How beautifully humanity is created. And God stretches out his arms to those who wait for his touch.

Advent Basket Day 8

As we feel our Advent bags, trying to guess what's inside, most of the items have a hardness to them. Today's bag is squishy soft (other than the slip of paper). Day 8 has two cotton balls in it. Maybe you're starting to catch on, but my Advent Basket days, as we're waiting for the coming of the Messiah, remembering His entering our history, our chronos time, are focused on Jesus' Ministry.

Two cotton balls? Well, we already encountered one account of Jesus healing a deaf person's ears. That would be my first guess. What else might cotton balls be for? I may not have cotton balls on hand, but I've wadded up Kleenex to put in my ears if there's a cold wind ...

Matthew 8:23-27 is the suggested scripture read for the day and the paper says, "Cotton can muffle loud noises when in our ears. Some one controls the weather."

I sat with the three gospel accounts. John has the time Jesus walked on water. The phrases that popped out at me were: "Do not be afraid ... Have you no faith? ... Why can't you trust Me?"

Advent Sunday 2

This second week's candle in the Advent wreath is the Bethlehem candle. The bedraggled Joseph and Mary searched for a place to sleep.

"Love" was born in Bethlehem and Love asks us to be open.

I love the song "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" written around 1868 by Phillip Brooks. During a sabbatical he traveled from Jerusalem to Bethlehem by horseback on Dec 24, imagining Mary and Joseph on their journey and a field of the shepherds. He was overcome by the beauty and felt the peace. Then he attended a five hour service at the Church of the Nativity. This experience never left Brooks and he wrote the song for his church's children's choir to sing.

"How proper it is that Christmas should follow Advent. For him who looks toward the future, the manger is situated on Golgotha, and the cross has already been raised in Bethlehem."
- Dag Hammarskjold


This reminds me of a drawing a friend's son drew while doodling in church.

Advent Basket Day 7

Day 7 miniature in my Advent Basket bag? A tiny loaf of bread. I can't remember if I bought it, but I'm guessing I baked it - taking a tiny piece of dough off one of my 6 loaves of bread I grind flour for and bake to freeze regularly. After letting it dry, I probably varnished it.

The suggested scripture to read is Matthew 14:13-21, and the writing says, "We eat bread. Jesus made a lot out of little." All four Gospels tell this story, and pretty similarly too, except John in chapter six.

In the first three Gospels the story follows the beheading of John the Baptist. Last year I did a post titled "Yes". Our church was going through an emotional upheaval and I spent a lot of the Advent season sitting with the nativity setting, putting myself in their shoes (sandals), starting with the genealogy, listening the stories Jesus grew up with, including those of the four women. In the "Yes" post I walked with Mary to Elizabeth's home, and the baby John leapt in her womb, the first to recognize the Incarnate God, in Mary's womb. And now I'm wondering what Jesus felt when he heard of his cousin John's death?

We see a 'moved to compassion' Jesus when seeing the large crowd of people following Him. He knows they want to see more miracles. It sounds like they, the disciples and Jesus, are exhausted. Jesus feeds the crowd. Now beyond just seeing miracles, they're going to want to follow Him for full bellies. I'm imagining this miracle was more for the disciples than for the people.

I posted on Andrew's calendar day about his noticing a boy with fish and loaves of bread. Buy food for all those people? Were there stores around? Did homes always have a lot of bread on hand for someone to buy? Having seen Jesus do all sorts of miracles would my mind immediately turn to the possibilities of all Jesus could do? Do I today, knowing the whole story - that resurrection power - think first of letting go and letting Jesus do?

John 6 carries the story further: Jesus tells the people, who he knows want to make him king so he can meet all their physical needs, that He's talking about a spiritual realm, an eternal kingdom. Beyond manna in the wilderness to the Bread of Life. "My flesh is true food ... whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life" WAIT! That's weird! I'd probably walk away grumbling too, and hungry.

I'm sure glad God drew me! romanced me, wooed me to Him!

Advent Basket Day 6

Once upon a time ... Who doesn't love a great story?! Some tell us about familiar things and some are from long ago and far away. Some stories are told as truth, some are believed only by children. Stories appeal to our imagination. They lift us out of the day-to-day and take us to a different, more fantastic place.

I just posted about the value of story, like the St Nicholas story. Jesus' birth sounds like many popular stories. We read of singing mice, fairy godmothers, talking animals; and we read about singing angels, wise men guided by stars, a birth in a stable ... God becoming human. We read of charming princes, pumpkins becoming carriages; and of a virgin birth, fulfilled prophecy, a humble child who grew up and healed the blind and sick.

Bag 6 of my Advent Basket has a bell in it. The paper says, "This makes noise. Read Mark 7:31-37. This man could not hear this until he met Jesus."

This is one of those fantastical and miraculous stories: Jesus put his fingers in a deaf man's ears and some spit on his tongue. He looked up in the sky and said, "Ephphatha!" And it happened. The man's hearing was clear and his speech plain - just like that.

Jesus' story is different. His story offers unmerited grace, not what we deserve. Because of His love, we get way more than we deserve. Jesus is real and it matters what we do with Jesus. There's very little at stake if we don't believe in Santa or Cinderella. What if we don't believe in Jesus' claims and accept the whole story of Jesus - His birth, death, and resurrection. Jesus said, "I am come that you might have life and have it in abundance."

Once upon a time ... Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Those who believe in Him ... will live happily ever after. Everyone loves a good story. But this is a story like no other.

Santa lives at the North Pole - Jesus is everywhere.
Santa comes but once a year - Jesus is an ever present help.
Jesus is as close as the mention of His name.
Santa lets you sit on his lap - Jesus lets you rest in His arms.
Santa has a belly like a bowl full of jelly -
Jesus has a heart full of love.
All Santa can offer is goodies and "Ho, ho, ho" -
Jesus meets our needs, offering healing, help, and hope.
Santa says, "You better not cry" -
Jesus says, "Cast all your cares on Me for I care for you."
Santa's little helpers make toys -
Jesus makes new life, mends wounded hearts ...
Santa may make you chuckle - Jesus gives joy.
While Santa puts gifts under your tree -
Jesus became our gift and died on a tree.