Most years, I live in the joy of advent. The thrill of Christmas with all its sights, sounds, smells—it is all life to my soul. But this year feels different. This year, I feel an ache.
Maybe that’s because it’s been a year of birthing. I birthed new things this year—a book, a podcast, new resources and vision. All exciting and full of promise. And yet I feel the pressure and fatigue of the birthing, too.
Or maybe it’s because it’s been a year of loss. I’ve watched my mom age, struggling physically and emotionally. I’ve felt the ache of this new season in her life and mine as she slowly loses independence and I become caregiver.
Or maybe it’s because division and strife are so loud right now. The earth groans with the sounds of discord and injustice. And I groan with it, because things are not as they should be.
Maybe you feel an ache as well. The ache of waiting, longing for a promise to be fulfilled. For things to be set right. For God’s kingdom to come. I wonder if Mary felt it, too.
The angel comes to give her big news. (You’ll find the story in the first chapter of the book of Luke.) She is favored. Chosen. The Spirit will come upon her and she will conceive the life of God, the son of God, a king within her. She asks only a very practical question. How can she, a virgin, conceive? With the angel’s answer, she gives her yes. “Be it done to be according to your will.” And just like that, she steps into history as the mother of Jesus, Emmanuel, God in the flesh.
I wonder if she thought, for even a second, about the cost. She will be questioned by her fiancée and by others who will not understand. She will be viewed by some with scorn. She will live for a time as a refugee. She will watch her son be criticized, rejected, scorned and ultimately tortured. She will ache deeply. Whatever she thinks the promise of God looks like in her life, I doubt she thinks it will look like this. But she gives her yes in hope, in the hope that God is bringing his kingdom to earth.
We are still waiting, longing, groaning for the fullness of this kingdom to come. And God, by Spirit (or perhaps by angel), brings the same invitation to us. He comes not just to be with us, but to be IN us. The breath and life of God born in us and through us to the world. He chooses us as his favored ones. All of us. And he places in us something to be birthed into the world. Something the world desperately needs. Because the kingdom, the setting right of all things, the healing of the earth, comes through us. Through you and me. And we, like Mary, live with the ache of things not yet as they should be.
It’s tempting to give up hope. Hope that God is here with us and IN us. That he is restoring all things through us. But the promise of advent and of Christmas is Christ IN you and me.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.—Colossians 1:27
In this season I hear the question again. Will I continue, amidst the groaning, to choose hope, to believe the angel’s promise: “For no word from God will ever fail.” Mary offers me a way back to hope in her response: “May your word to me be fulfilled.” And so I pray this prayer, not knowing fully the cost, but trusting the promise. The God who is with us and IN us, the God whose love breaks into the world at Christmas and with every breath, will not fail.
Merry Christmas to you and yours! If this strikes a chord with you, you might enjoy the rooted (IN)ten-tionally podcast titled Mary, the Angel, and Luke 1. It’s an imaginative prayer experience designed to take you into the narrative of this story. You can find the podcast on my website, on Apple Podcasts, and on my YouTube and IGTV channels. In this busy season, take a few moments to stop, breath, and connect again with God in you.