JOY: Week Four - Advent Guided Meditation

While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:6,7

            The time has come. This one moment in all the history of the earth when God makes his presence known through the very human birth of his Messiah – Jesus. “The time came.” It has arrived, the final labor and push as Mary delivers to us the long-awaited Savior. Emmanuel. God with Us. Making his home with us. The Divine now knows all of what it means to be human.

·       And so today I am present and attentive to the birthing of God’s presence within me. I take a long, deep, creative breath and pray, “The time has come.”

·       I recognize the pain and laboring involved in the birthing of faith. I consider what it has asked of me throughout my life. What have I relinquished so that I may take hold of Jesus through my faith?

·       In what ways have I needed to persevere, to push through life to come to this moment of birth or re-birth?

·       Now the time has come. This Jesus, born to the world, takes his first breath, a new life conceived and birthed from within me arrives. I look at this new life, awestruck by love.

·       Joy wells up in me as I imagine tending to this life, wrapping it with bands of cloth, to warm it, protect it, embrace it. How can my life swaddle the Christ child in love today?

Blessing

May you recognize when the time arrives each day for new birth,

new mercies, new perspectives.

May your faith yield to hope as you push through the struggles of life.

May you receive the gift of new life in you with awestruck love and expansive joy.

Amen