Tuesday, January 2, 2024
Memorial of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Late at night, listening to God
Beloved: Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist.
Why have there been so many sightings of the antichrist over the centuries? Probably it’s because power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Leaders mostly give only lip service to the “idea” of following God with all their heart, soul and mind. Too many factors get in the way, one of which is simply the desire to hold onto power.
I don’t want to be cynical.
I would be just as selfish, just as corruptible.
Until I come across something like this:
Rachel
Herod sent and killed all the children in Bethlehem
who were two years old or under….
Then was heard “Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
—Matthew 23.16, 18
A vulnerable God will upset insecure people.
Tyrants and bullies who fear how fragile we are
will lash out against whoever reminds them.
And the weak and poor, the vulnerable,
and the children, especially the children, will pay.
Rachel weeps for her little ones in a thousand Bethlehems.
In the notes of our carols, hear her wail,
beneath our jingle bells, her devastated silence.
Round yon virgin is dust; in her lap a blanket
with blood and the smell of a baby’s hair.
This is no intrusion on the Christmas story.
It is the story. God comes, fragile among the fragile,
poor and powerless among the poor.
And this child will die young among them.
Pray for those who mourn these days,
and for those who exercise power.
Sharpen the blades of your hope on the stone of grief;
temper your joy with thirst for healing.
Sit with Rachel. Trust that sometimes
the best way to “keep Christ in Christmas”
is to weep. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes
“This is no intrusion on the Christmas story.” But remembering the children of Bethlehem and their deaths threatens the peaceful easy feeling I cherish on Christmas Eve. I often have sat alone on December 24, after a late night church service or watching the midnight Christmas mass at the Vatican, breathing in Christmas scents, lights mostly out except for the colored ones, maybe plunking out a melody on my guitar.
Thinking again though, maybe that’s when what Steve calls the “thirst for healing” awakens in me. I don’t stand directly in the way of the tanks, or the murderers who call themselves politicians. But I do sit with Rachel. I do weep. And I do pray.
I write you these things about those who would deceive you. As for you, the anointing that you received from him remains in you, so that you do not need anyone to teach you. His anointing teaches you about everything and is true.
(1 John 2, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1, John 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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