Good Morning Friends,
As we contemplate during this season of giving the many blessings we have received and the amazing stories of how God has touched so many, we also meditate on our gift in how we see community through the lens of our faith…through the lens of the local church and the fruit of the spirit joining freely in what God is doing for those in need. Here we begin to see Christmas through the eyes of God, we begin to have hope of having a vision worthy of our Seeing God. Here we humbly and hopefully begin to perceive and emotionally experience the excitement of miracles in action. So, this season, Are You Seeing People Through The Eyes Of Love?
Scripture: And Mary said,
I’m bursting with God-news; I’m dancing the song of my Savior God. God took one good look at me, and look what happened— I’m the most fortunate woman on earth! What God has done for me will never be forgotten, the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others. His mercy flows in wave after wave on those who are in awe before him. He bared his arm and showed his strength, scattered the bluffing braggarts. He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold. He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high. It’s exactly what he promised, beginning with Abraham and right up to now.
Luke 1:46-55 (Message)
No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:12 (NRSV)
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her. In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
Luke 1:26-47 (NRSV)
A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth. Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne; and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days. And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
Revelation 12:1-10 (NRSV)
I looked up and saw a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then I asked, “Where are you going?” He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.” Then the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him, and said to him, “Run, say to that young man: Jerusalem shall be inhabited like villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and animals in it. For I will be a wall of fire all around it, says the Lord, and I will be the glory within it.”
Up, up! Flee from the land of the north, says the Lord; for I have spread you abroad like the four winds of heaven, says the Lord. Up! Escape to Zion, you that live with daughter Babylon. For thus said the Lord of hosts (after his glory sent me) regarding the nations that plundered you: Truly, one who touches you touches the apple of my eye. See now, I am going to raise my hand against them, and they shall become plunder for their own slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me.
Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! For lo, I will come and dwell in your midst, says the Lord. Many nations shall join themselves to the Lord on that day, and shall be my people; and I will dwell in your midst. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. The Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem. Be silent, all people, before the Lord; for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.
Zachariah Chapter 2 (NRSV)
Message: Today, for Catholics, is the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and in places like Immokalee, Florida, with large Mexican populations, people gather together to go from home to home (twelve in all) reenacting Mary and Joseph’s search for a place to stay for the birth of Jesus. They also remember the story of Juan Diego, a Mexican peasant who became the first indigenous Catholic Saint from the Americas. He is said to have been granted an apparition of the Virgin Mary on four separate occasions in December 1531 at the hill outside but now well within metropolitan Mexico City. But people did not initially believe him. The beauty of today’s passages helps us understand and bring meaning to the Catholic celebration that tells of Mary’s story but also is a kind of invitation for our potential role in holy history as well. What is relevant is the story line. Mary is assured and, in a way, gives us assurance as she does to Juan in the storyline. And that proof of the advent is provided in perhaps a much different way for you and that is wonderful too but for those who believe in miracles, who is to limit what God can do. For Juan Diego it comes in an image of the Virgin Mary that is said to have been impressed by a miracle as a pledge of the authenticity of the apparitions on Juan Diego’s cloak. Today replicas of that image is ubiquitous in places like Immokalee. To reach the people in this place it is important to be aware of the perspective knowing that some believe, and some do not. But God loves them all regardless. So today we look at the religious joy of a person who has a share in divinely given salvation. And this is the key to understanding Mary’s blessedness and how we might become blessings as well. Certainly, our roles are not so significant. The part of Mary is a vital and indispensable role in God’s plan for the history of the world. Our roles are less dramatic and yet also resonate in the battle of life. It is about our hearts united with patience and struggle and joy that joins our lives to the eternity of the triumphant Church including all its members. Here heaven and earth come close, allowing us to experience the gift of community and the body as an instrument of knowledge, an instrument of pleasure, pain, procreation, and the vehicle of life that supports the soul. For me this morning as the sun prepares to rise is the message of the blessedness of Mary in the face of what must have been a mind-numbing experience initially until the love of it helps us all to see in a new way.
And So, God loved us enough to send Jesus Christ into the world to let us know what Joy is. Although it took centuries for it to happen, God waited until the time was right, and God took on flesh to intersect the life of a poor young girl by the name of Mary. An angel had come to Mary to let her know that she had been chosen to give birth to a child who would become the savior of the world. The child would be the Son of God who would take away the sins of the world. This was the child of promise. This was the child of pain. This would be the child of joy. And in the story, we realize that a prerequisite of anything good requires trusting enough to love. It is the foundation of today’s scripture and has a message for everyone and every place. In the words today we experience a message of hope in the future for places of poverty being lifted up in a reality of community that honors God and bound together over time in love…. made whole. Here the charge of love, the creator of love, and the crown of love is experienced in community. Here we see God’s love proclaimed in the Word, proven in a child’s birth and a man’s death now perfected in those who believe and abide in God as a living body and witness of the Risen Christ at work in the world through his Spirit. Friends the Spirit of love, the person of love, the compelling author of love is at work connecting, changing lives, and transforming communities around the world and calls you as Mary was called to be part of something very special.
Pray we have a commitment to people and places. Pray we rejoice in the vision of the first born of all creation. Pray we realize that it is not so important that we see God but that He is willing to see us with the eyes of forgiveness. Pray we learn the power of vision through the eyes of love. Pray we love others as God has loved us.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 