mystery

Understanding the Mystery of your Incarnation

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Adoration of the Christ Child, School of Jan Joest, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
 
O Lord Jesus Christ,
   make me worthy to understand
   the profound mystery of your holy incarnation,
   which you have worked for our sake and for our salvation.
Truly there is nothing so great and wonderful as this,
   that you, my God, who are the creator of all things,
   should become a creature,
   so that we should become like God.
You have humbled yourself and made yourself small
   that we might be made mighty.
You have taken the form of a servant,
   so that you might confer upon us a royal and divine beauty.

You, who are beyond our understanding,
   have made yourself understandable to us in Jesus Christ.
You, who are the uncreated God,
   have made yourself a creature for us.
You, who are the untouchable One,
   have made yourself touchable to us.
You, who are most high,
   make us capable of understanding
   your amazing love
   and the wonderful things you have done for us.
Make us able to understand the mystery of your incarnation,
   the mystery of your life, example and doctrine,
   the mystery of your cross and Passion,
   the mystery of your resurrection and ascension.

Angela of Foligno 1248-1309 Italian Franciscan tertiary
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Hebrews 1:1-3

Long ago, at many times and in many ways,
    God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
    but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,
    whom he appointed the heir of all things,
    through whom also he created the world.
He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,
    and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
After making purification for sins,
    he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high
 
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How do you understand the incarnation of God’s son?

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Come, O true Light

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Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, via Flickr
 
Come, O true Light!
Come, O eternal life!
Come, O hidden mystery!
Come, O indescribable treasure!
Come, O powerful one,
    who always creates and re-creates and transforms
    by your will alone!

Come, you whom my wretched soul
     has desired and does desire!
Come, you who alone go to the lonely
    for as you see I am lonely!
Come, you who have separated me from everything
    and made me solitary in this world!
Come, you who have become yourself desire in me,
    who have made me desire you,
    the absolutely inaccessible one!

Yea, O Master, just as you remembered me,
    when I was in the world
    and, in the midst of my ignorance,
    you chose me and separated me from this world
    and set me before your glorious face,
so now keep me interiorly,
    by your dwelling within me,
    forever upright, resolute;
that by perpetually seeing you,
    I, the corpse, may live;
that by possessing you,
    I, the beggar, may always be rich,
    richer than kings;
that by eating you and by drinking you,
    by putting you on at each moment,
I go from delight to delight
    in inexpressible blessings.

Symeon the New Theologian 949–1022 Byzantine Orthodox monk
source
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John 1:9-10

The true light, which gives light to everyone,
    was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world was made through him,
    yet the world did not know him.
 
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When have you experienced the presence and love of God most powerfully?
Remember some of those times in prayer and praise.
 

help us walk with Joseph

/ Eric Mathews / 1 Comment
The Dream of Saint Joseph, Champaigne, c.1642, The National Gallery UK
 
Help us to walk with Joseph
   into the darkness,
   the not knowing.
Having to marry the mystery
   before everything else.
Surrendering all claim
   to outcomes or knowledge of them,
committing to the love at hand,
   and it was enough.
The very undoing that confounded him
   was the love that found him.
The answer he sought was no answer,
   but only presence,
this woman who also could not be afraid,
this child who could not be revealed
   until after he said yes,
this God, who was not at the end of the journey
   but his companion on the journey
   and the dark road itself, Emmanuel.

We have to say yes
   before anything, don’t we?
Joseph, walk with me.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes, American Methodist pastor
unfoldinglight.net
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Matthew 1:20

But after he had considered this,
an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,
    because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
 
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When has God brought you to a place that was unknown to you?  
Looking back, how did God shape you on the journey?

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An Unfathomable Mystery

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
ecce homo by Honoré Daumier, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
God, we understand the gospel 
    to be an incomprehensible reversal
    of all righteous and pious thinking.
You declare yourself to be guilty to the world
    and thereby extinguish the guilt of the world.
You yourself take the humiliating path of reconciliation
    and thereby set the world free.
You want to be guilty of our guilt
    and take upon yourself the punishment and suffering
    that this guilt brought to us.
You stand in for godlessness, love stands in for hate,
    the Holy One for the sinner.
Now there is no longer any godlessness, any hate,
    that you have not taken upon yourself, 
    suffered and atoned for.
Now there is no more reality and no more world 
    that is not reconciled with you and in peace.
That is what you did in your beloved Son Jesus Christ.
 
“Behold the man!”
See the incarnate God,
    the unfathomable mystery of your love for the world.
You love human beings.
You love the world – 
    not ideal human beings, but people as they are,
    not an ideal world, but the real world.
 
after Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906 – 1945, German  theologian and martyr
 
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For this is how God loved the world: 
He gave his one and only Son, 
    so that everyone who believes in him 
    will not perish but have eternal life.

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the wonder of his Ascension

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Ascension of Christ, Pietro della Vecchia, Wikimedia Commons
 
 
Almighty God,
We come today reminded of your greatness and glory,
your sovereign power and eternal purpose
all expressed so wonderfully in Jesus Christ, our Lord,
Risen and Ascended.

We thank you for the wonder of Ascension,
that marvelous yet mysterious moment
in the life of the Apostles
which left them gazing heavenwards in confusion
yet departing in joy.

We thank you for the way that it brought the earthly ministry of Jesus
to a fitting conclusion;
signifying his oneness with you,
and demonstrating your final seal of approval
on all that he had done.

We thank you that through his Ascension
Jesus is now set free to be Lord of all:
no longer bound to a particular place or time,
but with us always—able to reach even to the ends of the earth.

We thank you that through his departing
Jesus prepared for his coming again:
through his Spirit,
his Church,
and his coming again in glory.

Gracious God,
Forgive us for so often failing
to grasp the wonder of Ascension,
for living each day as though it had never been.

Forgive the smallness of our vision,
the narrowness of our outlook,
the weakness of our love,
the nervousness of our witness,
our repeated failure to recognize
the fullness of your revelation in Christ.

Give us a deeper sense of wonder,
a stronger faith,
and a greater understanding of all you have done.

Father God,
Like the Apostles,
we too will never fully understand all Ascension means.
We accept, but we do not fully understand.
We believe, yet we have many questions.
Help us, despite our uncertainty, to hold firm to the great truth
that the wonder of Christ Jesus
goes far beyond anything we can ever imagine,
and in that faith may we live each day
to his glory and honour. Amen.
 
Bryce Calder, Church of Scotland Minister
 
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Jesus said to her, “Mary.” 
She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).  
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; 
but go to my brothers and say to them, 
    ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

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Loss is indeed our gain

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
 
The pushing and shoving of the world is endless.
    We are pushed and shoved.
    And we do our fair share of pushing and shoving
        in our great anxiety.
    And in the middle of that
        you have set down your beloved suffering son
        who was like a sheep led to slaughter
        who opened not his mouth.
    We seem not able,
    so we ask you to create the spaces in our life
    where we may ponder his suffering
    and your summons for us to suffer with him,
    suspecting that suffering is the only way to come to newness.
So we pray for your church in these Lenten days,
    when we are driven to denial —
        not to notice the suffering,
        not to engage it,
        not to acknowledge it.
So be that way of truth among us
    that we should not deceive ourselves.
That we shall see that loss is indeed our gain.
We give you thanks for that mystery from which we live.
Amen.
 
Walter Brueggemann, 1933 -,  American Protestant Old Testament theologian
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For to this you have been called, 
    because Christ also suffered for you, 
    leaving you an example, 
so that you might follow in his steps.

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I want to stop running

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image / pxfuel
 
Eternal God, you are a song amid silence,
    a voice out of quietness,
    a light out of darkness,
    a Presence in the emptiness,
    a coming out of the void.
You are all of these things and more.
You are mystery that encompasses meaning,
    meaning that penetrates mystery.
You are God,
    I am man.
I strut and brag.
I put down my fellows
    and bluster out assortments of my achievements.
And then something happens:
    I wonder who I am,
        and if I matter.
Night falls,
    I am alone in the dark and afraid.
Someone dies,
    I feel so powerless.
A child is born,
    I feel touched by the miracle of new life.
At such moments I pause . . .
    to listen for a song amid the silence,
    a voice out of stillness,
    to look for a light out of darkness.
I want to feel a Presence in the emptiness.
I find myself reaching for a hand. 
 
Oftentimes, the feeling passes quickly,
    and I am on the run again:
        success to achieve,
        money to make.
O Lord, you have to catch me on the run
    most of the time.
I am too busy to stop,
    too important to pause for contemplation.
I hold up too big a section of the sky
    to sit down and meditate.
But even on the run,
    an occasional flicker of doubt assails me,
And I suspect I may not be as important 
        to the world
     as I think I am.
Jesus said each of us is important to you.
It is as if every hair of our heads were numbered.
How can that be?
But in the hope that is is so,
I would stop running,
        stop shouting,
    and be myself.
 
Let me be still now.
Let me be calm.
Let me rest upon the faith that you are, God,
    and I need not be afraid. Amen.
 
Kenneth G. Phifer, Presbyterian minister and author
 
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Come, behold the works of the Lord,
    how he has brought desolations on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
    he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
    he burns the chariots with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God.
    I will be exalted among the nations,
    I will be exalted in the earth!”

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You understand me, Lord

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Psalm 139 Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed / CC BY-SA 4.0
 
Lord,
you understand me,
you know my every thought,
my brain is not a mystery to you.
Enter into my mind, Lord,
guide and direct my thoughts.
Be before me when I speak,
be beside me when I act,
be within me when I listen,
that I might possess
the wisdom born of love,
for you are love,
the love which understands
everything.
 
Frank Topping, 1937-, English minister and author
 
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O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.
 

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the pursuit of Wisdom

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cracked drain from burnt embers 
You are wisdom, uncreated and eternal,
    the supreme first cause, above all being,
    sovereign Godhead, sovereign goodness,
    watching unseen the God-inspired wisdom of Christian people.
Raise us, we pray, that we may totally respond
    to the supreme, unknown, ultimate, and splendid height
    of your words, mysterious and inspired.
There all God’s secret matters lie covered and hidden
    under darkness both profound and brilliant, silent and wise.
You make what is ultimate and beyond brightness
    secretly to shine in all that is most dark.
In your way, ever unseen and intangible,
    you fill to the full with most beautiful splendor
    those souls who close their eyes that they may see.
And I, please, with love that goes on beyond mind
    to all that is beyond mind,
    seek to gain such for myself through this prayer.
 
St. Denis prayer, from The Cloud of Unknowing, 14th century
 
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My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, 
    so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, 
    in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, 
    in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
 

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