For a while now I’ve been sitting with this radical but simple thought that God is always moving through a “body”, and looking for a Body. I understand God to be able to accomplish anything, and yet has chosen to not only come TO us, in the form of humanity, but also THROUGH us. It’s the “through us” that is profoundly interesting to me in this moment. If I imagine myself to know how to do something right, it’s not often that I would have the impulse to give it to someone that I know for certain will NOT get it right.
I feel like this should stop us in our tracks. Story after story reveals this to be the nature of God. Because we’re in Advent, just think on Mary as an example of God’s counter intuitive nature. This is the ‘body’, for whom the rest of the culture would want to dismiss. Let’s check off all the “legitimate” reasons for dismissal: Teenager (check), female (check), unmarried (check)…yeah, lets impregnate HER to display GOD! (God missed the strategic leadership sessions)
I know lots of people have talked about how amazing it is that Mary was chosen. But it’s not just Mary, it’s the accumulation of EVERY person the story of God draws us towards. It is the constant reversal of human nature. The God of the universe moving through the guy that stutters, the prostitute, the murderer, the adulterer, the person from the wrong tribe, the ordinary girl…we could go on and on and on. This is the GOSPEL…good news!
I have so many reasons to disqualify my ‘body’, and disqualify others as a ‘body’. And yet…
I’m reading a test copy of what will hopefully become one of seven books Steve Bell is writing for the Christian calendar year. Its called Pilgrim year, and this one is about advent. The root word in Adventure is “Advent”. Advent simply means “to come”, and so a person on an adventure is meeting and embracing all that is “to come”!! I like that! Advent is an adventure! What if the part of the adventure is that YOU are a body through which God wants to come?! What if the adventure is that God wants to blow your mind and heart with a body you want to dismiss, someone that can’t possibly in your mind house that impulse? And yet…
Let the ADVENTure continue!!
Darlene