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Knock and it will be opened unto you
Friday, December 18, 2015
Third Week of Advent
Matthew 1:20-21
Do not be afraid to take Mary into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
First to Joseph, then to each of us, the angel of the Lord appears. In a dream? In something we read and are caught-up-into-heaven by? In the words of a friend or a parent or a son or daughter, or a stranger or even an enemy? The invitation comes, and then comes again, and then again. Open your doors.
Joseph is engaged to Mary. And Mary is carrying this alien baby that the angel assures her comes from God. How can these young Hebrews understand what is happening to them? How on earth (really) could this happen?
But none of that is explained, and actually, none of that matters. What matters for Joseph is one action item. Open your doors. Invite the girl into your home. Be married to her. Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ, what the Greeks will eventually call the theotokos, the mother of God. And her son will save his people from their sins.
We are approaching the shortest, darkest days of the year. Where I live in Urbana, Illinois, the winter solstice will come on Monday, December 21 at 10:49 pm. It’s just then, at the darkest moment, that Joseph was visited in his dream. When the light he counted on went out, another Light replaced it.
The angel says to me: invite Mary into your world. She is carrying Jesus, and he will save you from your sins. The lights electric carry no salvation. The billions of transistors in your Ipad do not save you. Open your doors to the miracle of Jesus. He is the one who saves you.
Lord, let me close my eyes and appreciate the darkness, where you come and whisper and shine a light first tiny and then wonderful and overwhelming. Put me outside whatever homey comfort zone I strive to make for myself, so I will know how much I need you. Open the door when I knock, and teach me to open the door when you knock too. Thank you, Lord, for never giving up on me.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1414
