Friday, September 8, 2023
Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Mothers and their babies
You, Bethlehem, too small, but from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler, and he shall stand firm by the strength of the Lord. She shall shepherd her flock in the majestic name of the Lord. And they shall remain, their greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth, and there shall be peace.
I thought about these verses from Micah when each of our grandkids was just a little tyke. Jack when he took his first train ride. Aly when she rode on our shoulders all over Springfield, learning to shop. Miles, when he couldn’t take his eyes off a ladder truck coming to the rescue at a fire near their local Salvation Army and a very friendly female fireman came over and put a cool badge on his shirt, and always ever after he wants to visit fire stations with his brother. And Jasper, who might be growing older but keeps up his rascal-pirate-shenanigans anytime he can.
Was there ever a baby who didn’t deserve to have his nose rubbed with your nose, or her feet tickled, or his bellybutton sung to? All have sinned and fallen short, but all have been redeemed, these babies. Our theology falls short too, we cannot conceive of God’s love. But then Jesus rescues us, rescues the children. “Let the little children come to me,” he says. And they do.
Brothers and sisters, we know that all things work for good for those who love God. Jesus became the firstborn among many brothers.
I know many of us were born without the foreknowledge of our parents. Pregnant again? How can that be? But God’s foreknowledge overcomes the world. We are born into a world God has never abandoned, never ever left, and the Spirit of God hovers over our own personal waters, each by each, day by day.
Please, never forget that with the Lord, a day is like a thousand years.
So we celebrate birthdays, and in the case of Jesus we celebrate both his birthday and the birth of his mother. Many biblical mothers, barren but filled with the Holy Spirit prayed for a child and then dedicated their children to the Lord. Don’t we do that too, in our infant baptism, in our baby dedications? Hannah, Samuel’s mother, oh such stories! Anne, Mary’s mother, what did she discern about her baby?
And of course Mary, the mother of Jesus, visited by an angel and invited by God to carry the child of God as a human baby for nine months, and then he would be born. No hint about the manger, the cattle lowing as the poor baby wakes. No matter. The stories can never be told often enough.
The virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” It is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.
Our kids and grandkids were born (1980, 1982, 1986, 2009, 2012, 2016, 2019) and are growing, and we continue to watch as God’s love sweetens the vision of our eyes and hearts. Knowing how God knows us, we can choose to see them always without harshness or judgment. At times, we may need as Joseph did for God’s angel to remind us in a dream that God is in charge.
We are not in charge. Therefore we can all rest in peace, in the shadow of his wings.
(Micah 5, Romans 8, Psalm 13, Matthew 1)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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