The Nativity

I awoke at one o'clock this morning. Don't know why. Maybe it was my sinus headache.

I tried praying for, like, 30 to 45 minutes. Finally got up and read the lessons appointed for this morning. Read the Psalms appointed for the morning of the first day of the month (1-5).

The Christian year is interesting. Many Bibical scholars believe Jesus was born in the summer, yet we celebrate his birth in the winter. Christmas is the baptism, if you will, of the Roman feast Saturnalia. Advent just happens to coincide with a Norse holiday which featured wagon wheels ringed with candles. We prepare to pilgrim to a place of holy birth just as most plant life (in the Northern Hemisphere) is dying.

One may see the Christian year as a cycle of death and rebirth, but right now seems to be both at once. We prepare for a birth, but many of the readings assigned for this period have to do with the End Times.

Many of the lessons appointed for Advent, in both the Daily and Sunday Lectionaries, are apocalyptic in tone. For example, Isaiah 2:1-11 is sure to cheer you up, depending on whether you see America as "Judah" or "Israel". The readings from the Gospel aren't exactly cheery either; this past Sunday Jesus talked about one person being taken from the field while another is left — a reading often used to validate the doctrine of the rapture. Whether it is or not, Jesus is clearly talking end-time type stuff (see Mt 24:37-44).

Many times the people who write the meditations in Forward Day By Day interpret these readings as saying that Advent is both a time to prepare for the remembrance of Jesus' birth, and a time to prepare for His return. And that may be true. But I think another reading is possible.

I think it is possible that this season may embrace the totality of life: the time we walk on earth, and the time following - of which we have but "hints and allegations".

Buddhists believe we are on a wheel of death and rebirth on this physical plane until we reach Nirvana (on a different plane). Christians believe death is rebirth into a life we can only imagine (possibly on another plane). In a sense, we cannot deny this life without denying the life to come. If we spend this life mourning the suffering of being in these physical bodies, we might not be in the proper frame of mind to appreciate whatever existence lies after death.

What if you don't believe anything lies beyond death but ashes? Well then, why suffer? As friends of Bill W would say, "Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional."

Well, there I go: preaching to my reflection again!

Lk 2:6-14, Ps 5