Advent is over for another year and what we have waited for is finally here: the first advent, Christmas. This year, after blogging on the intense, but beautiful O Antiphons, I was almost afraid that the coming of this first coming of Jesus would be a bit of a bathetic crash for me this year. The exalted titles behind the O Antiphons and the dramatic salvation story of Israel which goes on behind them almost threaten to overwhelm the simplicity of the Christmas story as we have it from the Gospels. After all, the birth of a simple infant to a tradesman and his wife in the middle of a no-account town in a troublesome, but minor province in a now dead-empire a couple of thousand years ago could seem to be a let down for someone awaiting O or Clavis Jesse or Rex Gentium, but it isn't. It isn't because there is more to the story than just the birth of a baby. More was born on that day over two thousand years ago than just a baby. The hope that this story is just the beginning of the restoration of the world to its rightful state first arose that day. An invitation to participate in that restoration more fully than we could have asked or imagined echoes that night. It doesn't matter that that restoration is still going on. It doesn't matter if that restoration sometimes seems to stall. It has started and the hope that it brought with it emerged that night in Bethlehem.
Adonai
So, tonight, on the eve of Christmas, we are called to rejoice at this beginning. Rejoice because God has restore what he has already called good. Rejoice because God come to be one of us. Rejoice because the lion will lie down with the lamb and the Prince of Peace is still coming. .
Rejoice, Rejoice, Emmanuel has come to thee, O Israel.
Merry Christmas to all my readers. May the coming year be a wondrous one, filled with joy and fulfillment!
Peace,
Phil
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