Joshua Minden (00:13):

Hi, welcome to Stories and Other Things Holy, and welcome to the final week of our series of Advent Reflections. As we enter this fourth week of Advent, we're encouraged to remember that Mary, the mother of Jesus, offered up her body and her entire life to welcome God into this world. So may we too consider what we are being invited to surrender in order to welcome the incarnation into our lives. This week, our principal storyteller, Dr. Terry Nelson-Johnson, reflects on the relationship between self-giving, dying, and the welcoming of new life. The episodes of this advent series have intentionally been shorter in hopes that you would spend some of that time with the one who comes to make all things new. Terry and I hope that these advent reflections have helped to cultivate hope and expectation in welcoming the incarnation to dwell richly within you. Now, let's jump into one more Stories and Other Things Holy.

Terry Nelson-Johnson (01:22):

Story and Other Thing Holy. Advent. Four weeks of preparation. Preparation for what you ask? It's a mystery to me. Many of you know how much I love books, and I recently reread a book, 'Wholehearted Faith,' by Rachel Held Evans. It's really a beautiful book. Tragically she wasn't able to finish it herself because she died of a very aggressive cancer at a very young age with two little kids. One of those stories. A friend of hers helped complete the book, and I reread this piece and I just found it so compelling with respect to Advent, and I hope you might as well.

(02:16):

She writes: "I know the Christians are Easter People. We're supposed to favor the story of the resurrection, which reminds us that death is never the end of God's story. Yet I have never found that story even half as compelling as the story of the incarnation. It is nearly impossible to believe God shrinking down to the size of a zygote, implanted in the soft lining of a woman's womb, God growing fingers and toes, God licking and hiccuping in utero, God inching down the birth canal and entering this world covered in blood, perhaps into the steady weighting arms of a midwife, God crying out in hunger, God reaching for his mother's breasts. God totally relaxed, eyes closed, his chubby little arms raised over his head, and a posture of complete trust, God resting in his mother's lap on the days and nights when I believe this story that we call Christianity, I cannot entirely make sense of the storyline. God entrusted God's very self, totally and completely, and in full bodily form to the care of a woman. God needed women for his survival before Jesus fed us with the bread and the wine, the body and the blood. Jesus himself needed to be fed by a woman. He needed a woman to say, this is my body given for you."

(04:04):

It's not like I understand this, but deeply, deeply moved by it. And, Advent is a celebration of our preparation to take the mystery of the incarnation seriously. God is deeply connected to this, all of this, and I think she says it so radically here. The corollary mystery for me here is that this young woman, this part of her, the part that she declared her utter commitment to was ravaged by cancer. And when I think about dying, one of the ways I think about it is that dying provides us the opportunity to give ourselves over to the ambiguous certain arms of love.

(05:10):

So the same woman who has Jesus receiving the words of a woman saying, this is my body given for you, is then in turn asked to give her body over to the ambiguous certain arms of love. It's like both ends of the incarnation and, you know my affection for the word amen. And, you know, when I talk about amen, I say, amen is not a word of relief. It's over, short homily, one collection, good parking space. You know what I'm saying? Amen is a word of ascent. And advent is asking us to say amen to the incarnation, to our conviction that God is part of the scandal of the particular, as the theologians say, the scandal of the particular, this particular, birth canal - particular, breastfeeding - particular, acne - particular, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Thank God for this bold, courageous woman and her invitation to us that we might take advent and the incarnation really, really seriously while not understanding it and celebrating it, grateful for your companionship and all of it, the ways you've invited me to trust the incarnation. Stories and Other Things Holy. Blessed Advent.

Joshua Minden (07:05):

Thank you for joining us for this advent series of Stories and Other Things Holy. If this podcast has been meaningful to you, we invite you to sign up for our newsletter at StoriesandOtherThingsHoly.com where you'll gain access to written reflections, prayer prompts, and so much more. If you think this would be helpful for others, we invite you to share those emails and any other of our resources with them as well. Please help us get the word out about Stories and Other Things Holy. We invite you to go to our YouTube channel where you can like our videos and subscribe. We also encourage you to write a review on your favorite podcast app. We look forward to seeing you next week for more Stories and Other Things Holy.