As promised, I write to you from Maine: I’m here tending my adventurous heart in the wilds of Acadia. My dog, too, is maximizing her opportunities, daily bursting every dandelion head in the backyard, as if competing in a kind of PacMan against her enemy the lawnmower. I’ve been thinking about how being away from home helps you to see things differently, more clearly, more inspired—like seeing PacMan in the dandelions. This week, oft-read Romans 8 came up on my Bible reading plan and—maybe through mishearing it or Holy Spirit inspiration (or both—I constantly needing reminding it can be both)—the picture of birthing the Son of God dropped into my mind, fully formed.
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.
Romans 8:19
As Mary came under the shadow of Holy Spirit and carried the Son of God to full term, so we wait for the Firstfruits, the Spirit of Jesus, to come to maturity in us. The world watches a pregnant mother with fascination, sensing something of what she carries, but oh! the glory and worship of the child once revealed. He commands our full attention; we exalt him, he becomes greater. The flesh and blood boat that delivered Him to these strange shores becomes lesser, a distinctly secondary planet orbiting the Sun. This is the way of mothers: to spend themselves for the glory of another, to foreshadow the kenosis of Christ, Who emptied Himself of glory unto Incarnation and Who emptied Himself of life unto Resurrection and victory over death (Philippians 2:6-7). Likewise, we who believe—men and women alike—submit to Holy Spirit’s process, our witness of His person and actions imperfect until—oh, until! He brings the Son in us to fullness. Then the world can see for itself Who Jesus is and what He’s been up to.
Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait…
Romans 8:23a
Like Mary, we too are in a long engagement, not married until Christ is born anew. In the Jewish rite of marriage, to be pledged in marriage was in the legal sense to be married; this is why Joseph needed to contemplate a divorce (Matthew 1:18-19). How different from the fragile engagements of the Western world! This mirrors the profound truth that we who have said Yes! Yes! to Jesus are conferred a new legal status—married to Christ—even though the Marriage Supper of the Lamb is yet to take place, the marriage yet to be “consummated”. What a rich representation of our secure identity as Christ’s Beloved!
“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
John 14:2-3
Finally, we are like Mary, bearing with the world’s misunderstanding and offense and the tension of waiting, ultimately—scandalously—to be brought into Joseph’s house. As part of the marriage rite, our Bridegroom Jesus has gone to His Father’s house to add on a place for us—and there He will stay until the Father sends Him back for us. We, too, wait in faith, stayed against the cynicism of an abandonment-haunted world by our confidence in the faithfulness of Him Who made the promise (Hebrews 11:11). In that day, the day of Christ’s appearing, we and the world will know the wisdom of God, we will understand everything that has happened in us and to us and through us, and we will worship Jesus in the fullness of His splendor.
Thank you Jesus
For Your humility in coming to be born in us
For Your generosity in making a place for us
For Your faithfulness in coming back for us
Amen
I pray… that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:19b
Be confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 1:6
Fire and Whisper 