Fwd: The mattering part is never what isnt. The mattering part is never the chopped off stump. It isnt what dream has been cut down, what hope has been cut off, what part of the heart has been cut out. The tender mattering part is - you have a tree. Out of the last forgotten son of Jesse comes forth one tender branch that will grow into a crown of thorns....a rugged cross... Your ladder back to God. Jesus will go to IMPOSSIBLE lengths to rescue you. Out of the stump of that fallen tree , watered with the living waters that flow from the depths of his grace , a twig sprouts. That twig will be the scepter that defeats your sin....and lets you grow again. Out if that stump and the sheared impossible there sprouts a singular shoot -- tender and vulnerable. There, here, in the midst of the inconceivable, the loud claims, the hard sells, the big spectacles, Christ comes small, the micro - macro - miracle who comes in the the whisper and says , seek me. Just where you are , look for the small glimpses of God-glory breaking in, breaking out, sprouting, shooting, unfurling, bearing fruit, making a Kingdom, remaking the world. Slow and still. And seek the shoot that bears witness to God - the hardly noticed child, they hymn sung over the sink, the unassuming woman bent at the register, the dog eared Word of God beckoning from the shelf. Gaze on shoots of glory to grow deep roots in God. The theology of the tree, of the Cross, always seeks the presence of God in the belittled gifts of the world. The small Babe of Bethlehem, the dismissed Son of God, the stripped and beaten Messiah hanging exposed on the tree -- He begs us to spend the attention of Advent in the little, the least, the lonely, the lost. Because in the rush, in the hurry, in our addiction to speed it might just be a little bit like stepping on the shoot at sprouts from the stump. Advent, it is made of the moment. This slow unfurling of grace.
Posted on: Sat, 06 Dec 2014 16:34:05 +0000
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