O is for oh

 O that you would tear open the heavens and come down. (Isaiah 64:1)

At the back of most Christian hymnals, you can find an index that alphabetically lists the first lines of every song in the book. Find the letter “O,” and you will discover a long list of hymns for which ‘Oh,’ or more simply ‘O,’ is the first word.

I counted 64 songs in our primary Lutheran hymnal that start with ‘oh,’ the most common first word among all the hymns in the book.

But ‘oh’ is barely a word at all. It’s what comes out our mouths when we don’t know what to say, when the emotion of the moment simply forces its way from our throat.

Those 64 hymns, for example, are awash in a boat load of irrepressible emotions: ‘Oh’ is a sigh of longing and a cry for help. It expresses awe and wonder for which no words are possible. It proclaims joy and praise at the utter goodness of being alive and knowing love. It is thanks to the Great Heart who makes it all possible.

Oh is a plea for mercy and the joy of relief. It is startled disbelief at finally finding and knowing the truth your heart most needs. And it is the soul’s highest praise upon feeling the Spirit of that Great Heart within your own.

Oh says very little while saying all that is possible to say. And maybe it is our best prayer right now.

O come, o come Emmanuel. We long for moments when only one word will do.

Pr. David L. Miller

N is for name

Thursday, December 17

They shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us.’ (Matthew 1:23)

Names matter as any taunted fourth grader call tell you. Having your name mispronounced or twisted into a demeaning insult stings, sometimes even decades later.

But hearing your name used with care and respect, even love, can lift your heart into the heavens or at least above the grayness of a December day.

Ancient people had much more respect for names than we do. Names weren’t just a label or a way to get someone’s attention but an expression of the essence of the one named. So they chose carefully, refusing to settle on the moniker of a favorite uncle just to be nice.

A chosen name had to be exactly right, capturing their nature, establishing their destiny.

Little wonder, then, that biblical writers tripped over themselves trying to find the right name for the child at whose manger we bow each Christmas. No name says half enough, and everything they suggested leaves you wanting something more to express but a fraction of who Jesus is to millions of souls through the centuries.

In Matthew’s story of the holy birth, an angel comes to his father, Joseph, and declares the boy’s name will be Jesus, which roughly translated is God helps or God saves. That’s good news because we know there are vast parts of us badly in need of saving.

But I like the name given a couple of verses later where Matthew quotes a prophecy, “They shall name him Emmanuel, which means, ‘God is with us.’”

Jesus must have liked this idea, too, because it echoes through his words from time to time. “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst,” he once said.

Then, there are his final words, as Matthew tells it: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Somehow he knew; more than anything else, we need to feel him near.

All in all, Emmanuel is as good a name as we’ve got.

Pr. David L. Miller

M is for music

Wednesday, December 16

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!’ (Luke 2:13-14)

One again, we confront a letter with too many Advent possibilities. ‘M’ should be for Mary, the mother of our Lord, who gave Jesus birth and wrapped him in loving care. Can there be any more important ‘M’ as we approach Christmas than Mary? She held the light of the world in her arms and felt his beating heart.  

But there is another Advent ‘M,’ mystery. The divine wonder, the Loving Mystery who is the Source of all life becomes flesh, wears a human face, an infant face, that we might know the Unknowable Love ... God is. The eternal God in mortal flesh, is there a bigger mystery?

But still I must choose a different ‘M,’ music, and here’s why.

The mystery that Immortal Love appears in mortal flesh, born of Mary, cannot be conveyed in preachers’ words or even the most sophisticated intellectual construct. Only music can do this. Words cannot bear the weight of wonder.

But music, say ... a hushed strain of Silent Night, transports the heart into the heart of love God is, rendering words a meaningless distraction.

Early today, Franz Biebel’s Ave Maria whispered through the stereo as the wan, violet light of a winter morning shadowed the living room. Blessed are you if you know the piece. Listening, rapt in its exquisite beauty, refusing to wipe away the tears, my heart knew, beyond any and every word ever spoken, the mystery of this Love who is beyond all knowing.

It’s no wonder the angels sang on that Christmas hillside long ago. Words just wouldn’t do.

Pr. David L. Miller

L is for light

Tuesday, December 15

Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them (Luke 2:9)

The Bible’s stories of Christmas are resplendent in light.

Angels appear flooding the night sky with light, the glory of the Lord startles shepherds on a hillside, a star in the heavens guides wise men to the place where lies a child who is the “light of the world.”

Just so, in the middle of the night on the winter solstice, the “dawn from on high breaks upon us to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

Our music savors this contrast of light and darkness: In the dark streets shineth the everlasting light. Or this, Silent night, Holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

Darkness is a symbol for everything that is wrong with the world and us—sin and selfishness, greed and apathy, hunger and injustice, misery of all types amid a world so at odds with itself peace seems impractical and impossible.

But light is the active presence and power of God, the shining forth of God ... everywhere. It is everything that enlightens our pathway to God.

We experience the light of the world in lots of places—in justice and mercy, grace and beauty, every act of care and compassion, in all that is good, right, virtuous and life-giving. Trouble is, most often we don’t know what, make that who, we are seeing.

Which is why the Loving Mystery, who created light before creating anything else, put a human face on the light of the world.

This child in the manger, this Jesus, is the face of the Eternal Light, the heart of the Immeasurable Love, shining forth to light and warm your heart in the bleak midwinter of living.

Pr. David L. Miller

K is for kenosis

Monday, December 14, 2020

Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Philippians 2:6-7)

You have likely never heard this world before, but it is written on your soul. It’s pronounced key-no-sis (sis as in sister). It means to empty yourself, to give yourself away for something or someone else, which whether you know it or not is your heart’s desire.

Consider an anecdote told me by a father remembering the day, years ago, he gave an important gift to his daughter. For two weeks afterward, he walked around two feet off the ground, aglow with joy.

What he gave, of course, was himself, a piece of his heart, at personal sacrifice.

Sacrificing out of love, out of the heart’s desire to give itself away, is what kenosis looks like in real life, and it most often results in profound joy for the giver. Such kenotic acts of self-giving are also the kind of thing we most cherish and admire in other human beings.

All this opens a window into the heart of Christ, revealing that we are cherished for more than we imagine.

For Christ emptied himself (kenosis) of divine privilege, stepping out of the heavenly places to be born into a life of poverty in an obscure place and time. His kenosis doesn’t stop there. He gave himself over to rejection and the ugliest death the ancient world had devised.

All this, he does, out of his heart’s desire to show the love he has for you, a love that transcends anything else we shall ever know.

But know this: When you feel that desire to give a piece of yourself away to someone ... that is exactly when you and the baby in the manger are most alike.

Pr. David L. Miller