Friday, January 4, 2008

Today's text

Matthew 2:9-12

Having listened to what the king had to say, they [wise men] set out. And suddenly the star they had seen rising went before and halted over the place where the child was. The sight of the star filled them with delight, and going into the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and falling to their knees they did him homage. Then, opening their treasures they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. But they were given a warning in a dream not to go back to Herod, and returned to their own country by a different way.

Prayer

It is in delight that we bow before your beauty, Holy Child. For there we find our soul, knowing ourselves for the first time.

Little wonder the wise men bubbled with delight. They traversed desert wastes and urban confusion, finally to arrive at the object of their search. They knelt in the dirt before you. And presenting their strange gifts, they found what we want, a heart that belongs to your mystery.

And the name of that mystery is Eternal Love and Undying Presence, Immortal Beauty and Eternal Wonder, Gracious Joy, Home.

Surely, it is not delight that brings us to you. It is our blessed neediness, our happy lack. A void happy only because it moves us across deserts and urban wastes, up dead end streets and down blind alleys searching for a soul, a heart found only as we kneel in delight before you.

So let us find you by whatever star seems to lead to place of your fullness. There we, too, will kneel in the dirt with delight, finding you … and our soul.

And returning home in way quite different.

Pr. David L. Miller