Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Today’s text

Mark 1:1

The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It is written in the prophet Isaiah: Look, I am going to send my messenger in front of you to prepare your way before you. A voice of one that cries in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight.

Reflection

How shall I prepare, my Lord? Perhaps your name alone is sufficient this morning.

To the Hebrews of old you were the unnamable mystery. I like that more and more as I age. With the years, I understand that I understand less than I’d thought.

And that is okay. I really don’t want to worship a God that I understand, who obeys my expectations and fits my assumptions. Such a one falls far short of the mystery and majesty of your eternity and immeasurable magnitude, you who cast billions of galaxies into dark space for your play.

How dare we try to hang a name on you? Who do we think we are?

I stand gladly with those ancient Hebrews, falling silent each time your unspeakable name should appear in the lines of biblical text or prayer, knowing your real name is too holy, too precious, too incomprehensible to say.

They just called you ‘Lord,’ the One to whom I and all else belongs, the only One to whom worship and reverence properly belongs.

And now it is for you, Lord, that I must prepare, you who are pleased to come to the likes of me. No preparation is proper or adequate for you. So I will sit in the silence before you and savor the name I am permitted to speak: Your are Lord, My Lord.

In you is all happiness and holy purpose, all life and love, so I will clear spaces amid the clamor of living and the clatter of this season to calm my heart and listen to the voice of soul where you speak, to music that invokes your nearness, to the souls of your beloved who bear your presence to my soul.

Bless my preparations, dear Loving and Nameless One; bless and draw near that your love may fill my frame and teach my soul to speak your name, the silent one that only love knows.

Pr. David L. Miller