Circle Advocate Rev. Alex Sangster shares a Christmas message.
We, the Transforming Worship Circle are journeying together in Advent.
Advent is all about,
the dark before dawn
and the smashing and clashing of stars…
and the preparation for the birthing…
Advent is the time to go into the deep, where the night has eyes
to recognise its own
and it’s a time to pay attention
to read the signs and to listen to the prophets,
and sometimes those prophets can be very passionate and very small
which is fine
with all of us
isn’t it
because we
gather as a people of faith
where at the heart of the story
is a little child
a little child who will lead us all
out of the darkness and into the light….
Speaking of children and all things small,
Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic once wrote that:
“We are all meant to be Theotokos,
or in other words, we are all meant to be, mothers of God.”
Now to be pregnant with a little human is unsettling enough,
but to be pregnant with God is truly life changing.
But if we take seriously the words of Christ when he said that the
‘kingdom of God is within you and you and you’
then we have to take seriously the possibility that we,
along with Mary,
are called to be the carriers of God out into the world.
And that we,
like Mary are called to ponder in our hearts
and then to run out with joy to our cousins and to our community
and share with them
the awe-some news
that we have new life within us,
new life that can:
‘scatter the proud
in the thoughts of their hearts,
new life that can: bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly; new life that can fill the hungry with good things.’
Perhaps we could change our name from the ‘Transforming Worship’ Circle
to the ‘Theotokos Circle’, to remind ourselves that our primary calling,
(along with all our sisters and brothers and rainbow folk in Christ)
is to be the bearers and birthers of God for the world…now that is a transformative thought!
Blessings to you all in this epic time…
Alex