Pacific Currents - December 2007

The soft baby face of the Author of Life

by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast, Conference Minister, December, 2007
Monthly Reflections from The Pacific ~ News and Events of the NCNC United Church of Christ

"For a child has been born for us, Your offspring given to us;
Authority rests upon this child’s shoulders………"

Those words from the prophet Isaiah were first spoken as a prediction to King Ahaz of Israel. As William Willimon tells the tale, Ahaz had become king when he was 20 years old and things just hadn’t gone well for him. His granddaddy, King Uzziah, had been a well-regarded ruler, and Ahaz wasn’t quite able to fill those sandals. Now the Assyrians have attacked Israel, and the threat level hovers at "severe." Those people who had been walking in darkness? Those were the people of Israel, confronting blood, and death, and the fear of total annihilation.

Words of encouragement and support for those ministering "in the fields."

Ahaz, less concerned about the well-being of the people than about his popularity, seeks visible assurance from the Almighty, via the well-connected Isaiah, that it’s time to go to war. "Give me a sign," Ahaz asks.

"Sure," the prophet says. "Here’s your sign. A young woman will give birth to a baby whose name will be Emmanuel, or ‘God with us.’"

"Huh?" Ahaz responds. "I need chariots, swords, Tomahawk missiles, a majority in the House! What do I need with news about a baby?"

And then Isaiah carries on about the people - the people who walked in darkness - the darkness of oppression; the shadowlands of grief; the gloom of despair; the dusk of depression; the fog of loneliness - on them light will shine. A great fire will be made of all the implements of war, all the machinery of injustice. Its blaze will fill the skies and dissolve the stone in our hearts. Because this baby has been born for us, God’s offspring given to us. Authority rests upon this child’s shoulders, not upon any self-serving dynasty.

Isaiah’s words arc forward from that distant moment in history to reveal an incandescent future. This is the beaming of extravagant love from the core of creation for all of us who travel in dimness, while the ember of hope itself sputters. Here is a light that shines to brighten our days, to warm our souls, to guide our path. The yoke of our burdens, the rod of our oppressors have been broken. "God is coming, God is coming to rule over the earth," proclaims the Psalmist [in Psalm 96]. Shoving aside the claims of human heads of state, Emmanuel, the soft baby face of the Author of Life, comes into ascendancy. God is with us, and is just like us, and needs our attention and our love, and brings us unbelievable joy, and "The Holy One will rule the world with justice, And its peoples in faithful care."

The Author of Life will renew us in love; will remove disaster from the table of our daily meals; will bring those who are ailing or troubled to full life; will gather the outcasts into the community of the beloved, and restore us all to the blessed state of joy and abundance that was promised to us and to our ancestors.

In her book Christmas Comes Alive! Rev. Geneva Butz writes about the living Christmas crèche her congregation has set up each December for the past 30 years in inner city Philadelphia: "Every year," she marvels, "God gives us a real live baby…[and] the holy child becomes everybody’s baby."

Everybody’s baby. Coming to dwell here as God among us. Everybody’s baby. The baby who is everybody. Authority rests upon our shoulders. And the calling to become and to live God’s righteousness and justice and compassion.

A child has been born for us. God’s offspring given to us. And God is with us. Ruling the word with truth and grace. The wonders of God’s love are with us, transforming us, transforming the world.

                                                                                                        ~ Mary Susan

this page last updated on Monday, December 3, 2007