<p><em>St. Paul tells us that Gods power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:8); but todays reflection reminds us that Gods power is also brought to perfection in waitingand that our waiting and our weakness are inextricably interwoven. Indeed that interweaving may be precisely why Advent is such a holy such a human season.</em></p><p><strong>December 24 2023: Fourth Sunday of Advent Year B</strong></p><p>2 Samuel 7:1-5 8b-12 14a 16</p><p>Psalm 89:2-5 27 29</p><p>Romans 16:25-27</p><p>Luke 1:26-30</p><div><div class=titan__email-divider>&nbsp;</div></div><h1><strong>Promises in the Dark<br></strong></h1><p>A reflection by L.F. Ranner</p><p>Appropriately for this time of year todays reading from the Second Book of Samuel finds King David at rest in his palace after a day of very corporeal celebration (dancing feasting) in Gods honor. Settling in as the writer tells us for the royal equivalent of a long winters nap.</p><p>Alone at last well-feasted and enjoying his leisure in a house of cedar the king feels a twinge of conscience regarding the dwelling place of God: for the ark of the covenant sits in no palace but a tent. David expresses his compunction to the prophet Nathan. In terms of royal hospitality cant he do a little better than that?</p><p>Surely this is the point (although it isnt represented in the narrative) where God laughs - charmed by Davids naivete. That night God gives Nathan a message to convey to the king laced with gentle irony: Should <em>you </em>build <em>me </em>a house to dwell in? <em>It is I who chose you</em> God reminds David <em>who raised you up from nothing.</em></p><p>Far from mean-spirited Gods comment isnt meant to belittle Davids generous impulse but merely to remind him of where the kings strength actually lies: not in the illusion of power and choice but in his littleness his humility his dependence on the God whose power exceeds all human understanding. It was for that littleness after all that David was chosen. It is the small the lowly and the unnoticed who can be raised. Those who occupy earthly thrones can only be toppled from themfor where else is there left for them to go? David was destined for greatness precisely because he understood that his reliance on God was absolute. His lack of arrogance is shown in the preceding chapter when a princess chastises the king for celebrating like any vulgar fellow with the common folk dancing with all his mighthalf naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants! Davids retort gives us a sense of his priorities as well as the reason why God believes he has the makings of a great king. He declares (italics mine) I <em>will</em> celebrate before the Lord. I will become <em>even more</em> undignified than this and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke ofI will be held in honor.</p><p>One of Davids most endearing qualities is his gift for critical self-examination. He doesnt always make the wisest choices but hes always ready to own up to his mistakes. Like other chronic biblical screwups (think Peter Jonah Paul) this awareness of his imperfections and his dependence on God makes David a standout in the roster of Israelite kingsthe improbable chosen one from whom a whole nations destiny will spring. Psalm 89 confirms this catalog of Gods promisesnot only to David but for generations: greatness peace prosperity. Israel is claimed as Gods own and Davids throne shall stand firm forever. Gods care and attention to this covenant never wander the psalmist assures us; it is only for us to recognize the fact.</p><p>And yet this idyll comes up short. The ever-attentive God the deathless covenant a people blessed and protected a guaranteed home that endures foreverwhere are these things reflected in the cold realities of human life? Only in the cozy lies we are told as children the cynic might protest and nowhere else. After alleven the mountain of gifts on Christmas morning doesnt come from the benevolent old bishop but mostly from sweatshops ferried across polluted seas and down traffic-choked highways delivered to harried parents by overworked couriers: wheres the magic in that? I have been with you wherever you went God murmurs to David I have destroyed all your enemies. Yet even Davids last days were not happy ones. God offers the king protection from enemy armiesbut not from the kings own self? David dies regretful broken old and alone: the golden boy no longer.</p><p>The worldthe realities rather than the poetic fantasy of human lifehas a way of trashing our dreams. Promises are swallowed in darkness: feelings of bitterness and self-loathing betrayal and rage directed at those who we thought were on our side but werent. We too have forgotten the taste of beauty and goodness; injustice rather than the righteousness of divine promise reigns.</p><p>So it also must have seemed in first-century Palestine. Mary Joseph and the whole Nativity crew could have been forgiven for thinking:<em> the worlds gone to hell.</em> The encounters and parables of Jesus a few decades later offer us a disturbing glimpse of that reality. Everywhere we find the untrammeled power of a few who were content with the suffering of the many; the community devouring itself. A devout Jew of Jesus time might well have asked reading Samuels comforting words: Where is God and all those promises now?</p><p>Today it appears that little has changed in the land of Jesus birthor anywhere else. Hatred is rampant. Lives are ravaged families shattered making a hideous mockery of all we thought wed learned in the last two thousand years. We trade accusations justifications we cotton ourselves in distraction and indifferencebut the suffering continues whether or not we are paying attention. Those old promises seem extinguished nothing more than smoke on the air. We are alone in the dark.</p><p>Christina Rossetti is not the only one who has written on the bleakness of midwinter: heightened awareness sharpened sensibilities the very skin that both separates and shelters a body from the world seems to be stretched a little thinner. Winter is a time of changes. Some swift and stark some subtle and hidden working deep underground as a mystery to the human gaze. Winter is a falling-away so that something new can emerge; the season of cocooning where young growing things like to hide away and undertake their miracles of transformations in private. <em>The mystery kept secret for long ages </em>Paul writes the Romans <em>but now made manifestaccording to the command of God.</em><em></em></p><p>Winter is a time of gathering gloom and introspection of feelings cut off from the world and thus intensified by their own craving for privacy; a time of self-absorption when people put aside the freedom and conviviality of summer to take stock and look to their own. One feels a sense of urgency and not a little dread ahead of what lies before us: once flowers and warmth are packed away and the surfaces of life are laid bare.</p><p>Winter is the season of darkness. The bright hours grow fewer and fewer. In the earliest days of humankind each winter might bring the same nagging fear: what if this is the year they disappear altogether and never return? The range of colors grows narrower in the winter the choices starker and more exigent. Death draws a little nearer. It is no surprise that many choose this season to let go of life.</p><p>Today like Narnia under the rule of the White Witch it seems sometimes as if our winter never ends. We feel enclosed by the ice that stops hearts and locks us away from one another from life itself. Like the ancient peoples we are watching our days grow ever shorter. At our poorest lost from God from ourselves and each other we cry out <em>ad extremis</em>; we are the seed buried in the frozen earth hidden forgotten alone. The seed that no longer even recognizes itselffor there in solitude and unknown to anyone strange things are happening.</p><p>Into the realm of darkness God came. David the Israelites Mary and Josephwhy should we wonder that Gods favor rests on the hidden peoplepeople who wander and doubt who sense their aloneness their utter dependency who worry that they are not enough? It is to these people that God bestows a secret powerso secret that mostly it is something only God sees. God who alone senses the magic unfolding below a surface that to human eyes appears naked and denuded of life.</p><p>For God chooses Davidthe spare sent off to tend the sheep. Jesse had so many sons bigger stronger probably smarter and more capable in all the usual wayssons with knowledge of the world. Yet God chooses the little one alone on the hillside with the wind and the rain.</p><p>Consider this: who was more powerless in premodern societies than a young woman? Whether noble or humble slave or free she is the poorest of all for her entire lifes trajectory is the property of men. What woman in first-century Palestine has the power to take fate into her own hands to chart a destiny neither guided nor decided by father brother husband son? Highly unlikely almost impossible to imagineyet in one particular instance that is exactly what happens.</p><p>God turns the very source of a young womans vulnerability - her womanhoodinto a means of cosmic salvation. My soul magnifies the Lord Mary cries for God has done great things for me. Her <em>Yes</em> is often portrayed as an act of meek obediencea means of taming and imprinting the familiar pattern of man orders woman submits upon this astonishing act where God smashes the barrier between heaven and earth on behalf of humanity. Instead God offers Mary a partnership (shes not known as Co-Redemptrix for nothing) in the salvation of the world; here is no timid servant carrying out the command of her lord. The incarnation of Jesus comes about when Mary herself senses that the season of waiting is at an end; God has whispered to her: <em>now is your time you are ready. Come forth break the surface and dazzle the world. </em></p><p>Alone in the dark all we have left is our humanity: Gods great gift. It is the shining jewel at the bottom of the treasure chest that can never be lost or stolen. To refuse the illusions of both greatness and despair; to reject the temptation to sit as judge on one another and to remember as David did that we are all unfinished work; to bask in the radiance of our very being as creatures who are made to love and be lovedto feel this to know it even in the loneliest chambers of our hearts; to suspect (is it ever more than that? A hint a murmur) that beneath the surface something wondrous has been happening all along. This is where hope dwells hope like that which ancient peoples placed in the solstice: <em>one day our light will return.</em> A light as we will hear John proclaim on Christmas morning which shines out in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.</p><p>The birth draws near. In our wintry world amidst the darkness atoms are furiously rearranging themselves into our Salvation. What is required of us? That we are ready. Like midwives we must be patient watchful rich in compassion and fortitude waiting and working through all long hours of the night at the side of she who labors. We are all she has you and I: its us or nobody.</p><p>Hold fast to hope. It is the power of our littleness and our reliance on God and each other that makes us strong. Hold fast to that promise even in the dark.</p><p><em>Quiet friend who has come so far</em></p><p><em>feel how your breathing makes more space around you.</em></p><p><em>Let this darkness be a bell tower</em></p><p><em>and you the bell. As you ring</em></p><p><em>what batters you becomes your strength.</em></p><p><em>Move back and forth into the change.</em></p><p><em>What is it like such intensity of pain?</em></p><p><em>If the drink is bitter turn yourself to wine.</em></p><p><em>In this uncontainable night</em></p><p><em>be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses</em></p><p><em>the meaning discovered there.</em></p><p><em>And if the world has ceased to hear you</em></p><p><em>say to the silent earth: I flow.</em></p><p><em>To the rushing water speak: I am.</em></p><p><em><strong>Let Your Darkness Be a Belltower - Rainer Maria Rilke</strong></em></p><p></p><p><em><strong><img src='https://www.dignityusa.org/sites/default/files/botslori.png'></strong></em></p><p><em><strong>Lori Ranner</strong> is the author of an upcoming authorized biography of medievalist and LGBTQ+ Studies pioneer John Eastburn Boswell. She has published both academic articles and the first in&nbsp;series of five novels&nbsp;Sailing to Byzantium. Ranner has taught classical languages as well as ancient and medieval history for twenty-three years. She is married&nbsp;and mother to one adult daughter and two school-age sons.</em></p><p></p><p></p><p style=text-align: center;><a class=btn btn-primary href=https://dignityusa.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/dignityusa/subscribe.jsp?subscription=8>Subscribe to Breath of the Spirit</a></p>