Mighty - Advent 15
If you live long enough, your life will begin and end with someone wiping your butt.
For unto us a child is born. And His name shall be called:
MIGHTY GOD
If you live long enough, your life will begin and end with someone wiping your butt.
From vulnerability to vulnerability we live . . . that is to say, weakness will be a companion throughout our lives.
What do we think about when we hear the words Mighty God? Mighty is another word for strength, and there are plenty of stories of the strength of God in the Bible. Strength over the elements and armies and powers - itโs not hard to understand how our idea of God can start to resemble a superhero motif. Less spandex & more drapery, mind you, but I think when most people imagine God, they imagine a kind of Superman version of God - One who is able to conquer the enemies, cast out the evil spirits, and make more wine for the party in a single bound!
But if Jesus is a vision of the invisible Almighty, what does His incarnation tell us about a Mighty God? Is mighty referring to His physicality, personality, spirituality?
If Jesus embodied mightiness through an overcoming through physicality, He wouldโve appeared in a golden onesie, ripped like a CrossFit trainer, kicking the can of anyone in His way. But instead we find a humble servant wrapped in human vulnerability who is obedient to that vulnerability all the way to death, even if it happens to be death on a cross.
Jesus is mighty not because of His capacity to overcome hardship but because of ๐๐ถ๐ ๐๐ถ๐น๐น๐ถ๐ป๐ด๐ป๐ฒ๐๐ ๐๐ผ ๐ด๐ผ ๐๐ต๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ด๐ต ๐ต๐๐บ๐ฎ๐ป ๐ต๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ฑ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ฝ, like we have to do. It is this compassionate empathy that has the power to transform the human heart.
How does Love restore what it loves?
By being with what It loves.
How does Love defeat itโs enemy Death?
By accepting it.
How does love show itself Mightily?
It accepts the humility and weakness of being born. It accepts the humility and vulnerability of eventually dying.
And this humble acceptance is the Mighty ground that it saves the world through.
The mightiest thing you can do is accept the vulnerability of being born and eventually dying.ย
And when you do, you will notice that Love has been mightily with you the whole time.
May your present stage of life be the mighty ground for divine participation.
These meditations are a freely given visual offering for this Advent season.
Thank you for following along.
Most of them originated from my book Honest Adventโฆ.
Which is available where all books are sold.
