Years ago, Teri and I did an internship in Yazoo City. We were almost through with seminary and just had our first child. I was 22 hours short of graduating from seminary and was deciding if I would take all the classes in one semester or stretch it out over two. But we were broke, Teri wasn’t going back to work, and everything we had was old and worn out. Many of you have been in a similar situation of wrestling money, an expanding family, and school so you can relate to our predicament.
And then God showed up! I got a chance to do an internship in Yahoo City, Mississippi, a place I wanted to be. So we moved, put off school for a year, and got settled into raising a family and starting a life of ministry. We immediately loved Delta life, except for one thing—we were not prepared for the smell. Mississippi Chemical Company was located just outside of town and a smell hung over the town like a fog, sort of like living downwind from a paper mill. Anyway, we commented how we could never get used to it. But the body is amazing, and eventually our senses just sort of filtered it out so that we didn’t even notice it anymore. After a while, we would actually be shocked when people would visit and ask, “What is that stench?”
The magnitude of the Incarnation is like that, as well. We are so familiar with the birth narratives—those of us who grew up with this—that, as time goes by, we just don’t see it with the kind of awe and wonder we once did. So my prayer this Advent, as well as all Advents, is that we will see the magnitude of what God was doing 2000 years ago as if it were the first time. I mean, God showing up as an infant? A virgin having a child? Angels singing from on high? If we can’t be struck by awe at this, what will move us?
Join us Sunday as we ponder the Annunciation, the time when God essentially tells a baby (young woman) she will be having a baby, but not just any baby…