Tempus fugit

Time flies.  Just over a month from now, God willing, our daughter Mary Kate will have a baby and Mary and I will become grandparents for the first time!  How did we get that old?  For parents, time seems to compress as we see our children sprout before us.  We begin in wonder and awe seeing them as newborns, our imaginations filled with the possibilities of this new life.  Before we know it, the days turn to months, the months to years, and our kids are grown and having kids of their own.

Perhaps today’s rapid pace of technological and social change makes time speed by.  My laptop is outdated in six months at the latest.  Why don’t I already have a tablet?  It's certainly possible to own the coolest cell phone in the world, but it is only the coolest for about a month and a half.  It doesn't help that the media, our co-workers, and our acquaintances are constantly telling us that we must do this or buy that or risk being hopelessly out of synch with those around us.

All of this can cause quite a bit of angst.  We worry that we've missed something while the days have rushed past us.  We worry about what we need to buy to assure that we don't miss the rushing train of the tomorrows to come.

When the angst starts to get the better of us, we turn to Mary our model.  While Mary, unlike Joseph, actually has lines in the Gospels, in today’s passage, Mary is silent.  She watches as the shepherds come to see and honor her child; she sees the effect her newborn baby has on this rough and tumble lot; and she keeps all these things – in some translations, she treasures all these things – reflecting on them in her heart.

Just as Mary is still and reflects on the meaning of this stable-born child, we too must still ourselves that we might reflect on the meaning of this birth.  For this child, “born of a woman, born under the law” some two thousand years ago is the promised Emmanuel, God with us.  He is God’s only Son; the sign of God’s infinite and unconditional love for us; the one who will take our sins and take our deaths to the cross with him; the one who frees us from worry and fills us with peace, frees us from hate and fills us with love, frees us form want and fills us with joy, the one who is raised and lives with us today and tomorrow and the next day until the end of time.  Through him, we become, as St. Paul reminds us, the adopted sons and daughters of God.  No longer slaves to time, slaves to possessions, slaves to pleasure, we now call God Abba, loving Father.

When we treasure this thought and keep it in our hearts, we rejoice as the shepherds did on seeing the baby in swaddling clothes.  We give glory and thanks to God for his great love.  We realize that Christmas is not a single day of celebration, over before we know it.  Christmas is an on-going life of joy, gratitude and peace.

With that thought in our hearts, we pray for God’s blessings as Aaron blessed the people:

The LORD bless you and keep you!
The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!
The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!

May this new year and all of your years to come be filled with the peace, joy, and presence of Christ.