I now declare it officially Christmas; Advent has ended, the expectation is fulfilled. Go ahead, light up your lights, power up the Christmas tree, knock yourself out with Christmas music.
The solstice is imminent, soon there will be more daylight than dusk in our days, soon love will blossom.
The Jeopardy professor’s tournament is over, Amy Schneider, trans-glorious champion will be back tomorrow.
Love will blossom this week, its power growing day by day until we reach Christmas Eve on Friday night and then Christmas itself on Saturday. We will sing “Joy to the World” and we will feast and we will hug and kiss. We will exchange gifts, because they are symbols of our love. My husband put all the ornaments on our enormous tree himself last weekend, and yesterday eagerly piled wrapped presents under it, his smile ebullient, his joy permeating the whole house. It made me love him even more, if you can imagine such a thing. Love builds up. We are so blessed.
It’s Christmas. Christmas is all about making room for love. God has prepared a mansion of love in which God has called us to dwell. God has prepared the path for love into our hearts and from our hearts into the world, a synergy of love building up joy and peace and righteousness and justice. Our souls proclaim God’s greatness and our spirits rejoice. In God’s love we are blessed, and with God’s love we bless each other.
The pandemic surges again, but this time we are prepared, we know how to take care of ourselves, we will not let even this suppress the love God has called us to live into, to share, to build up.
Go ahead, embrace joy.
4 Advent Year C 2021 RCL (Micah 5:2-5a; Canticle 15 Magnificat Luke 1:46-55; Hebrews 10:5-10; Luke 1:39-45 (46-55))
©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.
Dimensions of Reality: glbt Christian spirituality 