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The story behind Jesus’ birth becomes even more radical if we set aside, for a moment, the doctrine of the virgin birth. Now, for some this can feel provocative—especially for those who approach Scripture as something to be taken literally at every point. That approach is sometimes called biblicism: believing in the Bible in such a way that belief in the living God gets reduced to simple, unquestioned assertions. But as Episcopalians, we do not fear questions. Faith is not undone by wonder or honest inquiry.
So let us imagine for a moment that there was no virgin birth, and of course no medical technology such as IVF in the ancient world. Let’s simply take the story as Matthew tells it. Mary becomes pregnant—and we are given no explanation of how. It is clear that Joseph is not the biological father. Joseph, who is described as righteous, meaning aligned with God in action and intention, chooses not to expose Mary to shame. He plans to quietly dissolve the engagement. This is a scandal. Mary is vulnerable. Joseph is distressed. The situation is socially dangerous—just as it still can be in many cultures today. But in the midst of this rupture of norms, Joseph is invited not to abandon Mary, but to protect her and the child. The baby who would otherwise be marked as “illegitimate,” as outside the lines of order and propriety, is the one Matthew identifies with Isaiah’s prophecy: Emmanuel—God with us. And Mary is linked with Isaiah’s “young woman,” the one from whom God’s presence emerges. Everything here is upside down. A situation that appears socially disordered becomes the very place of God’s nearness. The one who, by societal standards, might have been dismissed as cursed, unwanted, or unworthy is revealed to be the bearer of divine presence. This is the nature of the kingdom of God. It overturns what we call normal. It rearranges our values. It gives dignity to those the world pushes to the margins. The gospel consistently moves toward the forgotten, the shamed, the overlooked. It exposes the fragility of the structures that favor the powerful. And it reveals the presence of God where we least expect to find it. The Incarnation begins not in order, but in disruption. Not in social approval, but in vulnerability. Not in perfection, but in the fragile courage of two people who choose love over fear. And that is where God still shows up. Descending Theology: The Resurrection by Mary Karr From the far star points of his pinned extremities, cold inched in—black ice and squid ink-- till the hung flesh was empty. Lonely in that void even for pain, he missed his splintered feet, the human stare buried in his face. He ached for two hands made of meat he could reach to the end of. In the corpse’s core, the stone fist of his heart began to bang on the stiff chest’s door, and breath spilled back into that battered shape. Now it’s your limbs he comes to fill, as warm water shatters at birth, rivering every way. St. John the Baptist dwells in the wilderness. Jesus calls him the greatest among those born of women—perhaps the G.O.A.T. of our tradition—yet even he, Jesus says, is least in the kingdom of heaven.
This invites us to consider two places: the wilderness and the kingdom of heaven. Where are these now? We may imagine them as distant or external, but Jesus points us inward. Both the wilderness and the kingdom of heaven are found in the same place: the heart, the mind, the interior landscape in which we live our truest life. Depending on what we perceive there, the same inner space can become either a barren wilderness or the very threshold of the kingdom. Jesus asks the crowd, “What did you go out to see in the wilderness?” So, we ask the same of ourselves: In the wilderness of the heart, what do we see? A reed shaken by the wind—like our emotions, flickering, easily disturbed by passing remarks, shifting circumstances, the thousand small disturbances of the day? Or someone clothed in soft robes—the fantasies, the curated images and desires borrowed from others, the longing to be who others want us to be? Jesus directs us instead to look for the prophet—the one who prepares the way. To turn our gaze there is already a transformation. To attend to the voice crying in the wilderness is to let the wilderness open into the kingdom of heaven. So in this Advent season, let us ask: What am I looking for in the wilderness of my own heart? What do I see? And who do I choose to pay attention to? Let the wind that shakes the reed pass. Let the costumes of borrowed desire fall away. Breathe deeply and listen for the prophet’s voice. For the kingdom of heaven is always near-- as near as the quiet place where we breathe. The Opening of Eyes by David Whyte That day I saw beneath dark clouds, the passing light over the water and I heard the voice of the world speak out, I knew then, as I had before, life is no passing memory of what has been nor the remaining pages in a great book waiting to be read. It is the opening of eyes long closed. It is the vision of far off things seen for the silence they hold. It is the heart after years of secret conversing, speaking out loud in the clear air. It is Moses in the desert fallen to his knees before the lit bush. It is the man throwing away his shoes as if to enter heaven and finding himself astonished, opened at last, fallen in love with solid ground. Self-examination is at the heart of spiritual health, and during Advent, its importance comes into clearer focus. The call of John the Baptist—“Prepare the way of the Lord”—does not begin with outward action but with inward attention. The wilderness he cries from is not only the desert of Judea but the interior wilderness of our own hearts. To make straight the Lord’s paths is to clear what has become crooked within us. In this sense, the voice crying in the wilderness is not only John’s—it is our own. The summons to prepare, to make ready, echoes from within the quiet chambers of the soul.
Breath is the source of all voice. To sing, one must first learn to breathe with awareness—drawing air deeply, releasing it with intention, engaging the body’s hidden strength. Singing depends not on shallow, unconscious breaths but on a mindful rhythm of inhalation and exhalation, a harmony between control and surrender. Breath becomes the living current that gives rise to sound, the invisible force that animates voice. So too in the spiritual life, breath gives rise to presence. Our task is not simply to train the voice, but to let the whole body become a voice of God’s indwelling. Imagine your breath as prayer—steady, patient, alive. Imagine that breath giving energy to the embodied Word, becoming flesh in you. In each breath, God draws near; in each exhalation, Christ becomes present. This Advent, breathe with awareness. Let your breath prepare the way of the Lord. Let it voice, through your very being, the presence of Christ—embodied, tender, and alive in the world. The Breathing by Denise Levertov An absolute patience. Trees stand up to their knees in fog. The fog slowly flows uphill. White cobwebs, the grass leaning where deer have looked for apples. The woods from brook to where the top of the hill looks over the fog, send up not one bird. So absolute, it is no other than happiness itself, a breathing too quiet to hear. There are many interpretations of Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do not go gentle into that good night.” (Yes, that Dylan whom Bob Zimmerman so admired that he changed his name to Dylan!) Some say it’s a lament for the poet’s dying father; others see it as a universal meditation on how we are to face mortality—urging us not to accept death passively but to resist it fiercely, to live with vitality and presence until the very end.
Do not go gentle into that good night – Dylan Thomas (1914 –1953) Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. I share this poem in the context of Advent, as Jesus calls us to keep awake—to resist the dying of the light, to stay vigilant against that “good night.” Pay attention to the very entrance of your breath as it moves in and out. Attend to the movement of the Spirit. Remain awake to holiness hidden in the ordinary, and rage against complacency. Do not let a single breath pass unnoticed. Watch. Keep alert. Stay awake. Be ardent. For that breath is the wind in which Christ draws near. We do not know when he will arrive—only that his coming stirs the air around us, drawing closer, nearer, until it reaches the very soul within. About a month and a half ago, on October 18, I drove past the “No Kings” protesters along Route 4 and through my town. The gathering was entirely nonviolent—marked by humor, creativity, and quiet seriousness. As I slowed to read their posters, I was immediately reminded of the Feast of Christ the King, which we celebrate this Sunday.
Calling Christ not merely a king but the King is a bold confession of faith. It is a declaration that Christ’s way—not the world’s pursuit of power or control—is the true rule of life. And this rule extends beyond the walls of the church; it is meant to shape every aspect of how we live, breathe, and relate to one another. This is why I often speak of breathing. Breathing is the most fundamental act of life. No one has to be taught how—it begins the instant we enter the world. In that sense, it is both utterly ordinary and profoundly sacred. To live according to the way of Jesus is to breathe in rhythm with divine life itself. We do not breathe mindlessly; we breathe the Breath of God mindfully, as Jesus did. Charles Wesley gives voice to this mystery in his hymn Love Divine, All Loves Excelling: Breathe, O breathe thy loving Spirit Into ev'ry troubled breast; Let us all in thee inherit, Let us find thy promised rest; Take away our love of sinning; Alpha and Omega be; End of faith as its beginning, Set our hearts at liberty. To breathe as Christ breathed—to love as Christ loved—is to enter into his kingship: a reign not of dominance, but of mercy; not of fear, but of freedom. I invite you to read and breathe through Malcolm Guite’s poem Christ the King, allowing each line to move with the gentle rhythm of the Spirit’s breath within you. Christ The King Mathew 25: 31-46 Our King is calling from the hungry furrows Whilst we are cruising through the aisles of plenty, Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows, Our soundtracks drown his murmur: ‘I am thirsty’. He stands in line to sign in as a stranger And seek a welcome from the world he made, We see him only as a threat, a danger, He asks for clothes, we strip-search him instead. And if he should fall sick then we take care That he does not infect our private health, We lock him in the prisons of our fear Lest he unlock the prison of our wealth. But still on Sunday we shall stand and sing The praises of our hidden Lord and King. Following the way of Jesus is to experience our world upside down. The world we are taught to interpret—the one structured by strength, dominance, and rivalry—is overturned in the gospel. In Luke 21:5–19, Jesus announces that even the most stable and sacred structures will fall: “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” It is as if Jesus invites us to see not an apocalypse of ruin, but a revelation of truth—when what seemed solid and unquestionable is suddenly fragile, and what seemed marginal becomes enduring.
Following Jesus is not merely about believing differently; it is about seeing differently. The turning over of stones mirrors the turning over of our hearts and imaginations. It is the unsettling recognition that what we thought was faith may have been fear; what we assumed was loyalty may have been blindness. Such transformation inevitably disturbs relationships—“You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends.” To live in this new orientation is to walk through misunderstanding, to be seen as disloyal, even dangerous, because you no longer live by the logic of the world as it is, but as it shall be. When I took Theo to his friend’s birthday party about a month ago, I watched How to Train Your Dragon—a movie that unexpectedly gave life to this gospel inversion. The young hero, Hiccup, grows up in a world that fears dragons. His father, Stoick, leads their Viking village in a centuries-long war against them. To be a good son, a good leader, is to hunt dragons without question. But Hiccup begins to see differently. When he looks into the eyes of an injured dragon he had trapped, he senses not a monster but a living, feeling being. The world, for Hiccup, turns upside down. In one of the film’s pivotal moments, Stoick tells his son, “You are not my son.” To his father, Hiccup’s friendship with a dragon is a betrayal—an offense against the family’s honor and the memory of his mother, who was lost to a dragon’s attack. Yet it is precisely in this rupture—this painful breaking of inherited certainty—that a deeper truth emerges. Hiccup’s way of peace, seen first as weakness and treason, becomes the very path to save both the dragons and his people. The world that must collapse—the world of fear, battle, and vengeance—gives birth to a new one, where riding a dragon replaces killing it. This is not far from the world Jesus envisions. The temple stones—symbols of religious certainty, social stability, and divine favor—must fall for the kingdom to rise. The path of faith no longer lies in defending what is sacred but in discerning what is real. Faith, then, is not about preserving walls but crossing distances; not about fighting enemies but recognizing them as kin. To follow Jesus, like Hiccup, is to imagine a life that contradicts the logic of survival and embraces instead the vocation of reconciliation. We may not face fire-breathing dragons, but perhaps the fire we fear is the light that reveals our own illusions. The way of Jesus, as Hiccup learned in his own world, is not safe, not even necessarily welcomed. It is, however, the only way where true sight is possible—a way of love that turns the world upside down so that it can finally stand upright. What the Sadducees lack is spiritual imagination. According to the Gospel account, they deny the resurrection—which, for them, likely means there is nothing after death: no continuation, no hope beyond the grave, simply annihilation. Their focus, therefore, is entirely on life here and now. This worldview, or grand narrative, has certain merits: it compels attention to the present, directs energy toward immediate concerns, and prioritizes the tangible realities of daily existence.
Philosophically, their stance is materialist: who we are now is all there is. The logical conclusion is to make the most of this one life, since it is the only one they believe we have. From that perspective, resurrection appears absurd. Hence their question to Jesus—whom they regard as one who believes in resurrection: “In the resurrection, whose wife will a woman be if she married seven brothers in succession?” Their question reveals much about their conception of resurrection. It is not the resurrection Jesus proclaims, but rather a world that simply mirrors this one—same laws, same social structures, same concerns—only without death. In this imagined afterlife, everyone who has ever lived still exists, forming an overpopulated, immortal humanity. There would be no need for doctors, nurses, or medicines, though perhaps priests would remain to keep order and enforce the laws. We could extrapolate endlessly about such a Sadducean “resurrection,” but its flaw is clear: it is a speculative construct built entirely on this-world assumptions. For it to function, each imagined condition requires yet another imagined solution. It is neither inspiring nor transformative—it offers no new hope, no radical change. From this standpoint, their skepticism makes sense. Why embrace a “resurrection” that is merely an eternal extension of earthly life? Jesus, however, points to something entirely different—something not bound by the mechanics or assumptions of this world. “Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living,” Jesus says, “for to him all of them are alive.” What I take from Jesus’ words is that our world is composed of two kinds of reality: physical and social. Physical reality is what nature builds—the spinning of the earth around the sun, the pull of gravity, the biological processes that sustain life. Social reality, however, is what we construct—how we name, organize, and make sense of the world. Even the term gravity is not part of physical reality itself but our linguistic construct to describe why an apple falls from a tree. Gender identity, too, belongs to this realm of social reality—it is not physical but sociological. The world of the resurrection, however, seems to transcend both. It does not operate within the categories of physical or social reality. Its central truth is this: to God, all are alive. The presence of God is life itself—the animating breath that makes all being alive. The good news is that this presence of God is not reserved for life after death. It is available to us here and now, through the very breath we draw. Our breath is the path to that divine presence—the Breath of God—that connects us to all who live and all who are to be raised. So let us ask ourselves: how do we touch this resurrection life now, in this moment? Through each breath, the Breath of God makes us alive and binds us to the living God, in whom all are alive. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
October 2025
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