A meditation offered by Rev Stephanie Burette, Oxford.
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”’
Do you remember being truly seen or heard? Often, these two go together.
A colleague recently shared publicly a moment when she had been accused of something which was utterly untrue, but which was readily accepted and spread by others at the time. She commented: ‘It’s easy to dismiss stuff like this by saying “you shouldn’t care what people think …” But sometimes what people think of you substantially affects your ability to get on with your life.’
When I hear St John the Baptist proclaim:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
make his paths straight’
what comes first to my mind are the obstacles we put on each other’s paths, sometime intentionally, but so very often unintentionally. Much of the work we could readily accept to do would be to gain awareness of what we often unintentionally put on each other’s paths. In the end, we are putting them out.
It’s the odd comment. It’s the ‘one-off’ not-so-well-thought-through observation, or just that look or that gesture. These are tiny and we don’t think much of these. We forget them. Yet, they can stick in people’s minds, hearts, even bodies, like glue and definitely affect their ability, our ability, to get on with their lives, with our lives.
Edmonia Lewis. Photographed by Henry Rocher c. 1870.
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.
A remarkable woman who managed to be seen in her own time, undoubtedly through herculean efforts, tenacity, resilience and grace.
In this season of Advent, we are preparing ourselves for the incarnation of God: the invisible made visible; the intangible made tangible, because God knew and knows that for us humans there’s nothing like seeing ourselves in the other for the dots to connect.
And so I pray that our own experience of being misunderstood and accused unfairly may help us empathise with others who experience it on a regular basis.
I pray that, our hearts enlightened by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we may become able to truly see one another, especially those in whom we find it more difficult to see ourselves.
I pray that we may offer this inestimable gift of truly seeing another person, by truly listening to who they are.
I pray for Love to dwell in our hearts, because only Love can open our ears and our eyes like this.
In Jesus’s eyes, we see love. But it is Love facing rejection.
The open eyes of love face closed eyes symbolic of the refusal to see.
… the crucifixion is already on the horizon at Christmas.
Jesus – Judas, Mucknell Abbey.