One of the paradoxical ways that God calls us into being is by inviting us to create a space within ourselves to be, like Mary, a Theotokos. In the Orthodox tradition Mary is especially exalted as Theotokos, that is, God-bearer. In a church, let alone a world, that slouches toward fundamentalism as it slouches toward Bethlehem, there is a failure of imagination that tends to turn up in our Advent and Christmas celebrations and liturgies. It shows up in a certain biblical literalism which conveniently and safely keeps us stuck in a sentimental piousness as we attend one more cute Christmas pageant or watch the by-now predictable Santa carrying the birthday cake to the crèche where he kneels before the baby Jesus on Christmas Eve.

Don’t misunderstand me. This is more than me being a scrooge. I proudly remember my wide-eyed, thumb-sucking infant son convincingly portraying the wide-eyed, thumb-sucking Christ-child in an interactive Christmas homily that invited all those present at Jesus’ birth (from cotton-bearded shepherds to the tinfoil-headed star) to pose for a family photo in front of the worshiping assembly. I also seem to recall another year when I was beaming like the “star of wonder” at my angelic six-year old daughter until she was poked in the eye by the stiff, wayward tail of some clumsy barnyard beast.

But these moments are bearable, at worst, and joy-filled, at best, only if they are not allowed to carry the day (or to carry the season) for, in fact, they are not capable of carrying the power and glory of the season— let alone the mystery that evoked it— and are only permissible if we are as committed to attending the serious spiritual interrogatives and imperatives that surreptitiously lay before us like a newborn baby who is also the messiah as we are to attending our children’s or grandchildren’s pageant.

There is a word I love and have mentioned before, a Greek word essential to a Catholic understanding of the Eucharist and, I think, to our celebration of hallowed events that we celebrate (versus observe) each liturgical year. The word is anamnesis. It refers to a special kind of memory act. More than being nostalgic or merely reminiscing, anamnesis is a particular way of remembering by which the community participates in the truth and meaning of a particular moment or event. In the Eucharistic action, for example, the community re-members the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus in such a way that the power and truth of that event becomes present and active here and now. Thus an authentic Eucharistic celebration always moves us “back to the future.” Through silence, story, symbols, music, movement, and gestures, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the Church‘s anamnestic ritual transports a past event into the present moment whereupon the community is commanded to translate into action here and now the meaning of that original event.

And this is true for Advent and Christmas as well. The only way to avoid making a sweet but deadly mockery of the events of this season is by risking the questions and commands to which the events and persons of the season invite us. The radical trust that sets in motion the radical daring that moves Mary to agree to be the Theotokos, is not simply a pleasant memory or quaint seasonal image. It is rather a call to anamnesis, a summons to engage in the questions and imperatives of the incarnation. In an often-quoted line from a Christmas sermon, the 13^th century Dominican Meister Eckhart asks what good is it for Jesus to have been born a long time ago if he is not born in our hearts and in our lives today.

Advent is a time of spiritual surrogacy. If Christ is to be born here and now – our presence is required. The season only becomes more than nostalgia or play-acting if we dare to understand that the angel’s imperative words to Mary of Nazareth become our question to answer here and now. Will you agree to be a theotokos, a God-bearer? And not merely a God-carrier but a God-birther as well? One who brings God into the world here and now? What Mary did once physically and for all time, we are asked to do creatively and consciously each day in this place and in this time: carry within us wherever we go the aliveness of God, the friendship of God, the compassion of God, the hope and joy and light of God until a moment, a need, a circumstance, a place, a people, a person cries out to us, O Come, O Come Emmanuel and the mid-wiving Spirit whispers, “Let the birthing begin.”♦

REFLECTION QUESTION:

In the space provided by silence and simplicity, instead of asking, “Where will I give birth to Christ?” ask, “Where might God be asking to be born in and through me?”

May Christ be Born in You Today,

Dan