Third Day of Christmas

“On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me three French hens…”

Scriptures

Psalm 103; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

For reflection

Two days past Christmas Day, the realization of this journey to Epiphany begins to set in.  It’s such a different rhythm than the usual post-holiday let down.  At the same time we are usually beginning to put away Christmas decorations, this way of living Christmastime keeps the gifts coming and the celebration building.  If you put everything into the Big Day, you may find yourself letting down emotionally or spiritually this week as you get back to routine matters or delve headlong into New Year revelry.  May this simple spiritual journey and the gifts you are receiving sustain and steady you.

Open today’s gifts: faith, hope, and love.  The Apostle Paul distills these three graces as the most essential of all Spirit-given gifts.  Strip away everything else that seems so necessary, all those “must-have” gifts, the ones so desirable to possess, the ones that make us feel good about ourselves and others feel good about us, the ones that make us feel needed or rewarded.  What’s at the heart of this Christian journey?  What is irreducible for life to the full?  Faith.  Hope.  Love.

If you observe Advent, you know that faith, hope, and love, together with joy, are at the center of the Christmas story: HOPE for a Messiah sustained longingly over many generations; the FAITH of Zechariah, of Mary and Joseph; the LOVE of God for the world expressed in Jesus; the response of JOY by all who drew near to see this thing that has come to pass.

In Advent, we learned about these gifts.  But now receive the faith of Zechariah, Mary, and Joseph.  Now receive hope for the in-between times--which is most of the time!  Now receive love enough to eclipse all hurts, forgive all sins, and forge the deepest commitments.

What would it mean for us to move from teaching our children or loved ones about faith to offering them the gift of faith?  How do we move from talking about hope to living and modeling hope?  Why not quit trying to teach love; let yourself be loved and express unequivocal and unqualified regard for others?

The reality of these core gifts is that we will never realize them unless we exercise them.  Faith is not faith until you’ve trusted.  Hope is not hope until I’ve lived from here to there in unflagging anticipation that what was promised shall be.  Love is not love until we’ve opened our heart to risk forgiving or extending ourselves when reciprocity is far from guaranteed.

And it isn’t until we dare to move these gifts from being nouns to verbs that we realize that faith itself is more grace than effort, that hope is more grace than will, that love is more grace than feeling.  In the decision to act in faith, we receive it afresh.  In the decision to hope instead of live down to lowered expectations, hope is born anew in us.  In the decision to love, the love of God is unleashed in us all over again.  No wonder these “French hens” are so valuable, so prized as gifts.

Journaling/prayer possibilities

Journal (write reflectively about) an occasion in which you chose to act in faith or hope or love rather than in predictability, calculated risk, or typical rationality.  Why did you choose faith, hope and/or love?  What did you learn in the process?  How can you relay this experience to your children, loved ones, or friends?  Give thanks for the gifts of faith, hope, and love, and for the experiences in which they are exercised.  Reflect on your present life choices and consider what it might mean to choose to exercise faith, hope, or love in them.

Song

Above What We Can Ask or Hope by Charles Wesley

Above what we can ask or hope,

   The God of grace delights to give,

To fill the empty vessels up;

   And when we grace for grace receive,

Enough in Christ remains behind

   To fill the souls of all mankind.

Long as our faith’s capacity

   Is stretched to admit the blessing given,

We drink the streaming Deity,

   And gasp for larger tastes of heaven!

But when we lose our emptiness,

   The oil, the joy, the Spirit stays!

Empty us then, most gracious Lord,

   And keep us always empty here,

Till Thee, according to Thy Word,

   We see upon the clouds appear,

Thy glorious fullness to reveal,

   And all Thy saints forever fill.

Benediction

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever!  Amen.” (Ephesians 3:17b-21, NIV)

Graphic by Sara Tyson (www.saratyson.com)