The week ends with a powerful piece by Cornel West.
One reason whey the Garden of Gethsemane is so very important is because, even thought God comes into the world in human flesh to love, serve, and die, even God had to choose.
Jesus said, "Let this cup pass from me." He still had to choose to have his will conform to the will of God. The greatest living preacher - Gardner C. Taylor - has a grand sermon called "Gethsemane: The Place of Victory." Once you get humanized, fleshified, and concretized in space and time, you are in a choice-centered reality. To be human means choosing to have the courage to think, love, hope, and fight for justice and freedom.
I may use part of this quote for Christmas Eve. The act of becoming human brings the fullness of God into this context that is call our home. God comes home for Christmas and enters into all that makes us family, neighbor, nation, enemy, friend, companion... Along the way - even in the place that appear to look and feel like Gethsemane - we like our God-in-the-flesh - must choose where we are to go and how we will get there. Both parts are quite important. We work together to understand where it is that God is bidding us to come. And then, we must wrestle with how we get there. It is not going to be like the way the powers of the world move...it will be within the Reign of Peace. Together we choose to go that way. Alone it is quite difficult. With others, the Spirit whips around us that through us to clarify who we will become so that we do not fall into the ways that are so easy for us to stumble - violence, unrest, despair...
Connection: This God who comes to be "with us" make our humanity a special gift. What bit of that special-ness in you will you let loose upon the world today? Your choice.
When you stir up our hearts, O God, we are transformed and we are awakened into a new life that reflects you Peaceable Reign. Stir us up again this day. Amen.
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