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Advent Playlist

A Cake for Christmas

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. —ISAIAH 9:6 (ESV)

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2023

The beautiful and terrible always live side-by-side. It’s a strange reality.

Poet Maggie Smith described this truth on the first Christmas after her divorce. Her two kids spent the night at their dad’s house, and Maggie woke up with the heaviness and dread of an empty home on what shouldbe a special day. Then, the doorbell rang. A neighbor stood on her doormat with cake in hand. She remembered that Maggie would be alone on Christmas morning and wanted to remind her she wasn’t forgotten.

Our lives can come apart in a million tiny ways. Try as we might, we can’t often engineer our own happiness. There are certain realities we have to live with— like parents who have to share kids on Christmas. But, somehow, joy can meet us right in the depths of our can’t-make-it-work humanity.

Which is, of course, the very story of Jesus. Jesus was born as all infants are, shivering and protesting loudly. Yet on those tiny shoulders rests the basis of all that is most solid, most true, most trustworthy: love. A love that is for us—for me, for you—and for the whole world. This is how joy comes to us, full of surprises in the middle of our beautiful, terrible realities. Just like Maggie’s neighbor was God’s love in human form, cake and all.

READ THIS BLESSING FROM THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE

for stretching your heart (p. 18)

God, my life has too many things.

Awful. Lovely. Full. Shockingly incomplete.

Will you help me learn to live with a greater capacity for this?

Living in the tension between a life that has worked out . . . and one that has gone to hell in every handbasket.

Let today be a divine exercise of yes . . . and.

REFLECT

1. This blessing speaks of how pain reminds us that we’re not invincible. Have you experienced

this reminder? Was it gradual? Sudden?

2. Pain is a vast canvas against which big loves and small delights shine brightly. What beauty

can you see that comes forward to greet you amidst the terrible?

3. Do you have post-it notes you can stick up around your house? A white board to write on?

Spread these small delights around on the path of your everyday life like rose petals, to slow

you down and turn your face toward what is lovely and good.

GOING DEEPER

• The new terrible in poet Maggie Smith’s life arrived in the form of a divorce—one she never imagined possible. Join Kate’s conversation with Maggie called, “This Place Could be Beautiful, Right?” (3 min clip), to hear about how joy can ring the doorbell and be invited into the terrible.

Full Episode: https://katebowler.com/podcasts/this-place-could-be-beautiful-right

• In Kate’s conversation with Miroslav Volf, they talk about how joy in the midst of suffering is possible because it has something to do with being loved. Theologian Miroslav Volf said, “Even when I can’t stand myself, I can be pulled out of myself by some other force. God’s love is there, irrespective of how skillful we are to engineer our emotions, and our circumstances.” This is the ultimate anti-bootstrapping gospel. Listen to “Life Worth Living” (41 min).

• Jesus came to be with us, to be human like us. He knows exactly how it feels from the inside. Go to a special place of great beauty or comfort, or even just in your mind’s eye, perhaps a place from your childhood. Wait for Jesus to meet you there, and tell him what is most true for you today, everything about it, the beautiful and the terrible.

From "Bless the Advent we Actually Have" by Kate Bowler and The Everything Happens Project