The Mystery of a Child
Meditation18 ©John P. Cock, Motivation for the Great Work: Forty Meaty MeditationsThe presence of the Messiah is a mystery. . . . There is something surprising, unexpected about the appearance of salvation, something which contradicts pious opinions and intellectual demands. The mystery of salvation is the mystery of a child. . . . A child is real and not yet real, it is in history and not yet historical. Its nature is visible and invisible, it is here and not yet here. And just this is the character of salvation. Salvation has the nature of a child. . . . Only he who can see power in weakness, the whole in the fragment, victory in defeat, glory in suffering, innocence in guilt, sanctity in the sinner, life in death can say (with Simeon): Mine eyes have seen thy salvation. ~Paul Tillich, The New Being, p. 95GRANDBABY KAITLYN HAS MESMERIZED US since her birth on November 14, almost a month ago now. We see the miracle of her through son Jeremiah's countenance and announcement "It's a girl!" as he carried her out of the delivery room. She is brand spanking new, filling us with wonder and awe. She comes ready or not, forcing us to respond to her in all her utter vulnerability with our fumbling care. She tries to see us who are loving her, but accepts our love blindly.
She does nothing useful; no one asks her what she does for a living. She knows almost nothing; no one judges her for her lack of education. She is sheer being, just there to be cared for and loved. The miracle is that her "job" of just being transforms those around her: relatives that were alienated are reconciled; strangers become friends; great grandparents are rejuvenated; grumps show compassion; judges show mercy. Where did she learn to do all this? She has mysterious power. She must be a bit of being itself, like all God's children, bringing with her a bit of the new creation, a bit of the new reality.The mystery of the messiah comes
into our world anew in the birth of a baby,whoever it belongs to, whatever gender, nationality, color, or religion.It comes to us who think we do not want it or need it.
It comes to us hardened cynics who have given up
on new life ever happening to us again.It comes to us who think we have learned to live with
separation and have given up on reunion.It comes to us who have shunned religion,
yet, it rattles us with deep religious rumblings.It comes to us who are following every wise man and every
star, looking for that which we will never find and which was never promised.The mystery of the messiah comes as it wills,
where it wills, when it wills.Sometimes it wills to come in the form of a child.
The Messiah has come.
Be ready or not for its coming again.
~"Christmas Letter," 1995Reflection
1. Which line of Tillich caught my attention?
2. I underline the lines of the poem that caught my attention.
3. Which line really speaks to me?
4. What scenes of my life did I recall?
5. What is my mood, my feelings, as I reflect?
6. This poem says to me that
7. This poem is really about
8. My title for the poem is
9. This conversation movtivates me to
