Week 3: Day 6

Scripture: Luke 2: 15-20; Micah 5:2-5

At church recently we were mid-communion.

The lights were low and the song was sweet and something flashing caught my eye to the right. It was Megan, the daughter of some of my dearest friends, waiting in line for her first communion. A few days earlier, she called me with a secret, "Miss Lindsay, I have something to tell you. I asked Jesus to save me."

So there she was, waiting in line. Coming to the table for the first time waving a glow stick in the air. I don't know where the glowstick came from, but she had it and she was waving it. I watched her in line: her unruly curls, her skirt twisted just barely to the side, missing front teeth evident from her giant smile.

Waiting and hoping and wondering what it would be like. She came to the table just as she was. Glowstick and all.

I wept in my seat as I watched Megan's dad, beaming proud and tender. I watched as he held her hand in line until they got to the communion station. When it was their turn, he did not fix her skirt or her hair or take her glowstick away. He just stood next to his toothless little girl and showed her how to dip the cracker into the juice, whispering its significance into her ear. His smile stretched his face as they returned to their seat, one of his proudest moments.

That night in Bethlehem, shepherds left their field and fled to the stable. Often thought of as thieves and liars, shepherds had no clout, no gifts, nothing to offer. But still they ran, just as they were, to the feet of the King. To bow before his throne, dirty and covered in sheep.

Oh that we might approach the King in the same way, just as we are. With the confidence that there is room in the stable for the dirty and for the liars. Might we run toward the King, waving our glow sticks, waiting and hoping and wondering what will be.

Prayer:

O God, You never go away from us, yet we have difficulty in returning to You. Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back. Kindle and seize us. Be our fire and our sweetness. Let us love. Let us run. Amen.

-St. Augustine