This last week of Advent has been an awfully dark and gloomy
one. The clouds hang low to the earth; the winds howl as if in pain; constant drizzle
falls on our Christmas decorations; we sadly remember the innocent deaths in
Newtown; we listen to Mayan predictions of the end of the world; and we read
about looming financial meltdown in the new year. The Light of Christ, our
Advent Hope, seems to be doing a good job of hiding itself away. Like a child
peeking in all the closets for hidden Christmas gifts, I am getting impatient this
dark week for a glimpse of the promised Light.
In our Gospel
lesson today, John and Jesus are also in darkness, both still hidden away
within their mothers’ wombs. The message of hope that they will preach is still
silent; their witness of repentance and forgiveness has not yet come into the
world; nothing about them is fully formed or even functional. And yet, when
their mothers Mary and Elizabeth meet at that spring in the Judean countryside
and lean in to greet one another with their miraculous news, John “leaps in his
mother’s womb,” kicking for joy that God’s promises have been fulfilled. Imagine
it: a moment of delight, a totally silent acknowledgment of God’s presence, a
flicker of understanding, a rapid movement hidden beneath layers of clothing
and flesh, yet signaling nothing less than the coming of God into the world.
In this dark
week, I heard a story of light and life on the radio, a story highlighted by a
gesture that took me right back to baby John’s joyful leap. On Dec. 20, 1943, a
young American named Charlie Brown was on his first World War II mission.
Flying in the German skies, Brown’s B-17 bomber was shot and badly damaged. As
Brown and his men desperately tried to escape from enemy territory back to England, a German fighter plane pulled up
to their tail. Brown was sure that they were doomed. Instead of shooting the
plane down, however, the German pilot, Franz Stigler, hesitated. Hoping to
become a priest before being convinced to fight for his Fatherland, Stigler had
recently lost his beloved brother in the war. As he looked at the wounded
American plane, he thought of his brother and his God, and he knew what he had
to do. Pulling up alongside the incredulous Americans, he did the unthinkable:
he led them out to sea, away from enemy territory. Once they were safe, Stigler
simply saluted his American counterpart and veered away. When Brown saw that salute,
he knew that he had been saved, and the Americans returned in one piece to
England. In the darkness of wartime, of course, neither pilot was able to tell his
story. It wasn’t until 50 years later that Brown found the German pilot who had
saved his life, and they were able to meet as friends.[1]
Is this just a
heartwarming story, or can we recognize in that salute something of the leap of
joy from Elizabeth’s womb? In first century Palestine, a land of oppression and
war, two lowly, unimportant Jewish women meet at a spring, yet they are women
filled with God’s presence, and one of them carries God’s Son. In a split
second, in a silent meeting, in the time of a baby’s kick, they are bound
together in joy and hope, and they sing of the birth of the Kingdom of God. In
twentieth-century Europe, in a dark time of world war, two ordinary pilots meet
in the sky, and one of them recognizes the presence of God. In a split second,
in a silent meeting, in the time of a short salute, they are bound together in
joy and hope, and they lift up a corner of the Kingdom that is still coming
into the world.
For me, such fleeting moments of recognition
are holy moments, whether they involve recognizing Jesus or recognizing signs of Jesus' presence in our lives. For, after the birth in the stable, God’s Kingdom
still stirs within our world like an unborn baby. It kicks and jostles, lives
and grows, yet we do not usually see it. We only feel it when it leaps for joy
or gives us a swift kick in the ribs. It is nevertheless present with us and in
all that we experience, just as an unborn baby is always with his mother and a
part of her life, and we know that someday it will have its own life and hold
us in its embrace. It is in reaching out to one another in song and in witness,
like Mary and Elizabeth, or reaching out to the “other” in honor and respect,
like Franz Stigler, that we mark the moment of recognition. We feel the Kingdom move, and God rejoices with us, even
in the dark.
[1]
From a book by Adam Makos, A Higher Call:
An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World
War II, found at http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-20/adam-makos-higher-call-incredible-true-story-combat-and-chivalry-war-torn-skies-wor?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WAMU885DianeRehm+%28The+Diane+Rehm+Show+from+WAMU+and+NPR%29
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