A cup of water, it would seem, is not terribly valuable. It is made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. It seems so ordinary. It seems so common. After all, a large portion of the earth is covered with it. But it can unlock the life-giving harvest of a planted seed; it can bring healing to the sick and comfort to the dying; it can revive the tired, the faded, and the exhausted.
Or consider a piece of bread: we know that it is the most basic of foods, but it can hardly be considered a feast. However, when it is shared lovingly and gratefully with the hungry, the poor, or the forgotten, a single piece of bread becomes the banquet of heaven; it becomes a means of feeding both body and soul
Finally, consider a single flower: it may not seem like much, but one rose given by one lover to another, even a dandelion given by a child to his or her mother, says, "I love you," more eloquently than the most beautiful sonnet, more than the most elaborate bouquet.
A cup of water, a piece of bread, a single flower: All of them, in themselves, do not seem to be much of anything. They are so simple, so ordinary, and so mundane. Yet each one can manifest, in its own way, in its own time, compassion, forgiveness, and love, all of which find God as their origin.
The mystery of the Incarnation — that is, God being born among us as a human being like ourselves — is that nothing is so secular that it cannot be made sacred, nothing is so mundane that it cannot be made heavenly, nothing is so ordinary that it cannot be an instrument of the love of God
In becoming human in the person of Jesus, God makes holy our humanness; in taking on our human nature, God sanctified, that is, made holy, our very lives. When we become a means of God's love to others in our world, when we open ourselves to be vehicles and instruments of God's active presence in our world, then we become holy as well.
May all that we hold, all that we touch, and all that we are, help to make the world realize that the true miracle of the Incarnation is that we and our world are holy and sacred in the eyes of our Creator. May that realization help us to live lives worthy of the legacy that is ours in being created by God and in the image and likeness of God. +
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free