“You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus.” – Luke 1:31 CEB

I was thinking this week about heaviness. About when things feel emotionally big. When the events around you and the thoughts inside your head get together and it just feels so much.

I was watching some of our LearnCliff students play the other day. A group of boys made up a game that was kind of like Four Square but with a whole lot more shouting. Inevitably they disagreed about the rules and each one tried to out-shout the others to get his own way. And I was struck by how much they were feeling. Shouting at the top of their lungs about this ball maybe because they live in a world where nothing is in control and if I could just have this ball then at least that would be something. Shouting because they don’t know what to believe or who to turn to anymore. Shouting because they need to be heard.

This pain is heavy. It’s deep. It’s the lost experiences and the canceled events. The development paused. It’s the grieving and the waiting. It’s the fear tied up with every hope. It’s the unknown and the scariness of the known.

I’m reminded this week of Mary. Mary carrying a heavy burden – the baby Jesus, son of the Most High, born into the world to be savior of his people. Mary lost a lot in order to carry that burden. She lost the welcome of a society without judgment, she lost the normalcy, she lost the rest of her youth and unmarried time. I imagine her grieving and waiting, fear tied up with all of her hopes. I imagine her aware of the future filled with unknown.

And you know what she did? She shouted. Her song shouts at the top of her lungs about the one thing she can hold on to. The mighty one who has done great things. She sings about God’s mercy, about God’s strength, and about God’s compassion. She sings about the great upheaval that God brings, scattering the arrogant and filling the hungry. She sings through the heaviness, claiming God through the unknown.

Maybe we need to shout. Maybe we need to sing. Maybe we need to name all the things we’ve lost and the burden it is to not know. And then maybe we need to claim the one thing we do: God came to stand in solidarity with us through the struggles and the pain. God came to show us what it means to follow the way. God came as a baby, messy and crying. God came to save. God came.

And God will come again.

 

Jocelyn Wildhack is our Chaplain and Camp Director. She is soon to be ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).