An odd place to find a woman …

One of my favorite “re-reads” comes during Advent Season. Walter Wangerin’s, Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas and the Kingdom, offers rich reflections. We read through this a couple of years with our daughters. I recommend it to parents and grandparents to read with their children and grandchildren.

Today’s reflection notes the interesting placement of women in the geneaology of Jesus in Matthew. Wangerin notes the reputation of these women to be less than pristine. The way we view these women – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bethsheba – depends on how we view their actions, the actions of others related to them, or circumstances to which they had to adjust. He considers their stories breifly and then in keeping with his charge to join the “sisterhood of Mary” Wangerin offers the following charge,

O Christian, then lit this be your striving:

With three [Tamar, Rahab and Ruth] to make your heart bold and spacious and faithful; and with the fourth matriarch to learn forgiveness.

But with Mary, now, let this be your prayer:

That the Lord would enter you spiritually, as bodily he entered her; and that daily he might through you enter the world as once he was born from her.

Amen (p.57)

~ by Todd on December 7, 2006.