Advent thoughts – Thursday of Advent 3

We have creation themes in the Psalter and the Apocalypse today.

The living creatures give honor, glory, and thanks to the One upon the throne and then the elders fall down

casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea.

They glorify God for creation.

Isn't it nice that one needn't be a "creationist" or give credence to its wolf in sheep's clothing, "intelligent design," to rejoice in God as creator? We can acknowledge the vast expanses of stellar and geologic time, the intricate and dynamic dance between randomness and pattern in chaos theory, accept natural selection as the best description yet for the development and diversity of life, and still praise God as creator.

Some of us see God's "design" as including, if not demanding, the independence of creation to operate as it was meant to, entirely by natural laws. Yet within that lie all the mysteries of quantum physics and interrelatedness so complex we sense the cosmos as a living thing. By faith we experience this as all existing within God.

‘You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.’ (Apocalypse 4:11)

My personal vision, which I hasten to note is neither scientific nor the teaching of the Church, is that every subatomic particle every nanosecond is directly dependent upon the action of the Spirit. Should God's attention waver for a moment, all would collapse. This is poetry, not physics, nor theology in any literal sense. Since I have already postulated an independence for creation it is either gross contradiction or paradox, assuming that God is intimately engaged and unwaveringly committed to that independence. I leave it to better minds than mine to tease out how any of this might be; all I know is that it speaks from and to my heart.


In light of my pneumatological emphasis and our creational themes, I would like to invoke a different sort of "Advent" hymn, one that speaks of, yearns for, calls for the coming not of Jesus but the Spirit.

It is John Webster Grant's translation of the Veni Creator Spiritus of Rabanus Maurus (776-856).

O Holy Spirit, by whose breath
life rises vibrant out of death;
come to create, renew, inspire;
come, kindle in our hearts your fire.

You are the seeker's sure resource,
of burning love the living source,
protector in the midst of strife,
the giver and the Lord of life.

In you God's energy is shown;
to us your varied gifts make known.
Teach us to speak, teach us to hear;
yours is the tongue and yours the ear.

Flood our dull senses with your light;
in mutual love our hearts unite.
Your power the whole creation fills;
confirm our weak, uncertain wills.

From inner strife grant us release;
turn nations to the ways of peace.
To fuller life your people bring
that as one body we may sing:

Praise to the Father, Christ, his Word,
and to the Spirit: God the Lord,
to whom all honor, glory be
both now and for eternity.

Hymn # 501, 502 in The Hymnal 1982

The hymn seems apt for the season of the year and for this season in our collective life.

May our hearts attend the Spirit, yearn for the Spirit, open to the Spirit, wait upon the Spirit, yield to the Spirit, be filled with the Spirit, blaze with the Spirit.

As Zechariah reminded Zerubbabel:

He said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.’ (Zechariah 4:6)

--the BB