We have almost made it. December 22, Advent 4. Only a few more days of preparation, celebration, and anticipation. Only a few more days of Christmas carols on the radio. Only a few more days.

While many people are filled with anticipation and joy during this season, it is also a season of heaviness for others.

•  Heaviness of grief: awaiting the first Christmas without our loved one.
•  Heaviness of anxiety and worry: awaiting the arrival of family with whom we have strained relationships.
•  Heaviness of exhaustion: awaiting the end of the expectations placed on us by family, society ... ourselves.

While this is certainly a season of hope, comfort and joy, let us not forget the heaviness of the season. The days before the first Christmas, Mary was heavy with child. She was weighed down by the full-term child, growing and pushing within her. She was heavy with exhaustion, riding a donkey for days to the ancestral home of a man with whom she was engaged. Heavy with the stretching, kicking, growing Immanuel within her very body - waiting to come forth - exhausting and pressing Mary from within.

I am not sure what heaviness may be within your spirit. I don't know what is pressing you from within, exhausting you, stretching, kicking and pushing upon you. Grief feels heavier this time of year. Losses are more tender. Emotions are on the surface. 

I don't know these things - but I know Immanuel, God with us, is about to come forth. Immanuel, God with us, is about to enter this world for YOU. A world where the heaviness and stretching of grief are very real. A world where anxiety and fear can weigh us down like a full term baby. A world where the pains are as real and intense as the labor pains Mary endured in a barn. 

But Immanuel, God with us....is WITH US. 

Beloved Child of God, as you carry the heaviness of the world with you this season, as your grief and pain feel all-consuming, may you know the hope and promise of Immanuel are YOURS.

May your friends and family, may the community of Epiphany, comfort you and bring you peace amid the labor pains of life.

May you know Immanuel, God with us is here - for YOU.

Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. With your abundant grace and might, free us from the sin that hinders our faith, that eagerly we may receive your promises, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.