Repost: Poetry Magazine's Editor Christian Wiman Discusses Faith

Exclusive: Christian Wiman Discusses Faith as He Leaves World's Top Poetry Magazine

Wiman's Baptist faith lay dormant until love and cancer unearthed it.

 

Interview by Josh Jeter

posted December 7, 2012

 

 

In the afternoon of his 39th birthday, less than a year after his wedding day, poet Christian Wiman was diagnosed with an incurable cancer of the blood. Wiman, who announced Wednesday that he will step down in June as editor of Poetry magazine, the oldest and most esteemed poetry monthly in the world, had long ago drifted away from the Southern Baptist beliefs of his upbringing. But the shock of staring death in the face gradually revived a faith that had gone dormant (a story he first told publicly in a 2007 article for The American Scholar).

 

Wiman's new book of essays, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), took shape in the wake of his diagnosis, when he believed death could be fast approaching. These writings come from someone who is less a cautious theologian than a pilgrim crying out from the depths. They divulge the God-ward hopes (and doubts) of an artist still piecing together a spiritual puzzle. San Francisco-based lawyer and author Josh Jeter corresponded with Wiman about his new book, his precarious health, and the ongoing challenge of belief in God.

 

How did you arrive at your Christian faith?

 

I was raised in West Texas as a Southern Baptist, in a culture and family so saturated with religion that it never occurred to me there was any alternative until I left. Then it all just evaporated in the blast of modernism and secularism to which I was exposed in college. Or, it didn't evaporate, exactly, because I never would have called myself an atheist. But religious feeling went underground in me for a couple of decades, to be released occasionally in ways I never really understood or completely credited—in poems, mostly.

 

'There's no question that illness has brought a great urgency to my work:

One speaks differently when standing on a cliff.'

- Christian Wiman

 

Then about 10 years ago I fell into despair. There is no other way to say it, really, nor do those words do anything but hint at the abyss. Whether it was cause or effect, I went through a writing drought unlike anything I had ever known—three years of it. In the midst of this—miraculously, it now seems to me—I fell suddenly and utterly in love with the woman who is now my wife. I still couldn't write, but the despair was blasted like a husk away from my spirit.

 

We found ourselves saying little prayers together before dinner. They were almost jokes at first, and then, increasingly, not. We'd been married about eight months when I got a surprise diagnosis of an incurable cancer, and the encroaching darkness demanded that the light I felt burning in me acquire a more definite and durable form. One Sunday morning we wandered into a church. A couple of days later I started to write. I don't think it's quite accurate to say that I had a conversion or even a "return" to Christianity. I was just finally able to assent to the faith that had long been latent within me.

 

You have three vocations: poet, editor of Poetry magazine, and, most recently, spiritual essayist. How did you decide to begin writing spiritual essays?

 

I've always written prose, and I can now see how God's absence—or, more accurately, my refusal to admit his presence—underlies all of my earlier work (poems as well).

 

But you're certainly right to point out a change. My work—prose and poetry—is still full of anguish and even unbelief, but I hope it's also much more open to simple joy. The theologian Jürgen Moltmann once wrote that all theology, especially a theology of hope, had to be conducted "in earshot of the dying Christ." Abundance and destitution are both aspects of God—or, more accurately, aspects of our experience of God.

 

Soon you will release a set of essays. How has your turn to faith shaped or influenced these essays?

 

After my diagnosis, I wrote a short piece trying to make sense of all that had happened to me. It was published in a relatively small magazine, The American Scholar, but the response to it was pretty overwhelming. I began to realize there was an enormous contingent of people out there who were starved for new ways of feeling and articulating their experiences of God. I wanted to have a conversation with these people.

 

I also wanted to figure out my own mind. I knew that I believed, but I was not at all clear on what I believed. So I set out to answer that question, though I have come to realize that the real question is how, not what. How do you answer that burn of being that drives you both deeper into, and utterly out of, yourself? What might it mean for your life—and for your death—to acknowledge the insistent, persistent call of God?

 

You have had some very difficult health issues the past few years, and according to one essay, have recently been "close to death." How is your health now? And what have your health struggles meant for your work?

 

I've been through a multitude of treatments, culminating in a bone-marrow transplant last fall. There's no question that illness has brought a great urgency to my work: One speaks differently when standing on a cliff. Then again, I have always had little patience for art that is not elemental, art that doesn't take on the major questions of our existence. Perhaps my own inclinations have simply been intensified by my illness.

 

As for that illness, it's gone. For now. I haven't felt this healthy in eight years. I hope I am now faced with the difficult task of learning to live without my familiar miseries. "Our torments also may, in length of time, Become our elements," says John Milton. "[T]hese piercing fires [a]s soft as now severe." There is always some devil in us—that's a demon speaking the lines above—who makes us think we love or need our pain.

 

Sometimes your essays feel like you are arguing with yourself. Do you write them for yourself or others?

 

I've never thought of my essays like this, but I see immediately that you're right. W. B. Yeats defined rhetoric as the quarrel we have with others. Poetry, he said, comes out of the quarrel we have with ourselves. Prose isn't poetry, obviously, but I've always felt the two arts to be raveled up with one another for me.

 

I read a lot of theology, even though I am almost always frustrated by it. Thomas Merton once said that trying "to solve the problem of God" is like trying to see your own eyes. No doubt that's part of it. There is something absurd about formulating faith, systematizing God. I am usually more moved—and more moved toward God—by what one might call accidental theology, the best of which is often art, sometimes even determinedly secular art.

 

I am moved by works of art that don't so much strive to make meaning as allow meaning to stream through them: Bach, certain poems by T. S. Eliot, the novelist Marilynne Robinson, the late work of the American sculptor Lee Bontecou, even less conventional religious writers like Simone Weil or Sara Grant. People can occasionally embody and enact this kind of meaning as well—we are, after all, works of the very greatest Creator's hands.

 

How much is spiritual experience—prayer, solitude, and the like—a part of your artistic process?

 

I think poetry is how religious feeling survived in me during all those years of unbelief, and it remains the most intense experience I have of another order of being entering my own. But poems are not contemplative or peaceful times for me; they're chaotic and can wreck my life for a while. They're also few and far between, and you can't (or I can't) build a spiritual life on that kind of intermittent intensity.

 

So I try to pray every day, usually in a little chapel near where I work, sometimes in a cathedral because I like the huge estrangement of it, the volatile silence. I feel no connection between prayer and poetry, except for the poems that I have written as prayers. Poetry is a much more powerful experience for me than prayer, but I feel this to be a weakness in me. I'm still just learning how to pray.

 

In your essays, you often appeal to the work of Christian mystics (like Meister Eckhart, Thomas Traherne, George Herbert, Marguerite Porete, Weil). What draws you to the mystics?

 

Partly I feel envy. I want to be taken over by God. I want to have the kind of disciplined inwardness that allows the ego to be annihilated. I want the kind of revelation that precedes all doctrine and dogma, is the reason for all doctrine and dogma. Christ's life is one long revelation; everything after that merely grows up from it.

 

But then, too, all of these writers have an artistic consciousness. I understand the language they speak, though I don't quite speak it myself, or maybe speak a different dialect. The energy of art may be prior to religion, but religion, paradoxically, is a way of sustaining and surviving the psychic storm of that original energy (just as ritual and doctrine are ways of stabilizing and preserving the awful power of mystical revelation). Art for its own sake, art that has no answering "other," will eventually eat you alive.

 

You have written that one measure of a genuine spiritual experience is the extent to which it "demands uncomfortable change." What kinds of "uncomfortable changes" have you experienced in your life?

 

That's what my wife always asks me!

 

I would like to think of this new book as a viable answer to your question, but solitary writing is quite natural to me, and we should be suspicious when God's call conforms so neatly to our own inclinations.

 

More relevant, maybe, are the many speaking engagements, including sermons, I have taken on at religious schools and organizations in the past few years. This is new to me and, while very gratifying, has at times been quite discomfiting. I have also become deliberate about being open and honest about my thoughts of God. Maybe not so honest in secular settings. That, too, has provoked some useful but uncomfortable exchanges.

 

Still, the question is a thorn in my brain. I feel that I spend too much time agonizing over what faith might mean, rather than simply acting in accordance with my instincts. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote that only the person who obeys believes. It is a hard road, but the right one. I will probably end up as a preacher after all.

 

Your faith does not come across as breezy in your essays, which you occasionally grace with levity. For example: "If I ever sound like a preacher in these passages, it's only because I have a hornet's nest of voluble and conflicting parishioners inside of me." Does your faith ever express itself as peace?

 

Rarely, which I see as a weakness. I do feel that some people may be called to unbelief—or what looks like unbelief—in order that faith may take new forms. Emily Dickinson is a good example of this, or Albert Camus. But I also believe that God requires every last cell of yourself to bow down.

 

Or perhaps that verb, requires, is wrong, or that it's God doing the requiring: It's more like your nature requires, in order to be your nature, that every last cell of yourself bow down. There is still some satanic pride in me, for which I pay a high price.

 

And yet, I have certainly experienced peace in poems that in their sheer givenness seemed to reveal something of God to me. I have written poems that begin in great anguish and explode into joy. As psychically difficult as the poems may have been to write, certainly I have felt peace and presence in their wake.

 

There are other moments, too, which are simply moments of life. Simply! I think of the poet Paul Eluard: "There is another world, but it is in this one." I have 3-year-old twin daughters. It would be disingenuous in the extreme for me to pretend that they don't at times drive all thought of God out of my head and make me want to write a series of sonnets in praise of celibacy, but it would be equally insane for me not to acknowledge that they are the source of my greatest happiness. Father Zossima, in The Brothers Karamazov, defines hell as "the inability to love." I have known that hell, and I should probably spend my remaining days thanking God that I am free of it.

- CT

 

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Relevancy22 - Faith & Theology

http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/

 

 

 

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 Amazon Listings

 

Christian Wiman's books and editorial contributions -

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=christian+wiman

 

 

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January 2013

Google Listings

 

The American Scholar: Mortify Our Wolves - Christian Wiman

Tere comes a moan to the cancer clinic. There comes a sound so low and unvarying it seems hardly human, more a note the wind might strike off jags of rock ...

 

The American Scholar: Gazing into the Abyss - Christian Wiman

Though I was raised in a very religious household, until about a year ago I hadn't been to church in any serious way in more than 20 years. It would be ...

 

The American Scholar: My Bright Abyss - Christian Wiman
And there the poem ends. Or fails, rather, for in the three years since I first wrote that stanza I have been trying to feel my way—to will my way—into its ending.

 

The American Scholar: Hive of Nerves - Christian Wiman
It is time that the stone grew accustomed to blooming, That unrest formed a heart. —Paul Celan. During a dinner with friends the talk turns, as it often does these ...

 

Christian Wiman's Remarkable Essay in The American Scholar ...
Oct 31, 2012 – Back in April, we blogged about Christian Wiman, a member of the Washington and Lee Class of 1988, for two pieces of news. He had just won ...

 

Evil Is What Humans Do: An Interview with Christian Wiman: The ...
Mar 12, 2012 – Christian Wiman is one of America's most important poets. ... year reading your essay “Gazing into the Abyss” from the American Scholar and it ...





 

A Select List of New Year’s Poems

New Year's Day Nap by Coleman Barks   Fiesta Bowl on low. My son lying here on the couch on the "Dad" pillow he made for me in the Seventh Grade. Now a sophomore at Georgia Southern, driving back later today, he sleeps with his white top hat over his face.   I'm a dancin' fool. Twenty years ago, half the form he sleeps within came out of nowhere with a million micro-lemmings who all died but one piercer of membrane, specially picked to start a brainmaking, egg-drop soup, that stirred two sun and moon centers for a new-painted sky in the tiniest ballroom imaginable. Now he's rousing, six feet long, turning on his side. Now he's gone. Coleman Barks, from Gourd See A Song for New Year's Eve, by William Cullen Bryant   Auld Lang Syne, by Robert Burns   The Old Year, by John Clare     One Year ago - jots what? by Emily Dickinson   One Year ago - jots what? God - spell the word! I - can't - Was't Grace? Not that - Was't Glory? That - will do - Spell slower - Glory - Such Anniversary shall be -     At the Entering of the New Year, by Thomas Hardy   The Darkling Thrush, by Thomas Hardy   A New Year’s Gift, Sent to Sir Simeon Steward, by Robert Herrick     New Year’s morning by Kobayashi Issa (Translated by Robert Hass)   New Year's morning: the ducks on the pond quack and quack.     New Year’s Day by Kobayashi Issa (Translated by Robert Hass)   New Year's Day - everything is in blossom! I feel about average.     New Year's Morning, by Helen Hunt Jackson     On a New Year's Eve by June Jordan from Things I Do in the Dark, 1977   [...] and even the stars and even the snow and even the rain do not amount to much unless these things submit to some disturbance some derangement such as when I yield myself/belonging to your unmistaken body     New Year on Dartmoor, by Sylvia Plath   Te Deum, by Charles Reznikoff   Archaic Torso of Apollo, by Rainer Maria Rilke   The Passing of the Year, by Robert W. Service   New Year’s Eve, by Robert W. Service   In Memoriam, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson       * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Time is running out to support the Academy of American Poets in 2012. Donate $50 or more and receive our Poem in Your Pocket anthology. Donate Now From Poets.org:   Eighteenth-century Scottish poet Robert Burns may well be most famous not for a poem he wrote, exactly, but for a poem he wrote down. According to Burns Country, a comprehensive website devoted to the poet, Burns, in a letter to an acquaintance, wrote, "There is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet... Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians."   That song was a version that Burns fashioned of "Auld Lang Syne," which annually rings in the New Year at parties across the world, though most often sung out of tune and with improvised lyrics, as it has been described as "the song that nobody knows." Though the history of the authorship of the poem is labyrinthine and disputed, Burns is generally credited with penning at least two original stanzas to the version that is most familiar to revelers of the New Year. Here are the first two stanzas as Burns recorded them: Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne! Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. Undoubtedly, some rousing version of the Scottish song echoed through the New Year’s night near where Thomas Hardy wrote his haunting goodbye to the ninteenth century, "The Darkling Thrush." Dated December 30, 1900, which signaled the end of the century in Hardy’s view, the poem intones a much more somber sense of the end of one time and beginning of another. Consider the last lines of the opening stanza, which set a grim scene: The tangled bine-stems scored the sky Like strings of broken lyres, And all mankind that haunted nigh Had sought their household fires. But century’s end, for Hardy, was possibly an arbitrary marking, too, and there was hope to be found, in the form of the sudden song issued from a thrush’s voice, a "full-hearted evensong / Of joy illimited."   For centuries, it has been the charge of Britain’s Poet Laureate to write a poem to ring in the New Year. Laureate Nahum Tate established this practice, having written eight New Year odes between 1693 and 1708. And the phrase "ring out the old, ring in the new" first comes from another laureate’s pen, Lord Alfred Tennyson, from his most well-known poem, "In Memoriam": Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. Finally, Kobayashi Issa, a great practitioner of the haiku form, approached the new year with a sense of humility and reverence: New Year's Day-- everything is in blossom! I feel about average.

 

"Rise Up Ye People Rejoice!" - Christmas Advent Songs & Choirs

Grace and Peace to you this and Every Christmas Season...

 [updated December 11, 2020]

O Holy Night – Carols from King's 2017

(YouTube mix)

Advent- Waiting in Silence

Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols 2010 (Carols from King's)

(YouTube mix)

Hymnus VENI CREATOR SPIRITUS, Visione spartito, due versioni, SCHOLA

REGORIANA MEDIOLANENSIS, Dir. Giovanni Vianini, Milano, Italia

(YouTube mix)

Matthew 1

The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah

1 The [a]record of the genealogy of [b]Jesus the [c]Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:

2 Abraham fathered Isaac, Isaac fathered Jacob, and Jacob fathered [d]Judah and his brothers. 3 Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar, Perez fathered Hezron, and Hezron fathered [e]Ram. 4 Ram fathered Amminadab, Amminadab fathered Nahshon, and Nahshon fathered Salmon. 5 Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab, Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth, and Obed fathered Jesse. 6 Jesse fathered David the king.

David fathered Solomon by [f]her who had been the wife of Uriah. 7 Solomon fathered Rehoboam, Rehoboam fathered Abijah, and Abijah fathered [g]Asa. 8 Asa fathered Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat fathered [h]Joram, and Joram fathered Uzziah. 9 Uzziah fathered [i]Jotham, Jotham fathered Ahaz, and Ahaz fathered Hezekiah. 10 Hezekiah fathered Manasseh, Manasseh fathered [j]Amon, and Amon fathered Josiah. 11 Josiah fathered [k]Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

12 After the deportation to Babylon: Jeconiah fathered [l]Shealtiel, and Shealtiel fathered Zerubbabel. 13 Zerubbabel fathered [m]Abihud, Abihud fathered Eliakim, and Eliakim fathered Azor. 14 Azor fathered Zadok, Zadok fathered Achim, and Achim fathered Eliud. 15 Eliud fathered Eleazar, Eleazar fathered Matthan, and Matthan fathered Jacob. 16 Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, by whom Jesus was born, who is called the [n]Messiah.

17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the [o]Messiah, fourteen generations.

Conception and Birth of Jesus

18 Now the birth of Jesus the [p]Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been [q]betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to [r]send her away secretly. 20 But when he had thought this over, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for [s]the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a Son; and you shall name Him Jesus, for [t]He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this [u]took place so that what was spoken by the Lord through [v]the prophet would be fulfilled: 23 “Behold, the virgin will [w]conceive and give birth to a Son, and they shall name Him [x]Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.” 24 And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, 25 [y]but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he named Him Jesus.

Rubens Adoration of the Magi (1609-1629) Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Matthew 2

The Visit of the Magi

1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, [a]magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 2 “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” 3 When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 And gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the [b]Messiah was to be born. 5 They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for this is what has been written [c]by [d]the prophet:

6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah,

Are by no means least among the leaders of Judah;

For from you will come forth a Ruler

Who will shepherd My people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi and determined from them the exact [e]time the star appeared. 8 And he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the Child; and when you have found Him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship Him.” 9 After hearing the king, they went on their way; and behold, the star, which they had seen in the east, went on ahead of them until it came to a stop over the place where the Child was to be found. 10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. 11 And after they came into the house, they saw the Child with His mother Mary; and they fell down and [f]worshiped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented to Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And after being warned by God in a dream not to return to Herod, the magi left for their own country by another way.

The Escape to Egypt

13 Now when they had gone, behold, an angel of the Lord *appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you; for Herod is going to search for the Child to kill Him.”

14 So [g]Joseph got up and took the Child and His mother while it was still night, and left for Egypt. 15 He [h]stayed there until the death of Herod; this happened so that what had been spoken by the Lord through [i]the prophet would be fulfilled: “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”

Herod Slaughters Babies

16 Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he became very enraged, and sent men and killed all the boys who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity [j]who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi. 17 Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,

Weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children;

And she refused to be comforted,

Because they were no more.”

19 But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord *appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said, 20 “Get up, take the Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel; for those who sought the Child’s life are dead.” 21 So [k]Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Then after being warned by God in a dream, he left for the regions of Galilee, 23 and came and settled in a city called Nazareth. This happened so that what was spoken through the prophets would be fulfilled: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

Luke 1

Introduction

1 Since many have undertaken to compile an account of the things [a]accomplished among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning [b]were eyewitnesses and [c]servants of the [d]word, 3 it seemed fitting to me as well, having [e]investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in an orderly sequence, most excellent Theophilus; 4 so that you may know the exact truth about the [f]things you have been [g]taught.

John the Baptist’s Birth Foretold

5 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of [h]Abijah; and he had a wife [i]from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 They were both righteous in the sight of God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord. 7 And yet they had no child, because Elizabeth was infertile, and they were both advanced in [j]years.

8 Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his division, 9 according to the custom of the priestly office, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And the whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering. 11 Now an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing to the right of the altar of incense. 12 Zechariah was troubled when he saw the angel, and fear [k]gripped him. 13 But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall [l]name him John. 14 You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice over his birth. 15 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit [m]while still in his mother’s womb. 16 And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. 17 And it is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of fathers back to their children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

18 Zechariah said to the angel, “How will I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in her [n]years.” 19 The angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who [o]stands in the presence of God, and I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20 And behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.”

21 And meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah, and were wondering at his delay in the temple. 22 But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them; and they realized that he had seen a vision in the temple, and he repeatedly [p]made signs to them, and remained speechless. 23 When the days of his priestly service were concluded, he went back home.

24 Now after these days his wife Elizabeth became pregnant, and she kept herself [q]in seclusion for five months, saying, 25 “This is the way the Lord has dealt with me in the days when He looked with favor upon me, to take away my disgrace among people.”

Jesus’ Birth Foretold

26 Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee named Nazareth, 27 to a virgin [r]betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the [s]descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was [t]Mary. 28 And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord [u]is with you.” 29 But she was very perplexed at this statement, and was pondering what kind of greeting this was. 30 And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; 33 and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” 34 But Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I [v]am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the [w]holy Child will be called the Son of God. 36 And behold, even your relative Elizabeth herself has conceived a son in her old age, and [x]she who was called infertile is now in her sixth month. 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.” 38 And Mary said, “Behold, the Lord’s bond-servant; may it be done to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

39 Now [y]at this time Mary set out and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, 40 and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And [z]how has it happened to me that the mother of my Lord would come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. 45 And blessed is she who [aa]believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her [ab]by the Lord.”

Christmas Worship Video: Magnificat Song of Mary

Mary’s Song: The Magnificat

46 And Mary said:

“My soul [ac]exalts the Lord,

47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.

48 For He has had regard for the humble state of His bond-servant;

For behold, from now on all generations will [ad]call me blessed.

49 For the Mighty One has done great things for me;

And holy is His name.

50 And His mercy is to generation [ae]after generation

Toward those who fear Him.

51 He has done [af]mighty deeds with His arm;

He has scattered those who were proud in the [ag]thoughts of their hearts.

52 He has brought down rulers from their thrones,

And has exalted those who were humble.

53 He has filled the hungry with good things,

And sent the rich away empty-handed.

54 He has given help to His servant Israel,

[ah]In remembrance of His mercy,

55 Just as He spoke to our fathers,

To Abraham and his [ai]descendants forever.”

56 Mary stayed with her about three months, and then returned to her home.

John the Baptist Is Born

57 Now the time [aj]had come for Elizabeth to give birth, and she gave birth to a son. 58 Her neighbors and her relatives heard that the Lord had [ak]displayed His great mercy toward her; and they were rejoicing with her.

59 And it happened that on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to call him Zechariah, [al]after his father. 60 And yet his mother responded and said, “No indeed; but he shall be called John.” 61 And they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.” 62 And they [am]made signs to his father, as to what he wanted him called. 63 And he asked for a tablet and wrote [an]as follows, “His name is John.” And they were all amazed. 64 And at once his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began speaking in praise of God. 65 And fear came on all those who lived around them; and all these matters were being talked about in the entire hill country of Judea. 66 All who heard them kept them in mind, saying, “What then will this child turn out to be?” For indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.

Zechariah’s Prophecy

67 And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying:

68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

For He has visited us and accomplished redemption for His people,

69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us

In the house of His servant David—

70 Just as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient times—

71 [ao]Salvation from our enemies,

And from the hand of all who hate us;

72 To show mercy to our fathers,

And to remember His holy covenant,

73 The oath which He swore to our father Abraham,

74 To grant us that we, being rescued from the hand of our enemies,

Would serve Him without fear,

75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all our days.

76 And you, child, also will be called the prophet of the Most High;

For you will go on before the Lord to prepare His ways;

77 To give His people the knowledge of salvation

[ap]By the forgiveness of their sins,

78 Because of the tender mercy of our God,

With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,

79 To shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

80 Now the child grew and was becoming strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

Luke 2

Jesus’ Birth in Bethlehem

2 Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all [a]the inhabited earth. 2 [b]This was the first census taken while [c]Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all the people were on their way to register for the census, each to his own city. 4 Now Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5 in order to register along with Mary, who was [d]betrothed to him, and was pregnant. 6 While they were there, the [e]time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a [f]manger, because there was no [g]room for them in the inn.

8 In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock at night. 9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood near them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 And so the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is [h]Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a [i]manger.” 13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly [j]army of angels praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace among people [k]with whom He is pleased.”

15 When the angels had departed from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let’s go straight to Bethlehem, then, and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the [l]manger. 17 When they had seen Him, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. 18 And all who heard it were amazed about the things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.

Jesus Presented at the Temple

21 And when eight days were completed [m]so that it was time for His circumcision, He was also named Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.

22 And when the days for [n]their purification according to the Law of Moses were completed, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord: “Every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”), 24 and to offer a sacrifice according to what has been stated in the Law of the Lord: “A pair of turtledoves or two young doves.”

25 And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him. 26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s [o]Christ. 27 And he came [p]by the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, [q]to carry out for Him the custom of the Law, 28 then he took Him in his arms, and blessed God, and said,

29 “Now, Lord, You are letting Your bond-servant depart in peace,

According to Your word;

30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation,

31 Which You have prepared in the presence of all the peoples:

32 A light for revelation [r]for the Gentiles,

And the glory of Your people Israel.”

33 And His father and mother were amazed at the things which were being said about Him. 34 And Simeon blessed them and said to His mother Mary, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and [s]rise of many in Israel, and as a sign to be [t]opposed— 35 and a sword will pierce your own soul—to the end that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

36 And there was a prophetess, [u]Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in [v]years and had lived with her husband for seven years after her [w]marriage, 37 and then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She did not leave the temple grounds, serving night and day with fasts and prayers. 38 And at that very [x]moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continued to speak about Him to all those who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.

Return to Nazareth

39 And when His parents had completed everything in accordance with the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own city of Nazareth. 40 Now the Child continued to grow and to become strong, [y]increasing in wisdom; and the favor of God was upon Him.

Visit to Jerusalem

41 His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. 42 And when He was twelve years old, they went up there according to the custom of the feast; 43 and as they were returning, after spending the full number of days required, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but His parents were unaware of it. 44 Instead, they thought that He was somewhere in the caravan, and they went a day’s journey; and then they began looking for Him among their relatives and acquaintances. 45 And when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, looking for Him. 46 Then, after three days they found Him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard Him were amazed at His understanding and His answers. 48 When Joseph and Mary saw Him, they were bewildered; and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You treated us this way? Behold, Your father and I have been anxiously looking for You!” 49 And He said to them, “Why is it that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s [z]house?” 50 And yet they on their part did not understand the statement which He had [aa]made to them. 51 And He went down with them and came to Nazareth, and He continued to be subject to them; and His mother treasured all these [ab]things in her heart.

52 And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and [ac]stature, and in favor with God and people.

Michelangelo's Pieta - Mary and Jesus Statue

Libera - Angel (performed live at Universal Studios Japan)