Here we are, a week before Christmas

• Author: Wendy May Jacobs
• Published date: 19 December 2020
• Date: 19 December 2020
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

After a strange and serious year, full of loss and loneliness and separation and waiting and allowing time to pass, we are here.

I know only a handful of Hebrew words (mostly through place-names in Scripture) but I have been aware of a Hebrew word which can have great resonance for us at this time: Hineni. Hineni means Here I am.

This is what Abraham said to God when God asked him to demonstrate his faith: "Hineni. Here I am, your will be done". It was the response from Moses when God called out to him from the burning bush: "Hineni. Here I am, at your disposal".

It was what Samuel spoke out to God in the Temple once he realised that it was not Eli calling him: "Hineni. Here I am, fully present to you".

And in our gospel reading tomorrow, it is what Mary replied to the angel Gabriel who was sharing with her God's saving plan, asking her consent to carry God's child: "Hineni. May your will be done in me". A strange year it must have been for Mary too . . .

Hineni has a sense of devoted alertness to it, and it suggests a healthy taking-oneself-seriously because of the God who has, miraculously, taken an interest in us.

At Christmas we humbly inherit the Jewish revelation of the personal God making himself known to us in relationship.

"Here I am" is different, less passive, to saying "I am here", although it may seem almost the same thing. I imagine a baby in the womb whispering "I am here", and then that baby being born and the drama and danger of taking their first actual breath: 'HERE I AM!'

Ultimate ambition

This corona-tide season has revealed to us things that we knew already that it is almost unbearable to be reminded of.

Over 200 years ago, Samuel Johnson wrote: "To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends".

How bleak lockdown has been for those who are not safe at home, who do not have affection at...