Skip to main content

Preparing for Christmas



In Advent we are presented with the great figure of John the Baptist. So humble and so sure of Jesus’ greatness – a short life lived solely to prepare the way for Jesus Christ. As we wait for Christmas this year, in what ways can we truly prepare ourselves? 

I’m reminded in this idea of preparation for pregnancy: the nine long months of growing a child within you – with the necessary preparations, practical, emotional, spiritual, medical etc. I remembered thinking one very key thing about being pregnant and that was it took such little effort – unlike other things that I had prepared for in my life - exams, job interviews, ordination - it was my body that grew this child and did the work. I just had to let it. And perhaps God’s relationship with us, could be a little more like this: this sense of gift or grace if we let it be. Because I know that good things require a lot of work and commitment, but I have a sense that God’s love is something we are asked to receive rather than work for. So, the obvious metaphor for Advent, pregnancy, as we think of Mary growing the Christ child within her, is perhaps a very fruitful one. For Mary had only to listen to the Angel and say ‘ I will’ for God’s astonishing will to be done. So, perhaps, this Advent we can learn (I can learn) to accept God’s wonderful grace – to stand before Him in simplicity and say ‘yes’, and receive Him and let him do the rest.



Comments

Post a Comment

Please be respectful when posting comments

Popular posts from this blog

Art and Imagination: the apocalyptic vision

Rev 12.7-12   Michael Defeats the Dragon   And war broke out in heaven ; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power    and the kingdom of our God    and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,    who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb    and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Things Fall Apart – the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’

 Holy Week Reflection   The Jewish people had a framework for understanding the world and most importantly their relationship with God and with one another. They had the Law and the Prophets and yet at various points in their history they were radically challenged by the events that occurred in their communal history. The deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians became a foundational narrative for them about God’s ability to save. They were not a people unused to suffering, unused to war, unused to persecution and these experiences led them as a people to expect from their God – compassion, mercy and most importantly deliverance. They could understand their sufferings in various ways, they could attribute them to their own sin and waywardness, but at the centre of their faith was a belief that God had established a covenant with them and that he would be faithful even if they were faithless. Jesus came into this history as a possible Messiah, as the Anointed One w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Radical Story-telling?

Public Domain   The Flight into Egypt  File: Adam Elsheimer - Die Flucht nach Ägypten (Alte Pinakothek) 2.jpg Created: 31 December 1608 Which of the Gospel writers include an account of the birth of Jesus? When were they writing, for what audience? Mark’s Gospel is almost universally considered to be the earliest Gospel and it’s understood that both Matthew and Luke used it as a source text. But Mark has no account of the birth of Jesus, he begins with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Only Matthew and Luke have birth narratives and they are different whilst sharing some common features: Mary and Joseph are to be married and there’s a miraculous virgin birth in Bethlehem. But that’s about it. Jesus is born in a house in Matthew’s account whilst he is placed in a manger in Luke’s because there’s ‘no room at the inn’. Mary’s thoughts and feelings are not mentioned in Matthew at all, whilst from Luke we get the story of the Visitation, Annunciation and the wonderfu...
2 comments
Read more