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

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...

Silence

Lent Study Group One of my top 10 books of the last 10 years has to be: 'A Book of Silence' by Sara Maitland. I first heard Sara talk at Greenbelt many years ago and I was fascinated then by who she was - an eccentric woman, speaking with intensity and insight, offering an alternative and captivating viewpoint on the human experience. In this book she explores silence in all sorts of ways: by living on her own; by visiting the desert; through analysing the desert traditions within early Christianity; and through attending to what happens to the body and the mind in and through extended silence and isolation. Her book begins: I am sitting on the front doorstep of my little house with a cup of coffee, looking down the valley at my extraordinary view of nothing. It is wonderful. Virginia Woolf famously taught us that every woman writer needs a room of her own. She didn't know the half of it, in my opinion. I need a moor of my own. Or, as an exasperated but obvious...

Christmas Video Message

Text version- Hello from St Andrew’s Church in Rugby , where once again I’m surrounded by Christmas trees. This year there are a couple that pick up the WW1 remembrance theme using poppies as decorations. 2014 has been a significant year for the UK and for Europe as we’ve reflected on the significance of the first and the second world wars. The not uncontroversial Sainsbury’s advert reminded the nation that the story of Christmas can do extraordinary things; even in war it can unite enemies, as in the famous Christmas Day truce in 1914. At Christmas we do enter a mystical moment, a moment of opportunity, where the message of God’s love and care for each one of us comes really close. The vulnerable child, the nativity scenes, the bringing of gifts, they tell us that we can still believe in the power of love to transform human experience. At Christmas 1914 on the Western front, some soldiers dared to look their enemies in the face and wish them happy Christmas. In our soci...

Rev elations

Search This Blog