Just An Ordinary Nativity?

‘Immensity, cloistered in thy dear womb’ 

John Donne, ‘Nativity’, (1610)

Last week, I saw tinsel haloed angels preening in the front row, swinging their net skirts back and forth as they listened for the words they knew so they could join the singing with angelic gusto. I saw shepherds use their crooks to mischievously prod at fellow actors and Bethlehem villagers emotionally overcome, not by the miraculous birth but because they missed their mum. I clapped brave little soloists and tried not to be too distracted by deafening microphone feedback and an absurd height disparity between narrators.

How To Wait

And so the wait begins. P7 transfer tests are over. They’ve enjoyed their free hot chocolate and buns, kicking off the Christmas season by gleefully dumping all those practice papers in the recycling bin. For now, we’ll forget about it but bless their little pre-teen hearts, it’s not over. Waiting for results day, waiting for the postman, waiting for a letter from their new school, it’s all waiting and more waiting. In the meantime, it’s ‘I can’t wait for Christmas!’

We are all waiting.

Waiting for something to begin.

Waiting for something to end.

Waiting for arrival.

Waiting for change.

The beginning of Advent is a time to pause and consider what we are waiting for because no matter what it is, we are dependent on something or someone to bring an end to our waiting. Things are out of our hands, beyond our control and all we can do is wait.

But we are not good at it. We don’t want to rely on anything or anyone else, we would rather have the power to control timelines, to manage time frames.

Waiting impatiently.

Waiting reluctantly.

Waiting fearfully.

Waiting reminds us that we are not the authors of our own story and outcomes are not guaranteed but there is a promise to hold on to in the waiting and it can change everything.

‘He has sent us a mighty Saviour from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago.’ Luke 1:69-70 (NLT)

Waiting is part of God’s plan for his people. When it feels like we are in a void between moments, the promise of Jesus changes how we wait. It transforms our impatience into trust, our reluctance to hope and our fear into gladness.

In the words of a poem written by a friend, the imagined voice of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35) says,

‘I’ve been waiting

With expectant joy

For the promised one.’

‘I’ve been longing

With expectant hope

For the promised one.’

Simeon, after faithful, eager waiting, met Jesus and was able to say,

‘Today I am rejoicing

With indescribable gladness

He has come.’

The promised one came and now is with us in our waiting before he comes again to reveal the complete glory of all that we wait for.

The void between moments becomes the space where our waiting is expectantly hopeful and our longing is glittered with joy.

God is the author of our stories, the controller of time frames and the fulfiller of promises.

May Advent be for us a time of prayerful waiting, trusting that just like Simeon, the Holy Spirit will lead us to Jesus and we will bless God with joyous praise and worship.

(‘Simeon’ from A Three 16 Christmas by Shelley Spiers)

Holy Apricity

When your feet are freezing in your boots and the cold has permeated your winter layers settling like frost in your bones, there is a lovely word for that moment when you feel the warmth of the sun on a winter’s day – apricity, a word that has apparently fallen into disuse and is now sadly obsolete.

I don’t enjoy winter. I don’t like the dark and I don’t like the cold so any unexpected moment of catching warmth in the low lying sun’s rays is a moment to relish. It is a reminder that the season will pass.

As poet Luci Shaw puts it in her poem ‘Faith’,

‘Spring is a promise in the closed fist of a long winter.’

Springtime will come and there is nothing that winter can do about it.

Even though your feet are frozen, your hands are numb and you can’t feel a thing, look out for an opportunity to luxuriate in a moment’s apricity. Feel the skeletal fingers of winter being prised open and let it be a reminder that there is always hope.

Whatever is chilling your heart this season, turn your face towards heaven and feel holy apricity enwrap your soul.

‘Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace.’ Luke 1:78-79 (NLT)

Advent Star

“Where is the new-born King of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose, and we have come to worship him.” 

Matthew 2:2

The star hangs in silent suspension in the clear night sky. So far away and yet so bright, so beautiful, piercing the darkness of space. It wheels its course in a soundless orbit, set in motion long ago by the One who generously spangles the black depths of the universe with an abundance of starry glitter. Earth is nightly invested with a regal crown of breath-taking coruscated beauty and yet how often we miss this nocturnal ceremony

Advent

A determined seven year old lifted the three red wooden ornaments out of a drawer and declared that these would take their place on the mantelpiece despite the fact that it was still only mid-November. Perfectly aware of the general household rule that all things Christmas do not make an appearance until the month of December, he announced this with a fair amount of rebelliousness and attitude, no doubt expecting an argument. I hesitated only briefly before allowing him victory. The garish and gaudy colours of commercial Christmas have been filling our peripheral vision since October, reminding us in the usual not so subtle way, that the end of year season is just around the corner and after all, it takes very little to stoke the fires of festive excitement in our little people.

So there the wooden figures sit, waiting to be joined by cards and candles, a look of stoic resignation on their painted faces. Three wise men bearing gifts yet all dressed as Santa in red, with white fur trim and long white beards. One holds a wrapped present with a bow, one a star and one a Christmas tree. A strange and curious mixture of traditional fable and Bible story. It occurred to me that these funny wooden Christmas mantel decorations are quite emblematic of what we see around us. Myth and truth intertwined, all the elements of what Christmas is to us mixed together in an incongruous collection.

Sometimes it almost seems as if we pull up outside the stable in Bethlehem having caught a ride on a sleigh. As we raced along we didn’t notice the guiding star fall out of the sky and land atop an elegant spruce tree, covered with tinsel and twinkling fairy lights. We weren’t paying any attention, being preoccupied by our to-do and to-get lists but somehow we still arrive at a nativity scene albeit one where reindeer feed on hay alongside the donkeys and cattle.

As John Betjeman says in his poem, ‘Advent 1955’,

‘Some ways indeed are very odd

By which we hail the birth of God.'

In through the doorway of the stable we duck, bringing the whole fused jumble in with us. As we stand in the stable, we might suddenly remember where we are, feel guilty, mumble sorry and then try to shove all the unchristian stuff back out the door as if we can successfully segregate the godly from the worldly but before we set out on a self-righteous campaign to purge Christmas of all those ‘odd ways’ and put the three wise Santa’s back in the drawer, are we ourselves really much different? Maybe those ornaments are not just symbolic of the world around us but of our own inner worlds too. Each of us a more intricate, complicated blend of reality and fantasy, truth and falsehood.

In the stable, we become aware of our unworthiness for here lies God himself. Religion may tell us to leave all our messy, confused, mixed up stuff in the porch but belief walks in with it all and does what seems like the least appropriate thing to do – hands it over to a new born baby boy. The stable is the place where eternity and time touch, the place where divinity and humanity are fused. This is a place full of apparent contradiction that doesn’t make sense unless seen through the lens of faith. Immanuel, God with us, holiness living in the midst of sin. We ask the same question as Mary did, how can this be? The answer? Love.

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.”

John 3:16 The Message

And so we behold the One in the manger. Come, let us adore him. Christ the Lord.