[grid blog :: advent 3] – source
Well my advent post is a little late, but never mind.
Have been rather depressed at the state of Christmas this year – seems like my festive mood has been soured by the rather bullish advertising and corporate groups who seem intent on grabbing my money by hijacking and subverting the story of the birth of the christ.
I really like my picture, sums up my thoughts at this late advent stage, somehow I need to remove all the brash and intrusive things that surround the birth of the messiah. I need to get beyond the rush or present buying and encounter the stillness of that cold night, the pain Mary would have gone through in delivering the boy into the world, I need to rediscover again the rather embarrasing story fo Jesus’ birth, a boy born out of wedlock (into ‘sin’ as some would put it today) from a family line made up rather dubious characters to say the least (see Matt 1).
Yesterday I popped home to see my family, and got to hold my little nephew for an hour or two. Seeing life in its infancy is amazing. His life is pregnant with possibilities, the future quite open but he has little concern for that and is rather more interested in a roll of tape spinning on the floor. With the birth, life and death of Jesus our lives become pregnant with hope again, remembering Jesus’ birth should fill my heart with hope of the possibility of new life, even with my tired knackered body. I hope this year I can make room, remove the branding, forget the rush, and spend a little while thinking in hushed silence and awe, trying to get back to the source of it all.
