Thursday evening Breathing Space Communion services for Advent
The Adorationof the Shepherds
If you were here last week you’ll know that during these
three Advent Breathing Space services we are looking at some of the classic
ways in which the Nativity story has been portrayed in art over the years. Last
week we thought about those paintings which show the new-born Jesus lying naked
on the ground, rather an uncomfortable image to modern eyes. I explained that
it had its origins in a vision that was very famous in the middle ages, the
vision of a Swedish nun called St Bridget. They aren’t well known now, but they
shaped the way the story was pictured for many centuries. Tonight’s image seems
much more sympathetic and cosy. It’s the image I call the “glow in the dark
baby”, and you’ll have seen it on a thousand Christmas cards in one form or
another. Here is Jesus, radiant with
light, which shines directly from him and lights up those around him. But this
image, as it happens, comes from St Bridget too, despite it’s very different
feel .
In her vision she saw Mary and Joseph come into the stable.
Joseph put a single candle in a wall sconce, and then went out, and this is
what she says happened next. As Mary
knelt in prayer “then and there, in
a moment and the twinkling of an eye, she gave birth to a Son, from whom there
went out such great and ineffable light and splendour that the sun could not be
compared to it. Nor did that candle that the old man had put in place give
light at all because that divine splendour totally annihilated the material
splendour of the candle.”
Of course, the nativity story in
the Bible has no such description. The birth isn’t described in any detail at
all. Luke just says that Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him
in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger.”
Matthew’s Gospel announces that after his birth, magi from the East come
to see him. There’s nothing outwardly different about this child that would
have distinguished him from any other, let alone the ability to generate light
spontaneously like this, spectacular though it is!
So why would Bridget have imagined
him as this “glow in the dark” baby? The
answer is simple. It is because the Gospels tell us again and again that those
who met the adult Jesus experienced him as someone who brought light into
their lives, light which changed everything for them. People who had lived way
out in the shadows of their society – the sick, the disabled, those marginalised
through the things they’d done or the things that had been done to them,
through poverty, gender or race – these people found themselves given healing,
dignity and respect by Jesus. It must have felt like the lights had suddenly
been switched on. Those who had been unnoticed and ignored found they were in
the spotlight of God’s love.
These were the people who formed
the earliest Christian communities, the people by whom and for whom the Gospels
were written. It must have been the most natural thing in the world for them to
describe Jesus as the light of the world. Not only had their lives been lit up,
but Jesus had also told them that they were the light of the world too – that’s
what he says in the Gospels. They were lights that were not to be hidden under
bushel baskets but allowed to shine into the lives of others. For the early
Christians this is a story that is all about light. So when Matthew and Luke come
to write the introductions to their Gospels, the nativity stories we know so
well, though they don’t speak of a “glow in the dark baby” they do fill them
with other images of light – the light of a special star , the light of the angels.
The light in these stories prefigures the light we’ll be hearing about as Jesus
heals the sick and welcomes the outcast, a light which chases away the darkness
of fear and shame in which they have lived.
It is important to understand that
when we look at images like these, because if we don’t they can be rather
dangerous. Everyone in this picture,
even the ox, seems to be transfixed by this spectacular infant. All eyes are on
the child – why wouldn’t they be? But the true light of Christ was not the
dazzling splendour of a miraculous baby that makes us gawp in wonder, something
wonderful but entirely mysterious and definitely a one-off. Nor is the light of
Christ a cosy glow that simply warms our hearts on a cold winter’s night for a
while. His light was light to work by, light to walk by, light that revealed
the truth people desperately needed to see, truth about themselves, truth about
others, truth about God.
Tonight, as we enjoy this lovely light-filled image of the
baby, let’s remember that it is just a symbol of the truth, not the truth
itself. It is one thing to kneel and adore for a moment, or an hour or a night,
but we are not meant to live in this stable, relying for light on a “glow in the
dark” baby who never grows up. The adult Jesus calls us to get up from our knees,
to trust that the light of God’s love which we have seen in him can shine from
us too, to light up our own lives and the lives of all who live in the darkness
now.
Amen
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