Thought for the week: Advent 4 - Peace An art competition was once held on the theme of ‘Peace’. Most artists used images of green fields with sheep grazing safely. There were streams and trees swaying gently in the breeze on a summer’s day. However, the winning painting showed a bird in a nest, protecting its young, in a tree that was swaying in a howling gale. Were we to enter this competition, what images would we produce? Maybe we could come up with a sculpture like the ‘Throne of weapons’. This is a sculpture by Mozambican artist Cristavao Canhavato and is made from decommissioned guns. It was created in 2002 as part of the ‘Transforming Arms into Tools’ project, through which over 600,000 weapons, left in Mozambique after the civil war, were exchanged for tools and hardware. At the time the sculpture was said to ‘represent both the tragedy of war and the human triumph of those who achieved a lasting peace’. Or what about the image suggested by Graham Kendrick’s song ‘Thorns in the straw’, which suggests that Mary may have seen, as she looks at her sleeping child, ‘by his head a thorn’. ‘And did she smell myrrh in the air on that starry night?’, the song continues. The baby lying peacefully in the manger, the one whose birth we will celebrate in just a few days’ time, the one who the angels said would bring ‘peace on earth’, was threatened right from the start. He brought peace, but at a cost. Then there is the traditional symbol of peace, the dove. Surely this would suggest a placid creature, but you might see a slightly different picture if you were to see a collared dove, whose nest was being threatened by a magpie! There is nothing ‘static’ or placid about Mary’s song. It is a song about righting wrongs, a peace that will come through justice, and action to achieve it. We need to find peace at times of turmoil and to be peacemakers to bring a peaceful space for others. Are there wrongs that we can right to bring peace? So what will our pictures of peace look like? And will they change our lives?
Thought for the week: Advent 3 - Joy Imagine a scene from an EastEnders filming session (or another soap of your choice…). A person is sitting at a kitchen table, writing a shopping list. The second character brings them a coffee but manages to spill some on the list. This being a soap, the situation escalates quickly: the first person is annoyed that their shopping list is ruined but the second character blames them for having an overly cluttered table, and tells them they should make their own coffee in the future! Now imagine a retake of this scene – coffee still gets spilled on the shopping list, but this time the second person apologises, gets a cloth to wipe up the mess and makes another cup of coffee. Both characters laugh off the incident and harmony is restored. Repentance i.e. being sorry and changing accordingly, isn’t necessarily associated with joy. But saying sorry, meaning it and showing it by our actions, can bring healing and joy to all sides. Looked at from the angle of the wronged person, it is much easier to forgive someone who has admitted they are in the wrong. And forgiveness can bring healing. At first sight, the message of John the Baptist sounds harsh and joyless, but true change and repentance bring joy. This message comes across even more in the life and ministry of Jesus, the one for whom John was preparing. Think about people who Jesus met, such as Zacchaeus. Here was a man whose whole life was turned around. The change was real, as he prepared to give half his goods to the poor and reimburse the people he had cheated. What joy it brought to him – and no doubt to the people who received back what was due to them. Are there people you need to say sorry to? Why not do something about that this week?
Thought for the week: Advent 2 - Love Have you ever been roped into helping a child with a particularly challenging school project? Someone was asked to help their grandson with making a model for a school art project. The grandson expected that his grandparent would react immediately and miraculously produce materials and the help needed. The grandparent had two options: A) Try to find something in the house that could be used to make the model immediately; B) To think carefully and come up with a plan to buy some materials or spend time collecting paper and making a papier maché model. After a hunt round the house turned up only a small amount of modelling clay, plan B was decided on and materials duly purchased for it. The papier maché took a while to prepare and was very messy, but the wait was worth it. Grandparent and grandchild had great fun making the modelling material and the whole family joined in and made their own models. Though the grandchild had to wait longer, the end result was much more imaginative and creative – it was the result of a loving plan! God has a plan for raising us up, saving and loving us. Sometimes the plan requires patience on our part. We may need to change some of our expectations or preconceived notions. Maybe we could use a different modelling material! Our readings emphasise that God’s plan was and is one of love. It is carefully planned, with messengers and others preparing the way. And the outcome was God sending his son in love for the world. The final part of Zechariah’s song sums the situation up rather nicely: ‘For you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.’ That’s surely a loving plan worth waiting for!
Thought for the week: Advent 1 - Hope There is a park in Plymouth with a rather unusual tree in it. Growing out of the ground is the stump of an old tree – it’s at least a metre wide. Many years ago, the tree was cut down and only the stump was left. But somehow, a new fir tree started to grow from it. So now, each year at Christmas nearby residents decorate the tree and have a little celebration together around it. This particular tree that was cut down has become a quite unexpected source of hope as a new one has sprung up from it. In Jeremiah, we hear of God causing ‘a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety’. The ‘righteous Branch’ that is to come is Jesus. As we start Advent, we look back and look forward. We look back and remember all those who waited in hopeful anticipation for the Messiah who would come and save them. Many, like Jeremiah, never lived to see the Messiah. And yet they remained hopeful. We look back and remember Jesus’ birth over two thousand years ago and how a tiny baby was born in less than ideal circumstances, whose parents then fled with him to Egypt to escape a terrible fate. Yet, among all this, the hope spoken of by Jeremiah became a reality. But we also look forward. We look forward in hope to when Jesus will come again and all things will be restored and renewed, when all crying and pain will cease, when all people will come together to worship the Lord. What does that mean in the place and time we find ourselves, between the past and future. Here we also find hope. Just like the fir tree that grew from the stump of the old, dead tree, there are signs of hope all around us – in the ways that we see God at work in our own lives, in the lives of people we know, and in the lives of people we have never met. These might be big or small. What signs of hope have you seen recently?
