GOLD

Gold

ADVENT 14

Gold is what we give to people to say they are special. We make weddings rings out of it. They used to make watches out of it to give as retirement gifts. The daily value of it is even a part of the news.

But to give it to an infant?  Gold is a ‘for all of life’ gift (marriage) or ‘for the rest of your life’ gift (retirement) - hardly appropriate for a baby.

Unless, of course, all of the baby’s life is itself a gift …

STAR

Star 

ADVENT 13

Matt 2.2

We do the strangest things with stars. We watch them on the screen and follow their antics in trashy magazines and TV panel shows. We write names on them and cement them into boulevards. We assemble them into rating systems so that three, four or five of them together means something about what we might expect in life.

Yet God has given us millions of them, every night, just hovering above us and there to see if we’d only look up. Just imagine what might happen if we really saw and understood the meaning of just one of them …..

INN

Inn 

ADVENT 12

Wikipedia on Hotel Ratings: Hotel ratings are often used to classify hotels according to their quality … Many have a system involving stars, with a greater number of stars indicating greater luxury. … Food services, entertainment, view, room variations such as size and additional amenities, spas and fitness centers, ease of access and location may be considered in establishing a standard. … Some hotels have been advertised as seven star hotels. The Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai was opened in 1998 with a servant for every room …

Matt 2.10: the only time in history people were overjoyed with a one star rating of the hotel.

LOVE

Love  

Advent 11

Luke 2.16

We go looking for Love in the strangest places, and it makes us do the weirdest things, but it’s not often that we find it. Not really. 

Perhaps love - true Love - has to find us …. and then it doesn’t seem weird or strange at all.

EARTH

Advent 9

Earth  

Luke 2.14

Earth – the muddy, stony stuff we walk on and take for granted. 

The stuff we have to wash off our faces and out of our clothes.

The mountains and the distant scenes, the water views. 

The trees and birds and the breezes and the clouds.

That big round Thing that we all share and that sustains and feeds us, and that finally covers us and takes us again into Itself.

And all of this is touched by God, and given peace and blessing?????