THOUGHTS TO PONDER

Following the Star

As we move once again into the season of Advent, our thoughts inevitably turn to the familiar Christmas stories – the trek to Bethlehem, the birth in the shed, the wondering shepherds, and the wise men who followed the star till ‘it came and stood over where the young child lay.’  The Word made flesh.  Incarnation.  The stories contain for each of us memories, sentiments, and deep feelings about ‘home-coming’.  If ‘home is where the heart is’, then we too are about to set off to catch a glimpse of the divine and a renewed sense of our identity as Christian pilgrims.

But we need a star to guide us.  Some light which draws us forward...  At a gathering I was at in Chester last month the speaker spoke of the need for a sense of ‘cosmic gratitude’ as the heart of the impulse to worship.  The sense of sheer gratitude at living in a world full of wonder:

Star of wonder, star of night

Guide us to that perfect light…

But as well as the sense of wonder there are terrible indications of darkness in our world.  It’s almost like a cosmic struggle between light and darkness.   Christmas affirms that ‘the Word made flesh’ brought light that could never finally be overcome by darkness.  We’re reminded of that every time the candles are lit in church -or at home. Remember the character in Terrence Rattingan’s play ‘The Deep Blue Sea’, who says to a despairing friend, ‘There is not enough darkness in the world to extinguish the light of one small candle?’’

The Old Testament opens with the unimaginable creation of light piercing the void: ‘Let there be light.  And there was light.’  Advent prepares us for its expression in the life of Jesus.  Darkness and light.  Universal themes representing the greatest of realities: Two sides of the same coin.  Both are present at Advent and again in Lent. Both bring us face-to-face with the not-yet of the mystery. We wait, as the seekers of old waited for the breaking –through of the light and the Kingdom of God.  Despite the darkness, we are drawn to the light.  Whatever the facts are surrounding the birth of Jesus, its significance is what matters.  With the birth of this baby, the course of history was changed.  It made possible not only a new way of understanding life, but a new way of living it.

                                                                   Happy Christmas!

                                                                                                                   Mary McMahon