Thursday 20th December 2007
Also available as an audio podcast
‘Look who’s coming!’ It’s the kind of thing you say to a small child whose mummy’s coming back down the path from the shops. Forgive me for practicing my baby talk. As I said three weeks ago, both our daughters are expecting their first child in the new year.
But that phrase ‘Look who’s coming!’ is a true advent slogan. It captures the excitement and the surprise and the joy – all of which ought to infuse our advent reflection and prayer. Look who’s coming! Could it be…? Is it really…? It is!
Our culture vaults over advent with total ease. It doesn’t even know it’s there. What the world is waiting for, or already accumulating, is parties and presents and Christmas bonuses, and overeating and drinking, and arguments with the family and so on. What we’re waiting for is infinitely more dynamic and rich and long-lasting, the coming of God, in Christ, to touch the world and bring it to life. We’re waiting for a child.
Rowan Williams has a lovely poem in which each verse starts, ‘He will come like last leaf’s fall,’ ‘He will come like frost,’ ‘He will come like dark,’ and the last verse goes like this:
He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breathing,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.
And it is like child that we glimpse the end of our advent waiting. There’s nothing triumphalistic and awesome about this advent arrival, unless it’s the awesomeness of a God who is humble, who comes in by the back door and lies at our feet. This is an advent that defies all the scriptwriters.
Look who’s coming! Yes it is the Lord we awaited, and no it isn’t the Lord we expected. But only so could he come to encompass all of humanity, from least to greatest. Only by lying in straw could he appreciate the poverty of those whose beds are made like his. Only by being in Bethlehem could he appreciate what it’s like to live in an occupied land. Only by fleeing to Egypt could he identify with those millions who have to flee from their homes. There was no other or better way to arrive.
One of our tasks this advent is to say to people, gently but insistently, ‘look who’s coming.’ Many people may not have time to look up and see, unless we point him out. We have the privilege of recognizing the familiar contours of the Prince of Peace. Can we gladly and courteously draw him to people’s attention? It’s his birthday after all.
He doesn’t make a fuss about it. It’s up to us. The story’s out there; it’s in the public domain. There are 2000 million of us who know it, give or take a few – it’s grown a bit from the little crowd of shepherds who found themselves gathered awkwardly one strange night in a stable round the back of the world. God won’t push it; it’s our story now, our responsibility. It’s for us to say, with wonder:
‘Look who’s coming!’