Victoria writes: 'Art is a great way to open yourself up to the mysteries of God, to sit in the pocket of them as you gaze and ponder. “Blessed are your eyes because they see,” Jesus said. Theologians in their own right, artists are committed to helping us see what was and what is and what could be. Here I’ve taken special care to select images by artists from around the world, not just the West, and ones that go beyond the familiar fare. You’ll see, for example, the Holy Spirit depositing the divine seed into Mary’s womb; Mary with a baby bump, and then with midwives; an outback birth with kangaroos, emus, and lizards in attendance; Jesus as a Filipino slum dweller; and Quaker history married to Isaiah’s vision of the Peaceable Kingdom.'
Through 'Come, Lord Jesus, Come' you are invited to consider what it meant for Jesus to be born of woman—coming as seed and fetus and birthed son; the poverty Jesus shared with children around the world; culturally specific bodies of Christ, like a dancing body and a yogic body; how we are called to bear God into the world today; and more.
Victoria writes: 'Advent takes us back and brings us forward. In preparing us to celebrate Christ’s first coming, it places us alongside the ancient prophets, who awaited with aching intensity the fulfilled promise of a messiah, and Joseph and Mary, whose pregnancy made the expectation all the more palpable; it also strengthens our longing for Christ’s second coming, when he will return to fully and finally establish his kingdom on earth ... May God bless you this Advent season as you ponder the amazing truth of the Incarnation.'
The alternative Nine Lessons (see below) is a poetic meditation drawing on the thinking of René Girard in interpreting the Bible readings traditionally used in services of Nine Lessons and Carols:
Nine Lessons
Genesis 3: 8–19
Hard labour in birth and work, sweat on our brow,
dirt on our hands. Thorns and thistles to prick and sting,
like death from a serpent's tongue,
till we return to the ground,
ashes to dust and dust to ashes.
Genesis 22: 15–18
A sense of sacrifice required;
the death of children appeasing the divine.
An alternative is found - ram caught in thicket,
wool held by thorns. Animals become
the scapegoats for our sins.
Isaiah 9: 2; 6–7
Light in darkness promised
through the hard labour of the birth of a child.
A child bearing peace and goodwill,
bringing justice and righteousness
without end and without measure.
Isaiah 11: 1–3a; 4a; 6–9
A little child leading us to reconciliation.
From nature red in tooth and claw -
survival of the fittest - to peaceful co-existence.
Carnivores to herbivores, the drawing of the sting
from the serpent's tongue.
Luke 1: 26–35; 38
Highly favoured as the Spirit overshadows.
A virgin birth - subverting patriarchy -
of a son who will not marry or have blood offspring.
The saying of 'yes' to God opening
the way of the family of God to one and all.
Luke 2: 1; 3–7
No room for the Lord of life, Prince of peace.
Space shared with animals kept for sustenance;
the sacrifices of existence and forgiveness.
Born into poverty; the struggle for survival
that this child will one day redeem.
Luke 2: 8–16
Angelic announcement of peace and goodwill
come in the form of the child found
by night workers, swaddled and lying in a manger.
His mother ponders these things -
annunciation, nativity, incarnation - in her heart.
Matthew 2: 1–12
Star following Magi look for the Prince of Peace
in the heart of power and opulence
only to find him in obscurity and humility.
Gifts given prefigure his divinity and sacrifice, the servant King
who, in birth and death, gives his life for others.
John 1: 1–14
Creative word now created, enfleshed, incarnated.
Divine life flowing in and through this child.
Light in darkness, revealing our passion
for power, position and personal gain.
In poverty, a counterpoint is born - compassion.
Giles Fraser, in the wake of the death of Girard and the Paris attacks, recently summarised Girard's thinking:
'The anthropologist René Girard died earlier this month, at home in California. A Frenchman, he did not live to see the latest violence in his home country. But, in a sense, he had been working on it his entire professional life. For no modern thinker has done more to understand the self-repeating patterns through which violence flows. And there can be no more disturbing conclusion than his, especially now: that violence is a form of copying, that violence is contagious, and that, as he put it: “Violence is like a raging fire that feeds on the very objects intended to smother its flames.”'
Genesis 3: 8–19
Hard labour in birth and work, sweat on our brow,
dirt on our hands. Thorns and thistles to prick and sting,
like death from a serpent's tongue,
till we return to the ground,
ashes to dust and dust to ashes.
Genesis 22: 15–18
A sense of sacrifice required;
the death of children appeasing the divine.
An alternative is found - ram caught in thicket,
wool held by thorns. Animals become
the scapegoats for our sins.
Isaiah 9: 2; 6–7
Light in darkness promised
through the hard labour of the birth of a child.
A child bearing peace and goodwill,
bringing justice and righteousness
without end and without measure.
Isaiah 11: 1–3a; 4a; 6–9
A little child leading us to reconciliation.
From nature red in tooth and claw -
survival of the fittest - to peaceful co-existence.
Carnivores to herbivores, the drawing of the sting
from the serpent's tongue.
Luke 1: 26–35; 38
Highly favoured as the Spirit overshadows.
A virgin birth - subverting patriarchy -
of a son who will not marry or have blood offspring.
The saying of 'yes' to God opening
the way of the family of God to one and all.
Luke 2: 1; 3–7
No room for the Lord of life, Prince of peace.
Space shared with animals kept for sustenance;
the sacrifices of existence and forgiveness.
Born into poverty; the struggle for survival
that this child will one day redeem.
Luke 2: 8–16
Angelic announcement of peace and goodwill
come in the form of the child found
by night workers, swaddled and lying in a manger.
His mother ponders these things -
annunciation, nativity, incarnation - in her heart.
Matthew 2: 1–12
Star following Magi look for the Prince of Peace
in the heart of power and opulence
only to find him in obscurity and humility.
Gifts given prefigure his divinity and sacrifice, the servant King
who, in birth and death, gives his life for others.
John 1: 1–14
Creative word now created, enfleshed, incarnated.
Divine life flowing in and through this child.
Light in darkness, revealing our passion
for power, position and personal gain.
In poverty, a counterpoint is born - compassion.
Giles Fraser, in the wake of the death of Girard and the Paris attacks, recently summarised Girard's thinking:
'The anthropologist René Girard died earlier this month, at home in California. A Frenchman, he did not live to see the latest violence in his home country. But, in a sense, he had been working on it his entire professional life. For no modern thinker has done more to understand the self-repeating patterns through which violence flows. And there can be no more disturbing conclusion than his, especially now: that violence is a form of copying, that violence is contagious, and that, as he put it: “Violence is like a raging fire that feeds on the very objects intended to smother its flames.”'
'Girard’s answer to mimetic violence is that we must break the cycle by refusing to mirror our enemies. Indeed, his rejection of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is not hand-wringing pacifism – it is bloody-minded, hard-nosed defiance; a refusal to be defined by the violent other, a refusal to answer back in kind.'
'Girard goes on to argue that the most vociferous critic of religion turns out to be a Jewish prophet called Jesus of Nazareth. Girard understands the ministry of Jesus to be that of deliberately standing in the place of the innocent victim thus to reveal the profound wickedness of the whole scapegoat mechanism. And as he is strung up to die, the violence of religion is exposed in all its gruesome destructiveness. Forget Dawkins or Harris – according to Girard the greatest critic of religion was Jesus himself.'
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Low - If You Were Born Today.
'Girard goes on to argue that the most vociferous critic of religion turns out to be a Jewish prophet called Jesus of Nazareth. Girard understands the ministry of Jesus to be that of deliberately standing in the place of the innocent victim thus to reveal the profound wickedness of the whole scapegoat mechanism. And as he is strung up to die, the violence of religion is exposed in all its gruesome destructiveness. Forget Dawkins or Harris – according to Girard the greatest critic of religion was Jesus himself.'
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Low - If You Were Born Today.
