It is a bright December morning, the sun is streaming in through my windows and I am trying to prepare myself for Messy Church this afternoon. The trouble is that I don't feel upbeat or capable of being bright and cheery and Christmassy. I want to turn down the sun, crawl back under my duvet and hide. I am not going to do that, but I am also not going to try to be something I am not, I cannot force myself into a state of celebration so instead I am choosing to cling to hope, a hope that new life truly does begin in the dark. I am going to cling to the hope that even now deep within my soul seeds of life and light are slowly but surely putting down roots and waiting there in the rich darkness for the call of spring.
As I read the Gospel narritives over and over I am struck that even in the blaze of angel song the unfolding revelation of God with us in Christ Jesus was an almost unnoticed affair, words of hope passed down through the ages born were born not in a blaze of light but in vulnerability and poverty. This miracle of God taking on flesh calls to us to allow him to be born and reborn over and over within our flesh, our hearts our souls, and even our minds, that we might know in our vulnerability and pocerty "Christ in us the hope of glory"!
So today I choose hope, hope gentle and strong, a hope that never gives up and always wins through because my hope is not in myself but in the one who loved me first. In this divine revelation I might find the strength to allow that love to flow through me to others, and maybe even to myself...
