This month’s prayers of the week are written by Hazel Parsons.
My back garden is a small peaceful place and for these Advent and Christmas prayers I have used images from it as a focus. Amongst my favourites are the Witch Hazel shrubs. After leaf fall, I look to see the stubby curled up buds, so unprepossessing, ugly even, which in the depths of winter will uncurl displaying fronds of lemon yellow, orange and deep red. I wait and exclaim in wonder when despite inclement weather they spring forth in welcome.
Advent is such a time of waiting with an inbuilt joy. Let’s remember to look for it with Love.
Waiting
They had waited a long time,
a long, long time, for the Messiah.
They had longed and longed.
Expectation, perhaps, put ‘on hold’.
So when he came
as a baby,
and not in a palace,
is it surprising
they failed,
well mostly failed,
to recognise him?
It’s easy for us we know the story.
Familiar from beginning to end.
But how could they know?
The beginning so strange
the end, so it seemed,
so stark and so cruel.
Is Incarnation
about God expecting us to receive his gift
unexpectedly,
unreservedly,
and run with it?
Some did, some still do.
Advent!
A time of waiting.
But for what these days?
Christmas?
Is it more about listening?
Listening for the cry of a baby,
listening for the cries of all babies
all people,
and reaching out
in Love
while we wait?
God of Love,
sending Jesus in love for us.
Empower us with that Love
to meet your Incarnation,
seeking justice and truth,
even as we await
the Glory of your Kingdom
here on Earth.
