Advent: God In Us

The Visitation, He Qi, used with kind permission. See more at www.heqiart.com.

Good morning! You’re beautiful with God’s beauty, Beautiful inside and out! God be with you - Gabriel.  (The gospel of Luke 1:28)

The angelic greeting paves the way for the holy conception, an intimation that our humanity is the resting place of God, a beautiful garden that is still the seedbed for the divine. Mary becomes the archetype, a prototype for the internality of God, the eternal point of ourhumanity as carriers of heavenly purpose.

The incarnation of God is a reminder of our ’imago dei’, our God imaged lives that are still endowed with their original purpose to fill the earth and flourish in collaboration with all of life.

We have been told for years that the point of Jesus was to redeem us from our corruption, but maybe, just maybe, there is more to the story than we realised and the Christ child is actually a reminder of the beauty that God sees in us and potentially through us.

How could the virgin Mary be the womb of the holy hypostasis? Was she herself immaculately conceived or maybe as her name suggests just a commoner unsuspectedly chosen like us all for greater things?

Is this the supreme ‘surprise’ of the incarnation, that humanity is worthy of being the habitation of God, a carrier that needed a catalyst like grace to awaken this divine providence, something hidden  becoming visible in plane sight for all to see?

Like the apostle Paul said …God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach..

Mary’s life is a message of hope, an invitation to us all that our lives are not our own, and while it seemed like she was implicated beyond her control, she ended up choosing to be a willing participator in the great incarnation. ’Yes, I see it all now: I’m the Lord’s maid, ready to serve. Let it be with me just as you say’.

Advent is a season of expectation and surprise, a time of internal discovery and call to collaborate with the divine within - Go forth and multiply.

Greg