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Painted by the artist Andrew Gadd, Bus Stop Nativity (2008)* depicts the Holy Family huddled together at night in a bus shelter, trying to stay warm. Some passersby look on with curiosity and two even kneel on the snow; others go about their business with total indifference. The image is a reminder that - unlike the softly lit nativity scenes on Christmas cards with smiling shepherds and cute stable animals - the context of Jesus coming into the world was on the poor, unrespectable margins of society. He entered a harsh, unjust world which failed to care for the most vulnerable. Not much has changed today. This painting is being widely shared in view of the current populist campaign targeting immigrants and asylum seekers. Outside one church in Chicago, a prominent sign has been placed (in place of the usual nativity scene) which reads ‘Holy family removed by ICE’ (United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

 When we, individually or collectively, fail to care for the most vulnerable in our midst, we also fail to recognise the reality of Christ’s presence in our midst. In the remarkable first chapter of John, the writer says “He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” We do well to recall that Joseph and Mary were homeless for a time and sought refuge from political persecution. The infant Christ would have been killed by the government of the day (under the paranoid King Herod) had his parents not made the decision to flee their own land. It is my hope that our Christmastide prayers for the poor, homeless and vulnerable would result in a more compassionate approach in our world today.

Source: https://artandtheology.org/2022/12/18/advent-day-22-bus-stop-nativity/

The season of Advent is traditionally a season of waiting and expectation. For small children, it seems like the waiting goes on forever, as excitement mounts toward Christmas. For the lonely and bereaved, the waiting is of a different kind; perhaps more a time to endure. The theme of waiting and anticipation appears in our Advent readings. Texts from the prophet Isaiah recall the waiting of the people of Israel, as they longed to return from exile in Babylon and looked for      rescue. Isaiah also speaks of a future chosen one, a rescuer who would usher in a period of peace and prosperity and national renewal. But when would this be, and how long would the desolation of exile continue?

There are many in our world, daily dealing with the harsh realities of civil conflict or war or grinding poverty who continue to voice the question of the psalmist ‘How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?’ (Psalm 13). The waiting can seem interminable. It was like this also in the  early church communities, who were a tiny minority under severe pressure and persecution. In one of his letters, the apostle Peter writes to the suffering churches of Asia Minor these words:

do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God. (2 Peter chapter 3)

Peter’s words remind us that in Advent, as we wait to celebrate the first coming of Christ, so we simultaneously look forward to his second coming, when all things in heaven and earth will be made new. And that is very much worth waiting for.

Rev’d Philip