Twice this week I have found myself preaching and saying ‘this is the season when God turns the world upside down: when all our expectations are broken and something new begins.’ And that is the way with preaching, sometimes: God makes us repeat and repeat and repeat an idea till we notice what we have said.
So today, this topsy-turvy world of Advent is offering themes of Salvation, re-creation, coming to life again; the themes of Lent. Time bends back on itself to welcome eternity, and all the golden threads are revealed.
I have never found it easy — nor indeed desirable — to hang salvation solely on the cross. Healing begins with Incarnation: a new-babe born into a world of possibility, God-with-us teaching us how to be human. Oh, I know the dangers of this sort of talk. No, I don’t think Christ is simply an exemplar. Yes, I believe things ‘happen’ along the way that truly change the state of our being with God. But more than that, I believe that it is in seeing God-with-us that we are saved. It is in knowing, deep within ourselves, that there is no part of our human life which is separated from God’s love, no part that cannot be transformed and redeemed by Christ’s presence. All life is held in God’s longing and loving.
The time of our salvation is near.
O Come quickly. Come, Lord come.




