18 Dec He who holds our universe

This Advent, my imagination has been captured by the evocation that, while awaiting the birth of her son, Mary held the embodied Maker of the Universe within her.

The imagined Christ child, for all of time already our Maker, made home “a universe” inside a womb, the rounded belly like a globe. It could be a stretch, but I have been imagining he might have brought with him moon and stars, sunlight and water; certainly, life force enough to push against the arch of humanity’s skin. Within Mary’s human womb, there is both a darkness like a night sky and the dawning light of Christ Jesus.

Luke writes,

Because of God’s tender mercy,

the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

and to guide us to the path of peace. (Luke 1:78-79, NLT)

At Christmas, in an unprecedented paradox, the Prince of Peace gives a human body life and breathes within it, yet he is a baby. Our saviour, suspended yet imminent. Because of God’s tender mercy we have “the sunrise (that) shall visit us from on high” (Luke 1:78, ESV), a light that is birthed against the darkness of our souls—and we are brought to life because of this. 

This overlay of thoughts, imaginings, and those words prophesied by Zechariah in Luke, are the breath of the Incarnation in me this Advent, and these artworks are their result.