Dear Friends and Parishioners
I have just selected the Advent Study Course book for this year,
‘Image of the Invisible’ by Amy Scott Robinson, published by the Bible Reading Fellowship. I do hope that you either attend the sessions or read the book with its daily readings for Advent and Epiphany, or better still do both. For this is a time of year when we are thinking in several ways about those who are ‘invisible’.
We began with the All Soul’s Service at St Luke’s Church, commemorating all those whom we love but see no more in this earthly life. They are ‘invisible’ to our mortal eyes but, like those we remembered on All Saints Day, known very much in our hearts and minds. During Remembrance Sunday services we recalled military personnel and civilians who suffered due to war. With the passing of the years and the circumstances of conflict many of these individuals are ‘invisible’ to us now.
The study book refers, of course, to God who is invisible yet known through Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit and the awesomeness of creation. This ‘awesomeness of creation’ includes us as human beings, made in God’s image. In Genesis we read how God breathed life into Adam, thereby giving humanity divine potential which culminated in Jesus. This divine spark is within each one of us longing to burst more fully into a life-giving flame that will make the invisible God visible through us; as Meister Eckhart wrote: ‘When God made man the innermost heart of the Godhead was put into man.’ During Advent we seek to fan that spark into flame; to re-ignite the glowing embers of the Godhead that may have been dulled by daily life.
Using the study book, we can think about our image of God, how the invisible God appears in the Bible and how, during Christmas, we experience God made visible in Jesus as well has how we might see God in creation.
Have a blessed Advent
Prayers and blessings
Canon Janice
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