Edge and centre

This central nativity scene is set amidst a stunning yet fear filled angelic appearance (to the shepherds), an eery, threatening journey for three figures though a forest (the wise men), and an urgent flight across fields pushing a pram (the flight to Egypt). The polyptych (a painting, often an altarpiece, of more than three panels) is completed by a depiction of a global warzone and a scene of massacre (echoes of Herod’s mass slaughter). So, not the softer, warmer hues that are often depicted with nativity scenes.

There is a lot of drama and edge in the Biblical account. As there are in our lives - on the edges or at their centre. We often only see the tip of others’ lives but our experience tells us that they too are almost always comprised of stories of depths, which are surprising and sometimes heart breaking. The painting’s characters had to walk their own walk, inhabit their own lives. The settings are local, nearby and global, both may seem surreal at times but also very real. The forest setting in the painting is a particular wood near Birmingham and the green space is that of Richmond Park in London.

Round the edges of our lives may be drama and the particular, but here we have in the centre a child, the Christ child, in a manger under a lantern. Here is a reminder perhaps of another story, a deeper narrative, running alongside, of God in the midst, where stillness, hope and composure reside and are offered.

Question

The painting offers to me the message of a Jesus in the centre and depth of our own particular and sometimes edgy story - next to us, in our own midst. The image itself may be enough to be with, to carry us. Asking what qualities Jesus might wish to bring to bear in my life story now is another option for me, for us, this Advent.