Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

It’s a familiar image: mother and child. I’m looking at one now on my computer. She is looking down to the sleeping child cradled in her arms. It is the image we contemplate at Christmas. So far away, yet so close. It’s the look on Mary’s face, and Sarah’s, and many other women in the Bible. The look on the mother’s face reveals little; it’s a private moment. We are left to imagine deep connections being made in the gaze of the mother. After all those months of waiting, gestating, slowly growing in secret, anxiety mixed with anticipation, something new emerges from darkness into light. It reminds me of the story Jesus used to explain how God’s power works in the world: “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed upon the ground, and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how.” (Mark 4:26 & 27) We’re told that God works in dark places like tombs and wombs: that’s where new life comes out of death, a result of the quiet transforming power of God. We gaze upon the child and remind ourselves of how God creates new life so quietly, secretly, surprisingly. We sleep, we rise, we all gaze at something that grows, we know not how. The image of mother and child becomes an expression of the mystery of hope. It is an icon of faith. But this Christmas is different for me, because the image on my computer is the first picture of my daughter looking into the face of her daughter born day before yesterday. So far away, yet so close. All I can do is gaze upon the mother gazing upon the child who is sleeping in the arms of the mystery of God’s creating, transforming power. I am reduced to a state of silent wonder . . . again. ~ Rick Marshall