Who Is This Man, Jesus, Anyway?

Today is the first Sunday in Advent, in the Christian calendar. Blue and Gold are the colors of royalty and they signify the coming of our King! We acknowledge and celebrate during the four Sundays of Advent that Christ Has Died; Christ Has Risen; Christ Will Come Again! The first candle we light on our Advent wreath is called the Prophecy Candle as we look forward to His Coming Again. We are admonished by Christ himself in the gospel recorded by Saint Matthew to "Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come...Be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him."

So, who was this man, anyway, that Christians worship as the Son of God and Son of Man? Who was supposedly born to an unwed teenage mother, a virgin, no less, in a steamy stable full of sheep and cattle one star-filled night on a winter long ago? Who Christians are expecting to come back to earth again? And why should we care.

I'll let Him explain it to you in His own words: "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. And He is the head of the body, the church; He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1:15-20)

Pretty awesome, huh! I have meditated on the mysticism of those words for years; it would take eternity to fully comprehend their meaning. I made a quilt, called "Reconcilliation" that now hangs in the library of a seminary in Chicago as a result of that meditation. (You can see it on my art site under the art quilt section.)

Do you sometimes feel a little empty at this time of year, dashing through the chaos with your hair on fire? Slow down, and consider that there is a real reason for this season, after all.

Jesus, who died for your sins and mine.

Jesus, who rose from the dead to defeat sin and death.

Jesus, who is coming again to complete the reconcilliation of all things to God.

"Blue and Gold"

Oil on canvas, framed

11" x 14"

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See my art here