Advent day 6: Advent begins where we are...

I pinched this post off the marvellous Visual Theology blog - thank you Dave Perry, your photos paint words and your words fire imaginations...

 

 

 

The Polish sculptor Igor Mitoraj takes the idioms of classical Graeco-Roman sculpture and gives them a thoroughly postmodern twist by emphasising the fragile, damaged nature of our humanity as opposed to its idealised perfection. As such his representations invite self-recognition, acceptance and empathy in the mind of the viewer. Mitoraj's imperfect marble figures draw us into an awareness of the solidarity of our collective brokenness as individuals. His magnificent Héros de Lumière (Hero of Light), currently on display at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park,  exemplifies this artistic trait to the full.

It is therefore a perfect image with which to begin Advent. It is into this sorry state, this brutal reality, this damaged, broken and fractured sense of self and of the other that our Advent promises speak. Because it is from this place of abject truth that the Advent journey has to begin. Not from some errant and skewed sense of perfection, or from an idealised image of who we are, as individuals, societies or nations. Hero of Light depicts neither fantasy nor illusion, rather it says here is where you are. It is only from here that you can journey to Bethlehem. Depart from anywhere else and your travelling will be in vain; a futile exercise in vanity.

The biblical texts could not be clearer on this point: "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness" (Mark 1:3) and "A voice cries out: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord'" (Isaiah 40:3) both direct us to the startpoint of our Advent pilgrimage. The wilderness and wildness of the human condition in all its fragile, imperfect beauty is where love speaks to us by name. And as God's beloved we are invited to make the promises our own; to take them to heart and believe them. Like this, as this, nothing less than this; from this sacred place of grace we set out again, or maybe for the first time, to discover Christ, the light of the world.