The Fourth Sunday of Advent: Love and Restoration
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17, KJV)
The Fourth Sunday of Advent falls this year on Christmas Eve. My selected reading from the Gospel of John brings together the themes of the Advent season by revealing the divine purpose at work in the wondrous birth amid the dung and straw of a Bethlehem manger. Out of unfathomable love for humanity, God took on human flesh and came to live and die in this troubled world to restore the harmonious relationship of God with the Universe existing at the Creation. Belgian Artist Jos Speybrouck offers us a Nativity scene with the beautiful curvilinear symmetry of the Art Deco style from a Spanish-language printing of a mass-market poster series on the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar he created between 1923 and 1940 for a Benedictine Abbey near Bruges.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Sacred Art Pilgrim