“Pieces of Coloured Glass”

Advent Devotion 2021 written by members of the congregation

 

When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.  - Matthew 16: 2-3

 

The Season of Advent gives people a chance to reflect on ‘this time’ and interpret where and how God is birthed in the world today. This liturgical season focuses on what the coming of  Jesus means now. Through our Advent devotions you are invited to reflect on the participants of the Christmas story and interpret anew the meaning of life, and Christ, in and for your daily life.

 

This year Resurrection was gifted with a homemade stained-glass nativity scene. Each character was lovingly created with pieces of broken coloured glass. Devotions presented on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, Dec. 1^st – Jan. 7^th, will introduce you to each of the 15 pieces.

 

Pastors have beautiful stories and carry many beautiful people in their hearts; beautiful when one considers that people are ‘broken pieces of coloured glass.’ All of us understand brokenness, whether experienced as failure, shame, hopelessness, grief, or sadness. Despite brokenness human beings are continually created, ever-changing, healed, restored, -beautiful pieces of glass- trying to live to let the sunshine through. And when pieces of coloured glass come together into community, wholeness is found, just like in a stained-glass window.

 

The beautiful story of this nativity scene is that it was created by Nyborg Sorensen, in New Denmark, NB. Shortly after arriving in my first call (in New Denmark) I went to visit Nyborg and his wife Dorothy. Over the years, I was shown many pieces of stained-glass work, this nativity included. I marveled over the pieces as I ate Danish cookies and enjoyed hot tea in a china mug. After I moved to Halifax, Nyborg and Dorothy left the community they grew up in and moved to Halifax to be closer to their daughter. I started to visit them here. Their daughter brought them to church, sitting on the Windsor St. side just under the stained-glass window. The beauty of the story is that our relationship made the transition easier, for them, and for me too. In their Halifax apartment, the nativity scene was displayed, at least in part, and the tea was just as hot. But then, for a number of years, the pieces did not come out, as the couple moved to a nursing home and there was no room. The family surprised me this summer with beauty I thought was but a memory. Nyborg’s family has gifted us with pieces of broken glass made beautiful through the loving hands of an artist.

 

God of colour and sunshine, you created humans to be as beautiful as coloured pieces of glass that shimmer. Advent is a time of reflection ‘interpreting the signs of the time.’ In this time, we see brokenness in ourselves and in the world. Through this season colour our spirits to let God through our brokenness, to shine as hope, love, peace, and joy. Amen.

----Pastor Kimber