As Christmas preparations gather pace, my thoughts begin to turn towards the crib; that cosy nest of hay, surrounded by oxen gently lowing as they await the Christ-child who would soon displace their lunch to make it his bed. It is, of course, an unhelpfully idealised image of the Holy Family; caught-up in the early moments after an unmedicated birth in a place none of them planned to be. But looking forward to the crib provides us with a brief reprieve from some of the more apparently challenging symbolism of Christianity for a few short weeks, at least until Candlemas, when we turn our face back to the cross and the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Christ, now only child but who will, all-too-soon, grow into a man.

Yet the crib and the cross share a curious bond as symbols of the life and death God chose to share-in with us through Christ's full humanity. Whether swaddled or outstretched, both are a place of human limitedness and vulnerability. Weakness can be seen as something we try and avoid or 'put a brave face on', but in the crib we are reminded that weakness is what God chose in the Incarnation and lived out in his full humanity from the moment of his birth (1 Corinthians 1.27).

It is easy to be convinced by someone who looks strong, who appears to have it all together, who promises security and ease and success; but to give yourself wholeheartedly to the babe in the manger, or the man on the cross… that will take an act of faith.