The Second Sunday of Advent

Daniel Bergèse was preaching this morning. He's a sort of denominational Bible teacher - his job title is "Animateur Biblique", but to the anglophone mind that sounds deeply dodgy, so let's move swiftly on!

He preached on Isaiah 7:1-14, with reference to Matthew 1, about the sign that demands faith. And it was very helpful, certainly for me in this time of "transition".

The signifiant being a child, the signifié being that God is with us, Isaiah rejects the connection between the signifiant and the signifié (ooops - slipped into stylistique there for a moment...)

But a child. What use is a new-born child? Much in every way when the child is God with us!

It set me on a different tack, too - we feel disoriented and disconcerted because we are in transition, we have exchanged one place for another. What transition there was for this one in exchanging glory for grime.

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