I have a memory of a childhood Advent calendar. Card,
with (probably – here, my memory is shaky) a picture of the hills around
Bethlehem for backdrop. Doors opened carefully, re-opened year after year. Each
one revealing a picture, depicting some character or item relating to the
nativity, and a verse from the Bible on the back of the door.
These days, the Advent calendar on our mantlepiece is a
wooden box, with twenty-four doors that lift upward, not to the side. Behind
each door, Jo hides a piece from a jigsaw of an icon from the Church of the
Nativity, for her, and a fairtrade individual ‘taster’ bar of chocolate, for
me.
The practice of opening a little door every day
through Advent, a door that is linked to the story of the incarnation, might
shape how we open larger doors. So far this Advent, I have opened my front door
to a neighbour, shut out of her own home and in need of help, and to delivery
drivers, dropping off Bibles I had ordered for friends who are exploring faith.
The vicarage doorbell is loud – I cannot adjust the volume, and it makes me
jump whenever it rings. It does not predispose me to welcome those who come to
my door. Yet the Advent calendar might resist that move; might predispose me to
see Jesus coming to my door in the face of a neighbour or stranger. Coming to
me, in need or in response to my own need. (In the Gospels we see Jesus ministered-to
by others and ministering to others.)
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