Advent 2018

Resources created for Advent 2018.

This Advent, you are invited to explore what it means to step into transformational encounter with the divine. Each week, we will reflect on the transformational encounters experienced by those at Jesus’ birth, and think about this in the context of some of the issues we currently face as a society.

Weekly Reflections

Prepare Ye The Way 2018

Poetry

JPIT poet-in-residence, Revd. Lucy Berry, wrote a poem for each week in Advent. Find the poems, and ways to engage with them, here.

While the World Turns Worldly

Read the poem here

For Reflection:

1. What is Mary’s vision in this poem?
2.  What do you feel about what the poem is saying
3. Jesus said: “The poor are always with us”. Does that let us off the hook?

Rude, wasn’t it?

Read the poem here

For Reflection:

1. Whose is the voice of the poem?
2. Why is truth often experienced as rudeness?
3. Why do you believe the penultimate stanza changes tense?

The Next Day of Christmas 

Read the poem here

For Reflection: 

1.  Do you believe that all the Bible-gifts mentioned in this poem are relevant?
2. How might you categorise their importance?
3. The last gift in the poem is not just for “me”. But what are the last gift’s implications?

Dealers in Dynamite

Read the poem here

For Reflection:

1. What does this treatment of the Massacre of the Infants remind you of?
2. What is good and bad power?
3. Has Power changed since Jesus was born?

See more of Lucy’s poetry on our Poetry Hub.