By Marianne Wood

On an early morning flight, I caught this view outside my window. It made me wonder, why do we–God’s creation–spend so much time and effort celebrating the underside of the comfy-looking celestial bed of clouds? And how might we motivate ourselves to look above it more? The answer always seems to be that navel-gazing is normal and natural, courtesy of Adam and Eve. We’re stuck looking at us.

While we know that God is the source of that big ball of light far on the left, almost out of view in this cropped shot, we tend to forget His presence, His power, and His peace. We know He is there, shrouded in the mystery of grace, and that He came into this wounded world as a human, like us, to remind us that there is much more. This enables us to sing “Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.” I love the Christmas carol, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

Inspired by the view out my window on that flight, I wrote a poem to accompany this experience. 

Christ’s coming
Brings wonder
And awe–
That He, 

Arriving
Arrived, 
He appeared like we.

Small and vulnerable,
Dependent
A babe– 
Insecure,
Needing family
And care,
Yet Emmanuel, He!

Soon proving his might
In purpose
And plan–
His established His concern,
For our trust
In His Name,
So…

We know 
When we see Him 
In the clouds–
And people’s lives,
We know when He speaks
To our hearts,
He’s arrived!

He arrived! And He is real. A.W. Tozer in his 28-Day Advent Devotional from Heaven and many others testify to his appearance. 

We know Him in our disappointments, dreads, and griefs because He speaks to our hearts and because Scripture reminds us that there were “loud voices in heaven saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.’” Revelation 11:15. We anticipate a world without end–immortality–life with Christ, forever.

Another image that captured my mind and heart this year is the accompanying photograph of a painting of the flight into Egypt. It’s part of the art collection at Abbey at Montserrat. Many artists, including Henry Ossawa Tanner and Giotto di Bondone, have created moving tributes to the travail of the Holy Family on their way to Egypt, as depicted in Matthew 2:13-23. The text tells us that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream, warning them that the king sought to murder the Christ child. So, they fled.

Once again, we see the sun’s rays breaking through the clouds. But in this picture, we see evidence from that upper side of the clouds: the appearance of angels.

Flight to Egypt–Abadia de Montserrat

What evidence of heaven and nature singing have you had this Christmas season? I hope it enables you to sing joy to the world and imagine angels delivering just what you need.

Marianne Wood works as an editorial assistant and researcher for Bill Wright