Advent Reflection #13: The what of Advent: Theme of New Beginnings

Today is the birthday of my son.  I won't mention the year because of privacy issues.  He is out of town on a business trip.  But my theme for the day in terms of Advent reflections is "new beginnings," because birth is just that.  Surely his birth was a new beginning for us.  I was going to text him happy birthday with "Happy birthday from the people who made it possible," but his father said no.  I was an obedient wife for once on that score.  Actually, God and God alone made it possible. 

I have posted below a depiction of the nativity that I believe is from Chartres Cathedral or looks as if it is.  Perhaps not. I like it because it is more historically accurate than depicting the visiting kings at the manger, since the Bible says the family was in a house at the time and Jesus was older. 


Birth is a new beginning.  That might be the point of being "born again," that we begin anew.  We are to believe, as the angels proclaimed, that something momentous was taken place, not just any birth but the birth that would start a new paradigm, a new kingdom, a new way of thinking.  Not that the past was unimportant or of no value, but that now it was to be interpreted and understood in a new way.