2nd Candle and 2nd Week / Dec. 7 ~ Peace
As the first week is Hope, the second week is preparing the
way for Christ. That knowledge—of what
Christ has done, is doing, and will do—gives
us PEACE, for we know that He directs our lives.
Many people become caught up in the questions: Who and What?
Why and How? Christ is a mystery that we can’t answer. Should we try to
understand Him? Yes, but the factual details only reveal bits and pieces. We
have historical evidence of His life. Yet we also have Truth, and Truth is
eternal. Christ is Truth, at one with God the Father, the great Atoner.
Everything He does and says reveals to us the Kingdom of Heaven. When we
believe on Him, we have our entry to Heaven.
This is the heavenly Peace, when everyone is dealt with
equally, when the innocent are protected and the violent are judged.
The second reading for this Sunday of Peace comes from the
New Testament: Matthew 3: 1 to 12 ~ John the Baptist is the one voice crying in
the Wilderness, saying “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
And our mystery is solved, for while we may not understand
the vastness of God and the greatest of miraculous events, we have our purpose:
to cry out to others to accept Christ, fight against the temptation of sin, and
represent Christ in this world through the choices in our lives.
“Come, O
long-expected Jesus,
Born to set your
people free;
From our fears
and sins release us
By your death on
Calvary.”
The Chrismons for this week all contain symbolic imagery, a
picture or icon. Each presents an essay of meaning through the image.
First is the lighted candle, as God the Father sparked off
the creation of heaven and earth. From the very beginning He set in motion His
plan to give us that light to give us Hope when the darkness of sin surrounds
us. Christ is also our Candle of Light. In John 8:12 Christ declared “I am the
light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness but have the
light of life.”
More light imagery occurs with the Chrismon of the Burning
Bush. Moses, wandering after his self-exile from Egypt, is tending sheep
on Mount Horeb (this is in Exodus 3). An angel of the Lord appears to him “in
flames of fire from within a bush”. When Moses investigates, God speaks to him:
“I am the God of your Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob.” God has heard his people “crying out because of their slave
drivers,” and He will rescue them and restore them to a place flowing with milk
and honey—and Moses will be the means.
Moses is the redeemer of the early Old Testament. Christ is
the redeemer of all.
The Burning Bush Chrismon and the second verse in “O Come, O
Come, Emmanuel” commemorate Moses as a harbinger of Christ the Redeemer who
saves us from the slave drivers of sins.
“O come,
O come, Thou Lord of might
Who to
Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height
In
ancient times didst give the law
In cloud
and majesty and awe.
Rejoice!
Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall
come to thee, O Israel.”
3rd and 4th Chrismons are the manger
and a lyre, both representing Christ’s birth. Upon His birth, Mother Mary
swaddled him and laid him in a mangerr while a choir of angels, represented by
the lyre, announced his birth to shepherds.
Chrismon 5 is the entwined Alpha and Omega symbols, the
first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Twice in the book of Revelation
Christ declares, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is and who was and who is
come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8) Again, Revelation 22:13, “I am the Alpha
and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
The writer of Hebrews in 12:2 states that “Jesus [is] the
founder and perfecter (finisher) of our faith”.
I will drop a link in the expanded Show Notes, which you can
find through the website link.
Here it is a wonderful and clear explanation. https://www.gotquestions.org/alpha-and-omega.html.
The Crossed Keys is the 6th Chrismon for this
week, for Christ holds the keys of Heaven and Hell.
Christ now holds all the keys to
heaven and hell. Here is the metaphorical key to heaven, in John 14:6, “I am
the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes to the Father but by me.” In
Matthew 16:19 Christ says to his apostles (although some say he spoke to Simon
Peter alone). “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of
heaven, and whatever you bind on Earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever
you loose on Earth shall be loosed in heaven”. As for the key to Hell, in
Revelation 1:18 Christ declares, “I am the Living One; and now look, I am alive
for ever and ever. And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
In the Talmud and the Targum, we have four
keys, held only by the Eternal King, who gives them to no ministering angel.
Our final image this week, an icon with
symbolic meaning, is the Lamb holding a flag. Seventh, Perfect.
Christ often associated Himself with a lamb. Sometimes He
was the good shepherd, who would leave the ninety and nine to find the one lamb
lost in the Wilderness.
Often, though, we think first of Christ as the perfect white
lamb of God, innocent of any sin, destined to be the sacrifice on the altar to
purify our sins. The white lamb often supports a flag. The flag may have a
crown of thorns, for the crucifixion. The flag itself represents Christ's
victorious battle over death.
The Writing
Connection of More
Last week we looked at Themes, as each week of Advent has a
theme or controlling subject, all connected to the full work and covering each
stage. For writers, a single theme may serve for an entire work or for several
themes within a work for subplots or character development from encounter to
revelation & epiphany.
This time let’s look at motifs, metaphorical imagery that
return several times during the course of a story. Chrismons are metaphorical
imagery, images that carry meanings. Motifs occur several times for stories as
long as novellas and longer, at 30,000 words and more. For shorter than
novellas, think of repeating the motifs about one per 4,000 to 5,000 words.
More than that becomes too repetitive and obvious.
The obvious working of imagery is something writers should
avoid. The audience might spot an occurrence—but usually not the first or
second one. Hopefully, the reader’s subconscious mind spotted the early uses,
and when the third or fourth repetition occurs, they see it, accept it as a
working image, and move on without dwelling on it. We writers should not dwell
on any image when we use it, just drop it in then move on.
We use motifs to carry additional meaning. They are
short-hand for writers, a paragraph in a single image, much as allusions are
short-hand.
The image as motif can represent an idea or emotion
associated with place or with a recurring event (such as a character entering a
courthouse or the drive that approaches a remote farm) or with a recurring
character, especially a main or secondary character.
That image can be anything: broken glass, tangled vines,
someone singing or humming or a song on the radio.
Toni Cade Bambera in “Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird” uses broken
glass to represent false images or perceptions that must be broken. She opens
the story with little girls breaking a frozen puddle, the first stilled image,
and ends with a videocamera broken open to expose and ruin the film.
In my novel The Key for Spies, I used a black crow to
represent the chief antagonist. The crow sits on his windowsill then is seen
flying overhead, noted details that do not seem special. The fifth occurrence
has that character fling an ink well at a wall, and the ink creates the pattern
of widespread black wings. By then, we associate that character with evil, a
feeder on death.
Consider a setting or repeated event or a character and match
to a symbolic image. In this easy way you add richness and depth to your
writing.
Keep a light touch rather than a heavy one.
We have an additional approach to symbolic imagery, again
arising from our look at the Chrismons of the Advent season.
Until next week, Write On.
TIMINGS
00:00 Welcome
00:40 Content
02:36 Chrismons
07:23 Writing Connection
10:58 Closing
Total Run Time = 11:56
LINKS
Video https://youtu.be/4XX1ZgREz8A
Audio https://eden5695.podbean.com/e/more-on-advent-week-2-with-writing-connection/?token=ad3d2b9d314fc0c3de18d0e47397b1e6
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