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doodling at Jesus birth OR Trinity, annunication, communion and eschatology

How would you express the annunciation of Jesus as a visual image?

Many of us like to doodle on paper as we listen. So how would you doodle the angel appearing to Mary and announcing the impregnation? Here is a marginal manuscript, a sort of doodle from the 9th century, from the Byzantine Khludov. It comes from After the After the Spirit. A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West (a fascinating book by Eugene Rogers) and I used it on Sunday.

I then noted the Christian belief that the economic Trinity = immanent Trinity; that what God does = who God is. That God in Jesus acts the same before he was born as during his life, and as he will come again.

That God starts (God has a surprise for you. Luke 1:30); that Spirit works (the Holy Spirit will come upon you. Luke 1:35); that creation matters (You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. Luke 1:31).

It led me to offer the following table; integrating the Trinity with Jesus birth, Jesus return and communion.

We concluded around the communion table. Often at communion we just look back, memory of a night 2000 years ago. Yet in communion we are entering into Jesus, the economic Trinity = immanent Trinity, that Jesus acts in the Bible is the same as who God is before the Bible.

Christmas can be a very busy time. We have presents to buy, food to prepare, a long list of social functions and breakups. And it’s easy to get tired. When I do, when I get tired in December, I return to this doodle. The reminder that it is not my energy, for God starts, for the Spirit is working and that as creation matters and God wants to touch our human bodies with God power.

As we come to communion: you might like to think about: What is God starting in you? Where is the Spirit working?