Bridges often make me consider how we are all connected, how we can’t help but be connected to each other, at least superficially.
Bridges remind me of our need to be connected as well though. We want to get from one place to another and a little bit of water surely won’t stop us.
I think that’s a lot like advent and more importantly, like God. As we move towards remembering the incarnation, a reminder of the fact that God too draws bridges to us, may we be filled with joy and peace.
God cannot bear to be separated from us. And so God makes a bridge and that bridge is Jesus. The little baby with one foot in humanity and the other in divinity, cradled in Mary’s arms and still cradling us to God.
It is the divine bridge. Do we dare cross to the other side? For to do so requires a small toll. You see God paid a hefty price to bridge us sinners back to him. That toll was also Jesus, who gives us life by losing His own. Might we be willing to lose our lives this advent on the bridge so that we might love those who too often dangle over the edges?
This Christmas, why don’t we give one another a bridge? An offering of ourselves that says “I am willing to stay connected with you.”. Offer it to friends, husbands to wives (again) and parents to children. The young can build bridges with mighty hands for the elderly who have grown weary and the poor can be supported by the rich.
This Christmas, let us be bridge-builders by lying in the manger and becoming the baby’s heart that longs to connect with all of humanity.
For we cannot help but be connected to each other. Amen.