A Wonderful Counsellor

 

 

 

Joan Osbourne asks in her 1995 song ‘One of Us’, ‘If God had a name what would it be’?  Well God does have a name!  Bursting out of Isaiah 9 are four of the most incredible names, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace.  My hope is before Christmas to write a blog on each of these amazing names and ask what they might mean for us today. 

I have never been to see a counsellor.  Though my life looks like someone who seeks council.  I have just filled in my mileage and expenses claims and right there in the lowest points of the year is the pattern of someone who needed council.  A trip to my old college tutor, then to my spiritual director, then to my mentor, then to the regional minister, then to my best buddy, books read with helpful titles, podcasts downloaded… seeking council, seeking advice… seeking light into darkness.  I know I am not alone!  Because so much of my role can be giving council.  Statistics show that the amount of counsellors have tripled over the last ten years.  People like me seeking hope, clarity of thought and light into darkness. 

But we also have a wonderful counsellor.  One that came to the feeding trough all those years ago and comes to us today.  And our advent challenge is, do our lives look like those that have a wonderful counsellor?  Do they look like His voice is the most important voice we listen too?  Do our lives look like we have someone who wants to listen and guide us to light?  Because as good as all the earthly advice is, however prayerful and however Godly those giving council are, we have a wonderful councillor who is there to listen, there to guide, there to bring light into darkness and bring life in all its fullness.  We have a wonderful counsellor!

In his book, the vision and the vow, Peter Greig tells the story of how Robert Cumming the art critic studied an amazing painting by Filipino Lippi.  He stood in London’s national gallery gazing up at the painting (see above this blog) of Mary holding baby Jesus with saints Jerome and Dominic kneeling nearby.  But just as it had troubled many art critics before, Cumming could see fault in the painting.  It wasn’t the skill of Lippi, or colour used or composition but the perspective seemed slightly wrong.  The hills in the background seemed exaggerated, as if they might topple out of the frame.  The two kneeling saints looked awkward and uncomfortable.  Cumming was not the first to notice these things but he was probably the last because at that point he had a revelation.  He suddenly realised that the fault might be his and the art critics who had judged the work of art before him.  The painting he was analysing was not just another piece of religious art hanging in a gallery alongside other such pieces.  The work was never meant to come near a museum.  Lippi’s painting had been commissioned to hang in a place of prayer.  Cumming made the decision to fall to his knees.  And as he did he suddenly saw what generations of art critics had missed.  From his new vantage point he found himself gazing up at a perfectly proportioned piece of art. The foreground had moved naturally to the background, while the saints seemed settled – their awkwardness, like the painting itself, having turned to grace.  Mary now looked intently and kindly directly at him as he knelt at her feet between saint’s Dominic and Jerome.  It was not the perspective of the painting that had been wrong but the people looking at it.  Robert Cumming on bended knee in a position of worship had found a beauty that Robert Cumming the proud art critic could not.  The painting only came alive to those on their knees in prayer.

It is when we are in prayer to our wonderful counsellor that we find a new perspective in life.  It is there Isaiah tells us that defeat can be turned to victory; sorrow can be turned to joy and light can come into darkness.  So may are lives reflect that we have a wonderful counsellor.  May his voice be the one we are most desperate to hear. 

One last story!  One of my favourite things this time of year is going carol singing.  It is pitch black, we are wrapped up warm with scarves, gloves and hats and we walk the streets giving out gifts and Christmas cheer.  When we knock on a door and it opens the light from the hall way comes bursting out and covers the darkness around us as we sing.  Jesus, our wonderful counsellor, does the same in our lives.  He burst in and he dispels the darkness.  If this advent we seek Jesus, He will come, and those impossible situations, those painful experiences and those deep dark places He can cover in his glorious light.  May you know the wonderful Counsellor this Christmas.  May our lives look like Jesus' presence and voice is the most important thing we seek and listen too.  May we all know the wondrous light this Christmas.  In His name, Amen.