Walking down into Cambridge I noticed this old fashioned bell pull and, after a few more steps, I stopped, turned around, pulled my camera out of its bag and went back to photograph it. The meaning was already in my mind and I simply could not let the opportunity pass. Naturally enough I wanted to go on and pull the handle to see if there really was a bell that would ring in the hallway, but that was an intrusive step too far.

Which brings me to this Advent text:

And you will say in that day: Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known his deeds among the nations; proclaim that his name is exalted.

Isaiah 12:4

Call on his name. Advent isn’t supposed to be passive, it isn’t a spectator sport, nor is it a background in front of which we take an Instagrammable selfie to show that we have been there. Advent is an invitation to step inside and personally participate in God’s reality. Its meaning can only be truly discovered if we reach out, take hold of the handle in our own hand and pull it. How else are we to know what lies inside? Standing on the doorstep in the freezing cold of winter staring at a locked door is pointless. So near and yet so far. It’s one thing to be told that inside there is warmth, welcome and hospitality awaiting us, it is quite another to enter in and really experience it fully for ourselves. Being told that is is warm in there is not the same thing as being inside and feeling the lovely warmth on our skin. I know which I prefer.

Yet if we pluck up the courage to pull the handle as instructed, what can we expect to happen? If we call on God’s name, will we be left out in the cold? Reaching out to God and knowing that the one behind the ancient promises is real and relatable in Jesus is the first step of a profoundly relational faith. Such experiential knowing becomes the truth upon which we rely. Having become aware perhaps that God is reaching out to us - the invitation to pull the handle - we respond, and the testimony of the church down the ages is that we do indeed metaphorically hear a bell ring, and then the sound of love coming down the hallway to unlock the door and, with great rejoicing, welcome us home, where we belong.

Stepping over the threshold in this way is meant to be done with the support and in the company of others who have experienced just this moment of connection and intimacy for themselves. Hopefully something in their experience will ring a bell in that of the person seeking God. It is this awareness, this recognition, which is key. It happens too when something in the ancient stories and promises rings true as we hear them. A word, a phrase or a picture instantly rings a bell in our mind and we recognise a divine spiritual connection between ourselves and God. We simply know.

We simply know that we are loved, that we are embraced and cherished by God, a truth foretold and reinforced time and again in the Jewish scriptures, and then wonderfully made apparent in the Christ-child of Bethlehem, and through the continuing God-gift of the Holy Spirit. What this relationship of faith coveys is eloquently described in this simple sentence from the New Testament:

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus

Philippians 4:7

There is indeed a deep peace in being known and loved by God, and simply trusting in God to hold one’s heart and mind with gentle grace, especially through the travails, agony and torments we endure. As David Jenkins once put it, “God is, he is as he is in Jesus, so there is hope”. Does that ring a bell?