Seeznak

The Adoration of the Magi in the Snow - Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The magi are in the lower left corner, having trudged from who knows where to this reappropriated 16th-century Flemish village. What is powerful to me about this painting is the pointedly insignificant encounter, in a pointedly miserable place. The events in the Bible, I am reminded, were not always majestic and serene. Our Saviour’s entrance into the world was not the stuff of children’s Christmas plays or great art, in much the same way that Bruegel’s painting looks beautiful only when one is not focusing on the event that is its theme. The point is well made- we would not choose to focus on Jesus because of His physical significance; rather, we seek Him out amidst all that is much more enticing to our eyes and ears and minds, because we have come to know the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ. And it is this Saviour who, through His humiliation, gives us reason to celebrate all that is pretty.