I spent most of my day off this week hunting for jam jars which had survived the earthquake. I had an ambitious plan to make my own batch of fruit chutney  and parcel it up as Christmas presents.

It was an interesting exercise which saw me foraging in the back of cupboards and uncovering things I thought I had lost during my house move – like volume 12 of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics, a bicycle pump, my ordination certificate, a bag of lollies shaped like false teeth and a lone red sock.

As I sat back on my heels, covered in a thin veneer of cupboard filth, triumphantly clutching my lone remaining jam jar, I thought how much the experience reminded me of Advent.

At this time of year, we remember God with skin on, who came to dwell with us in the midst of all our muddle and confusion and uncertainty.

Christianity is a faith about God made flesh, rooting him in all the mess and chaos of life. It’s not a hobby that we carry out placidly, accompanied by beautiful music, gliding along in an atmosphere of exquisite calm.

The Christian God isn’t a God whose name cannot be uttered, or is only to be found in the holy of holies. He is out in the world, too.

We don’t have to dust ourselves off and sort ourselves out, and wear the equivalent of our Sunday best before we can approach him. In every event, however random and confusing, from earthquakes to lost jam jars, God is there alongside us.

As the old prayer has it, “You are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name. Do not forsake us, O Lord our God.”