What better way to begin this sacred season of Advent except with the beginning.  A cow.  It is the first of our Nativity characters to be seen because the cow’s has always been here.  This is her home.  This is the place where births take place and newborns are fed with life’s sustaining liquid: milk.

It is the “milk of human kindness,” Shakespeare tells us about mercy and compassion that Advent is.

“Don’t cry over spilled milk,” is honoring the mistakes we’ve made and will continue to make but we learn and move forward.  That’s Advent.

“Milk it for all it is worth,” is the perpetual capacity for the fullness of life that is with us, no matter our age, until our last breath.  That’s Advent.

“Land of milk and honey,” is always our promise for the land in which we live, even when it does not happen or remain – it is our hope and God’s promise.  That’s Advent.

Woody Allen’s said, “I’m thankful for laughter except when milk comes out of my nose.”  Rejoice, rejoice and then rejoice once again.  That’s Advent.

Each Nativity character plays a role in the Christian beginning of our salvation history.  We cannot have life without birth and there is no life after birth except the nourishment coming from the most ordinary of animals, producing the most extraordinary creation of God: us.  That’s Advent.

Welcome Advent’s first of several characters – eating food from Mother Earth, providing meat for hungry travelers, and with “udder” (couldn’t resist) rejoicing milk from mother’s breast.