wonderfully restored

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I grew up South of London and every day my father drove to work past Hampton Court Palace - a historic home built by Henry VIII. It was one of those places which was always there and which we could always visit - and then, in the mid eighties, there was a fire which ripped through the place - restoration was slow and careful. I read recently about another project there - a virtual restoration of a tapestry - somehow they had figured out how to project light onto it and make it look as vivid as it might have done when it was first woven all those years ago.

The restoration which we find in Christ is both universal - for all humanity - and at a more personal level - but it is not a trick of the light which simply hits the outside of us - it is something which transforms us. In the meta and universal sense it transforms our ability to relate to God, to the the children of God, to be the Holy promised people of God, the new Israel. This restoration in Christ gives us a pathway and hope.

And in this hope, in this pathway to God, on this journey we find ourselves transformed from the inside out so that we shine, not just as we were made in the first place, but brighter and brighter and this is who we are meant to be - people restored to relationship and growing in that relationship.

This is a great collect for penance after confession - God who created, who holds and calls us to repentance also restores and restores us as people of dignity, allows us to hold our heads up high, in this last day before Epiphany we can rejoice in this wonderful gift of restoration, and our constant journey towards and in divine life.