It’s easy for us to ignore this rather unimpressive side passage around the stable. It just looks like a dumping ground for odds and ends, and it’s so muddy that there are even ducks swimming in the puddles. But Brueghel doesn’t put details like this in for no reason; the painting is on such a small scale that he wouldn’t have bothered if they had no meaning. His father, Pieter the Elder had painted a picture illustrating thirty Netherlandish proverbs, full of symbolism, which he clearly expected people to understand, and incorporating symbolism in painting was common. So what do we see here? Broken wheels, which have come off a cart that isn’t going anywhere any more - that’s sometimes what life feels like too – and a muddy track which speaks of all that feels “bogged down” and stuck. There are tools in the picture as well, but they are just cast down as if they are no use. No good carpenter would have treated the precious tools of their trade like this.
But despite this neglect and ruin, people are finding their
way to Jesus. The message might be that when the road seems impossible, Jesus,
who is the Way, can lead us in a new path.
For Reflection
This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” ’ Matthew 3.3:
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