Advent is time for reflection on what has happened in the previous year, a time for saying thank you and for saying sorry too, and a time for new resolutions, a time for hope. It is one of my most favorite seasons of the church year but it is a season which is easy to get overlooked in the normal course of the run up to Christmas. The shops are full of “happy Christmas” signs, I don’t think I have ever seen a “have a great Advent” sign.
The word “advent” comes from the Latin ad venire meaning 'to come' or 'to arrive'. It is a season of waiting and of anticipation and preparation. Anyone who has children, or who spends time around them, knows that the waiting for an exciting event can be as much fun as the event itself. I remember the days when our children woke up each morning and announced how many more sleeps there were until Christmas. Now that we are older how do we capture this feeling of great excitement in our spiritual lives, a feeling of excitement that has nothing to do with the family gatherings, the food, the gifts –the secular side of Christmas?
Each Advent we are called to really think about the time. We can get so wrapped up in our time starved world, jamming more and more activities into briefer packets of time--that we forget what time it really is. We are invited in to be very counter cultural in this season and to adjust our watches to God's clock. To slow down and live in God’s time, in kairos time, as we prepare our hearts for the coming of God incarnate.
The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It's dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver pale
The world seems travelling into space,
And travelling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound -
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out 'Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.'
This first stanza of Betjeman’s poem “Advent 1955” has the key to Advent – time rushing by and us being called to get ready for even as the world rushes on, Christ is rushing towards us. I don’t think Christ would be impressed if I were to greet him at Christmas in a spirit of total exhaustion, and my excuse is that at least I got all the cards written, the presents wrapped, and the baking done. That would not seem important when I look into his face.
Someone once asked Wayne Gretsky, how he managed to become the best goal-scorer in the history of the game. He simply replied, "While everyone else is chasing the puck, I go where the puck is going to be." This Advent season when everyone around us seems to be chasing the place Christmas will eventually be, don’t join the rush. You and I know where Christmas will happen, where Jesus will come. He will come into our hearts and into our lives. The message of Advent is get ready. Get ready for the coming of Christ, not just to celebrate his birth but to celebrate sharing in His time, rejoicing in the fact that he is coming and he is going to stay and we will never be apart from Him. This is our hope, This is our Christian faith.
This Advent just as many people do at the turn of the calendar year I invite you to make some New Year resolutions. Just what you decide to do is between you and God, you might like to try and increase your time in prayer each day, make peace with someone, join a Bible study – you know what will work best for you.
Let us prepare this Advent and allow ourselves to get excited, as we wait with anticipation for the coming to earth of God’s promise, all wrapped up in a tiny baby, Emmanuel.
Jane+ |
