The Season of Advent

In our home, growing up, Advent was mentioned with a sense of joyful anticipation of counting down the weeks before Christmas. The four Sundays before Christmas involved a candle being lit during the church service as a symbol of this waiting period.

The celebration of Advent is two fold in that we remember when the world was about to receive the Son of God as a baby just as today we await His return as Lord of Lords. The comparisons may be quite similar, as we realize that now, just as then, everything continues to go on as though nothing is happening. Not everyone is waiting. But for those who would behold, life is and never will be the same.

I was driving past a church when I caught the words on their reader board, "God is still waiting for an in." In a way that truth made me think  along the lines of something else I'd been reading, a reminder that when the inn had no room for Jesus, a humble stable became his home.

Last Christmas a friend gave me a little book on Advent readings put together by a number of Christian writers. In the first pages, J.B. Philips points out how few were aware of this miraculous birth into an apparently invincible Empire, one that ended up utterly collapsing into ruins.Yet, the baby born in obscurity and crucified on a cross has won the allegiance of millions all over the world.

His chapter concludes with the words, "God has been here once historically but . . . he will come again with the same silence and the same devastating humility into any human heart ready to receive him.

This to me is Advent. Preparing my heart. Thankful that He is willing to make His home in a not so perfect place today just as on that night long ago. . . bringing hope and life anew.