This Sunday is Advent Sunday when we begin the period of waiting and preparing for Christmas. Do the Christmas decorations up in town from mid-November, or the Christmas songs on the radio make you happy and excited, or do they make you feel deeply irritated?
Although it can be frustrating how commercialised the season has become, I try to remember that underneath all the consumerism is the human desire for connection and for community – this is what big businesses are cashing in on, the instinct we all have to come together, to eat and share gifts with the people we love, to be connected to other humans. This is the longing in every human heart. This is why we count down the days of Advent until Christmas.
The word Advent comes from the Latin adventus meaning arrival or “coming.” But what do we mean by that? If God has already come to us in the person of Jesus over 2000 years ago, what are we waiting for? It’s an interesting question!
Of course, part of the Christian tradition is about remembering and re-living these special moments in Christian history. But there is also a real sense in which we’re forever welcoming Jesus, that Christ who never dies is being born again in the human soul and into history every single year. And each year we have a fresh opportunity to encounter him again and understand more deeply the miracle of the Incarnation, that God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son to save us.
In that sense, it’s almost as if we are not the ones waiting at all – it’s actually God who is waiting! He is waiting for us to open our eyes to this message, to open our hearts to all that he has for us. As theologian Ilia Delio says, “we’re the ones asleep in the manger, not Jesus! Jesus is alive in our midst but we’re so fallen asleep… God is looking for us to get up and help bring his gifts into the world.”
So let’s remember this Advent, that we are not just waiting for Father Christmas, or our turkey lunch, or the gifts under the tree, or even to hear the story of Jesus born in a stable, we are waiting and preparing ourselves to get up and get stuck in with the work of God, to know his love in our own hearts and to share it generously with the world around us.
With love and blessings in Christ
Jemima