As I write this Christmas is upon us, or so the world will tell us. Netflix, Hulu and Peacock are playing Christmas movies. The radio is playing Christmas songs. The stores are decorated. People are putting up their Christmas trees and all the trimmings. It seems to get earlier and earlier each year, and I don’t like it.
Now I know I might sound like Scrooge, shouting bah humbug at the world. But I have good reason to not like it. It seems to me that we as a part of our need for instant gratification, feel the need to have more and sooner as we celebrate Christmas. What I think we need instead is a time of patient reflection, as we prepare for the second coming of Jesus by preparing to celebrate Jesus first coming in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. And it just so happens that the church has just the season for us to take part in, Advent.
Advent is a season of reflection and preparation. We reflect on the coming of Christ as we wait for Him to return and bring about Judgment Day. Advent is a time when we express the yearning for fulfillment, for the fulfillment of Christ’s promise to come again. We long to be home with Jesus in Heaven, and in Advent we are prepared for that eventuality as we hear of the coming end of days, and as we hear John the Baptist prepare the way for the coming king who saves us from our sins. And as we prepare in this way we are made ready then to celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. As we contemplate all this in the season of Advent with patience and contemplation, our hearts and minds are then made ready to celebrate the coming of the savior of the world. And that celebration comes in the 12 days of Christmas.
Sure we can skip right over everything after Halloween and just turn it all into the “Christmas season,” but there is much more to think about and ponder this time of year. We do well to spend time giving thanks as we did during Thanksgiving. And then we do well to spend some time thinking about the end and what it means that our salvation is assured, and how and by whom it is assured. And in doing so we are then prepared well for Christmas.
Embrace Advent and the preparation. Take some time to think through what will be at the end of time. And as you do, may the Lord bless you in preparation for a life of faith now and always.
— The Rev. David Markworth is pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church, rural Hutchinson.
