It’s early December and the Christmas season is upon us. All the lights are up in our neighborhood and all the boxes are down in our home while we decorate inside. The stores are stuffed with merchandise. It certainly is beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
No other month dominates our calendar like December. There is the decorating and the shopping, the gatherings, and the parties. There are the cards, cookies and carols. No other holiday is celebrated quite like Christmas.
And amid the commercialism, with all the festivities and the shopping, the Christmas season is also known as the season of Advent. The word Advent comes from the Latin word adventus which means coming or arrival. And the coming or arrival to which Advent refers is the coming of Christ. This coming is three-fold; Jesus’ coming to earth as a babe at Bethlehem, his coming into our hearts as Savior, and his coming again to take his children home.
And here at year’s end, we have a month to celebrate this most commercial of holidays with all of its glitz and glamor, spending, and spoiling, juxtaposed against this most austere and holy time of waiting for the arrival of the Messiah; remembering, worshiping, and waiting. And though the contrast appears irreconcilable, we are immersed in both.
This shouldn’t take us by surprise as it is the tension of our everyday lives. Yet the tension seems magnified at Christmas. The big question of the season, which is really an important question for every season, is what do you treasure? Do you treasure the activities and the gifts, the giving and the getting, or does your treasure go deeper? The festivities and the gifts are a blessing and certainly provide joy. But that joy passes quickly. The deeper treasure is a treasure of the heart.
The heart is a well of deep waters, which can be stirred and tossed by the busyness at Christmas. This is why Advent is helpful. It calms our hearts and minds and stills our troubled waters as we remember the Christ who came in difficult and dark circumstances, much like ours. It calms our hearts and minds and stills our troubled waters as we worship and open our hearts to the Christ who was resurrected to save and to help and to pray for us. And it calms our hearts and minds and stills our troubled waters as we wait for his coming return.
I encourage you to open your heart this Christmas and allow Advent to calm your heart and mind and to still your troubled waters by remembering, by worshiping and by waiting.
Merry Christmas!