I have vivid childhood memories of the weeks leading up to Christmas. Memories of how my mom would wrap presents a few at a time and place them under the tree. I recall that as soon as I saw a neatly wrapped new item under the Christmas tree I wouldn’t be able to resist picking it up, shaking it, measuring it out in my mind and try to predict what might be in a box of that particular size and shape.
I wasn’t much of a package peeker but I did fancy myself as quite good gift guesser and present predictor. My mother, knowing my desire to decipher the clues would from time to time place a small present in a large box or a soft present in a hard box or a few marbles in with a quiet present so that it would rattle a bit when I gave it my predictive shake. I’m thankful she protected me from being able to figure everything out and that she reserved my right to be surprised every once in a while.
I grew up as a gift guesser and a present predictor which is indicative of a deeper character trait of mine, I happen to like knowing what’s coming down the pike. It’s not that I don’t like surprises, but the truth is I always feel a bit better when I know what to expect. I like to think it’s because I want to be prepared but I must admit that it is often because I like to be in control which as far as I can tell is more of an issue than a character trait
I think this is why I have always had a thing for Advent, the season of the church year that leads up to Christmas. As a kid, it seemed to me the rest of the church year was always a bit unpredictable. I never could figure out why particular sermons were preached at a particular time or in a particular order, but Advent made sense. For the four weeks leading up to Christmas we would prepare ourselves for the coming of the baby Jesus.
It was so nice and predictable, the move toward the manger and toward the little sweet baby Jesus. I would imagine the smell of hay in the stable, the sheep looking down on the manger and the cattle lowing, a sound I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard. Life was predictable around the manger. The inn keeper, the stable, the arrival of the baby, the coming of the shepherds and the wise man bringing up the rear with their armfuls of gifts.
Imagine my surprise when as I began to unwrap the true meaning of Advent, I found that what I had thought was in the package was entirely different from what I had grown up guessing. In a rush to get to the manger and to the sweet baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes I had somehow missed or perhaps my church hadn’t made clear that Advent was not just about the predictable coming of the baby Jesus but also about the unpredictable return of that baby Jesus all grown up.
The season of Advent was not just about the yearly celebration of the arrival a little baby but also about the once and for all return of a triumphant and powerful King. The season doesn’t begin with scripture passages about cattle lowing and babies cooing but instead inside the package of Advent we find passages about people who are swept away by a flood, people who go missing and a thief that comes in the night (Matthew 24:36-44). Imagine my surprise when I found that this this soft little package I had been given actually contained something quite hard.
Advent was never meant to be fluffy and sentimental or nice and predictable. Advent was never meant to be reduced to just a countdown to a savior in a manger but was meant to be a much more rich time of anticipation and preparation for the coming of a Lord and King who will, in the words of the creeds, “come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.” Advent is about living our lives in anticipation of the return of a King who has something to say about how we’ve lived them. But that escaped me as a kid. Perhaps it was all the candy in the Advent calendars that deceived me like marbles in a quite package. To this day I have still yet to see a little piece of advent chocolate shaped like a thief in the night.
Advent celebrates the coming of the eternal Christ for the first time, when God put on the flesh of an infant and was born of a virgin named Mary and placed in a manger. But the season of Advent is not just celebratory, it’s preparatory. It is a time when those who believe in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ prepare and make ready for the second coming, the day when Jesus will show up again on this earth not as a wriggling, controllable infant but as an uncontrollable, all powerful King.
