Hope and Preparation

December 3, 2023 reflection for the first Sunday of Advent, by Pastor Galen

The season of Advent is a season of preparation. During Advent, many of us decorate our homes, and we decorate our sanctuary in preparation for the celebration of Christ’s birth at Christmas. And, we prepare our hearts in hopeful expectation to welcome Jesus when he returns to bring everlasting peace, joy, and love.

When I think about a season of preparation such as Advent, I’m reminded of when Eboni and I were expecting our first child. That was a season of great preparation for us. We spent time babyproofing our house, and we turned what used to be our home office into a nursery. We went to the paint store to pick out colors for the nursery, and we assembled a crib and other furniture. We even started putting aside a little bit of money every week for a college savings fund for our child even before she was born! 

At the same time, we also spent time preparing ourselves to become parents. Eboni read books about childbirth and parenting. We spent hours talking about how becoming parents would change our lives, and we dreamt together about what type of life we wanted to create for our children. We needed to prepare our house, but we also needed to prepare ourselves to welcome our child.

Similarly, during Advent, we prepare not just our homes and sanctuary for Christmas, but we also prepare ourselves to welcome Christ into our midst.

Advent

During the Middle Ages, the season of Advent typically involved fasting. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, people would give up sweets and other delicacies so that when Christmas came they might experience the joy of Christmas that much more. It was “fasting before feasting” if you will. And by the way, the Christmas feast didn’t just last one day, but rather it started on December 25th, and lasted for 12 whole days of celebration! (This is where we get the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas.)

It strikes me that today we often do the opposite. In our culture, we have all sorts of holiday parties and celebrations in the weeks leading up to Christmas Day. So much so that by the time December 25th actually rolls around, we’re often tired of hearing Christmas songs, and we barely even want to look at another Christmas cookie!

But I wonder, what if we prepared ourselves differently for Christmas this year? Amid the hustle and bustle of Christmas parties, shopping, and decorating, what if we paused to remember why we do this every year? Why do we gather to celebrate? What is the point of decorations? What if we sought to rediscover how our traditions got started in the first place, and how they were intended to point us towards Christ?

For example, the needles of pine and fir trees appear not to die each season, so ancient peoples saw them as signs of things that last forever. Cedar trees were revered as the trees of royalty and signified immortality, and they were used for purification. Evergreen trees remind us that there will be no end to the reign of the Messiah. Wreaths, which have no beginning and no end, also remind us of the eternal reign of Christ. In ancient times, holly and ivy were considered signs of Christ’s passion. Their prickly leaves remind us of the crown of thorns that Christ wore, and the red berries remind us of the blood that Jesus shed for us. 

Many of our Christmas decorations and traditions point to these and other aspects of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, and we would do well to reflect on their meaning and significance.

The Reason for the Season

Recently, one of our church members pointed out to me that there are 24 chapters in the Gospel of Luke—one for each day of Advent. What if we committed to reading a chapter of the Gospel of Luke each day between now and the end of the year? If you’re not a reader, you could listen to it read for you on a Bible App, or look up the Lumo videos on YouTube. Either way, if we read or listen to one chapter of Luke a day, during December we will have read an entire account of Jesus’s life, and we will wake up on Christmas morning knowing who and why we celebrate!

Our Advent Bible Study is another way we prepare our hearts for the celebration of Christ’s birth. This year during Advent we’re looking at Christmas through the eyes of Joseph, using the series Faithful, by Adam Hamilton. The chapter for this week looks at the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter 1, and how there are all sorts of colorful characters in Jesus’ family tree. We see that God can work in and through anyone to bring about God’s plan. The chapter also explores the way Joseph extended grace, even when he thought Mary had been unfaithful to him. Rather than publicly humiliating her, he planned to put her away quietly—until an angel appeared to him and told him that Jesus had been conceived by the Holy Spirit, and that he should take Mary to be his wife and raise Jesus as his own child, which he did. In all of this, we see Joseph exude grace and forgiveness—and he is someone that we would all do well to emulate. 

The point in all of this is that the season of Advent is not just about decorating our houses for Christmas or having parties and gatherings, but it’s about preparing ourselves to welcome Christ into our midst.

And so this Advent, may we prepare not just our houses and our sanctuary for Christmas, but even more may we prepare ourselves for Christ’s return. May we, like Joseph, extend God’s mercy to others, and may we look forward in hope and expectation to the day when Jesus returns to bring everlasting peace, joy, and love. 

Amen!