Daily Advent Reflection: December 8
Second Tuesday of Advent
Psalms 26, 28 · 36, 39
Isa. 5:13-17, 24-25
1 Thess. 5:12-28
Luke 21:29-38
Growing up, my family didn’t observe Advent, even though we were Roman Catholic and went to church every Sunday and on the major feast days. We did give up something for Lent, and didn’t eat meat during that time. For Christmas, we put up a nativity set, decorated the house, and went to Christmas services. My brother and I each got a calendar with 24 little slots with a chocolate behind each slot in celebration of the birth of Jesus, but I don’t recall any discussion of Advent during my childhood. As we stopped going to church regularly when I was 14, I was never exposed to Advent as a teenager or adult.
When I was 37, I was feeling lost and, at the suggestion of a friend, I read the Gospels. Much to my surprise, I felt at peace and not alone. I heard the voice of God and felt the Holy Spirit move within me. After visiting a few different churches on Sundays, I eventually joined the Episcopal Church. As December approached during the first year of my attending an Episcopal Church, I learned about the season of Advent. I learned how the weeks before Christmas are meant to be a season of preparation and reflection on the upcoming celebration of the birth of Jesus. This was totally new to me! I remembered the basics of the Nativity Story from my childhood and from the annual viewing of the Peanuts’ Christmas TV program, but I remembered nothing about Advent.
Even after I learned about Advent, I found it very hard to observe the season. I would get a new Advent book each year and start out reading it every day. But inevitably, I would get busy and skip a day, and then another, and I would just give up.
Between work, home, Christmas shopping, and holiday parties, Advent would fall by the wayside for another year. So Jesus’ teaching in the gospel for today speaks to me in a very direct way. Jesus says, “But be on your guard. Don’t let the sharp edge of your expectation get dulled by parties and drinking and shopping. Otherwise, that Day is going to take you by complete surprise, spring on you suddenly like a trap, for it’s going to come on everyone, everywhere, at once.
So, whatever you do, don’t go to sleep at the switch. Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that’s coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man.” (Luke 21:34-36, The Message translation).
While in this passage Jesus is teaching about the need to be prepared for when He will return, His words are very appropriate for the Advent Season and the anniversary of His birth. We are told to not be distracted by “parties and drinking and shopping,” or the Day will take us by surprise. In the past, I would be so busy with holiday parties, shopping, and the business of everyday life that I would lose sight of the entire point of celebrating Christmas. But now I try to observe Advent by reading an Advent devotional each day before the busy day starts, and by reading from the nativity stories in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Of course, there will be days when I fail to do so. In these cases, I remember Jesus’ words to “Pray constantly that you will have the strength and wits to make it through everything that’s coming and end up on your feet before the Son of Man”. Then I follow Jesus’ advice and pray, and start my Advent journey anew.
So we can still attend holiday parties (although this year they may be virtual ones) and shop for gifts, but we need to remember what we are celebrating when we do so. We are celebrating the birth of Jesus, God in human form. We are celebrating the fact that God loved us so much that, in spite of our sinful ways, God came to us in human form to redeem us.
I pray you have a blessed Advent season and that God will keep you safe.
The Rev. Bramwell Richards
Zion Episcopal Church, Oconomowoc