It is Advent. We have a tree. There are lights on it. It shines in the corner of our living room, invading the darkness behind the two windows on either side. It makes our living room glow. We love this season. On the first Sunday of Advent, we get a tree and my job is to find every "Christmas Decorations" box that tries to stay out of the way 11 months of the year in our garage. Jen then delights to open them all and find the right combination of lights and ornaments and decorations to express our whims and fancies for the given year. This season we have included red balls to an otherwise silver and gold theme. I think it is perfect. It brings cheer to our guests, and Lord willing, to those who walk passed our unveiled windows. That is our hope, at least, that our house and our space would speak something of what sentimentalists call "The True Meaning of Christmas." We want to shy away from sentimentalism, but the sentimentalists' only problem is being an 'ist.' Sentiments are in themselves real and good. If we do not feel different during the Christmas Season, there is something wrong with us, as in malfunctioning organs. This is the season for celebrating the Incarnation of God. Those three words alone are enough to give one goosebumps. How does an infinite and eternal God become incarnate? How does that work? How can He who spoke galaxies into existence with no more than a mere breath, enter into the virginal womb of a teenage girl living in Nazareth on a certain day on the calendar roughly 2000 years ago? This God then is born, with flesh that can be broken, and blood that can be spilt. And then the entire sky full of stars, who, it turns out, have been angels this whole time, descends to sing about it to a flock of sheep and their shepherds. If that weren't enough, one of the angels sticks around for a couple years, and leads a group of magicians from the east to the very house where this God-Child was living. Not to mention all the dreams and annunciations and prophecies and blessings and foretellings and men going mute and babies jumping in wombs for joy...
How often, I wonder, do we read these chapters with glossy eyes, and miss the "Oh my Freaking Word!!" aspect of this story? Perhaps we have wanted to protect ourselves from the Precious Moments Christmas Specials, having grown sick of the Hallmark Cards we see everywhere. Perhaps, though, in reacting to this, as we should, we have swung the other way and divorced our true sentiments from the season. Perhaps not. Perhaps we can still wish someone Merry Christmas and have an echo of the angels song hanging in the air. Perhaps we can welcome family and friends into our homes, not only bearing gifts like the magicians, but desiring to worship the Christ-Child through the gifts as well. Perhaps we do decorate, hanging mistletoe where we are reminded to kiss the Son. I pray we can. I pray we do.
I pray we all celebrate this season like Christians, and that means with red-faced joy. May our songs be loud, may our greetings be warm, and may our eggnog be strong. Let us love our family, let us love our neighbor, and let us love our Lord. It is the season to feel things and to feel them deeply. Feel the joy of salvation, feel the peace of incarnate reconciliation, feel the hope of the Second Coming. Let your heart lift at the sound of a carol, and let your step keep time with the angels song.
Happy Christmas every one. God has blessed us all.
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