This has been the season of Advent, observed through the four
Sundays leading up to Christmas. Traditions mark it with acts of
penitence, the lighting of symbolic Advent candles and the reading
of scripture
– especially the Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus.
This has been the season of Advent, observed through the four Sundays leading up to Christmas. Traditions mark it with acts of penitence, the lighting of symbolic Advent candles and the reading of scripture – especially the Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus.
The word ‘advent’ means arrival; the arrival of the expected one. The Hebrew prophet Isaiah wrote of the promised one: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us … His name will be called wonderful counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6); “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:4). Jesus was expected, though not just because His coming was a promise foretold, but because the hearts of mankind expect and hope for such a One.
In his examination of literary figures, C.S. Lewis points out this yearning. In every culture there are stories of heroes who save others at great personal sacrifice. They do so to restore relationships, and to secure families and communities.
“I’ll be home for Christmas,” the holiday standard says, “…if only in my dreams.” We long for a place with significant relationships. The thought of someone being alone at Christmas pulls on our heartstrings. Recently someone said to me, “Religion acts as cultural glue; man believes in God because it comforts him.” This commonly held view is a reflection of the truth – like a reflection in a window where by turning round, the truer picture is seen. Mankind’s desire for relationship with man and God is by design, purposefully created to exist within our hearts.
We read about this in the scriptures – that God made us like Himself, to be a part of His ‘family’. Genesis 1:26, 27 records, “Then God said “Let Us make man in Our image,” (so) male and female He created them.” The first humans walked and talked with their Maker, until things went awry and they ended up on the run in a dangerous world come under the power of evil. There was though, a heroic plan already in place, whereby God would demonstrate family and community life through ancient Israel, and then come Himself to ransom back His family from the evil one. As the Christmas carol says, “Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day, to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray…”
What a scandal is the advent of God among us. It takes a belief in the epic to grasp it. It turns us around. As Bob Cratchit in Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol“ said, “(it causes) men and women … to open their shut-up hearts freely.”
Scrooge, in the same “Christmas Carol”, was the epitome of one who rejected relationship with God and man. But at the end of the story Scrooge, who was seen as one shut-up by evil, is released from his (impending) chains: “He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old city knew … Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset. His own heart laughed; and that was quite enough for him … and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us …”
May the reflections of the Advent cause us to turn and open our hearts freely to the expected One, the Savior, in our families and in our community. “God bless us, every one!”
