Once again we have reached the season of advent – the season when we look forward to Christmas – it is the season when some of the old jokes come out such as ‘Why did the little girl change her mind about buying her grandmother some handkerchiefs for Christmas ? Because she couldn’t out what size her nose was !’ or ‘why was Santa’s little helper depressed ? Because he had low elf esteem !’ or just one more ‘Who can you find hiding in a bakery at Christmas ? A mince Spy !’
Anyway that exhausts my supply of awful Christmas jokes so we will just have to be serious right up to Christmas.
Advent is a funny time of year though – it is a time in the Church Calendar just as solemn as Lent, although it is rarely regarded as such but, like Lent, it is a time to examine ourselves and our faith. Last week and the week before I went on two separate courses – one was on leadership and one was on Leading the Church into growth, and they were very different.
One was very much theory based whilst the other was very much more practical – and we must remember that doing things all of the time without any stop for reflection is rarely a good thing, but neither of course is talking or thinking about something all of the time.
And in advent we should both do and reflect. The doing will inevitably involve a great deal of frantic present buying and Christmas meals and parties and all kinds of things like that but, if we’re really wise, we will also take the time and the opportunity to focus on Jesus and what he really means to us.
In this morning’s psalm (25:1-4) were the words, ‘To you O Lord I lift up my soul; my God in you I trust’. How true are those words ? When Jesus came to this earth as a little child he came to bring the love of God in a real and obvious way. He came as a human, someone we could understand, someone who suffered, someone who laughed, someone who mourned… and so we must ask ourselves if this is the person in whom we are placing our trust, or whether we are just attaching ourselves to a building or an institution or a tradition.
Later in that psalm it said, ‘lead me forth in your truth and teach me : for you are the God of my salvation; in you has been my hope all the day long’. Those words ‘Lead me forth’ remind us that we are on a journey, and sometimes we will suffer setbacks on that journey but we must continue trying to go forward with Jesus as our hope.
One of the things that I did learn on the course and that you may well all appreciate is that sometimes preachers try to say too much, so this morning I’m just going to leave you with 3 very simple advent thoughts :-
C S Lewis wrote "Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth thrown in. Aim at Earth and you get neither." At this time of year, perhaps more than any other, it is easy to lose perspective and get bogged down with preparations for a material Christmas – but if we lose sight of God when we are doing that then we will lose everything.
Secondly let’s work to keep Christ in Christmas – so often the word Christ in Christmas is replaced by an X – that is an ancient symbol for Christ, but I suspect for many it is more of a short cut saying Christ doesn’t matter at Christmas time or any other time. As Christians let’s remind people of what this season is all about.
And finally the writer James Kay wrote, "...the message of Advent is that we can never take our own plans more seriously than God's promises. When we least expect it and when there is no evidence for it, God's power comes into this godless world in ways the world itself could never predict or foresee."
That is Christmas – God coming into the world unexpectedly with saving power and awesome majesty offering the simple message, ‘I love you – come to me’. AMEN
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