Christmas Lights, Advent, And A Car Full Of Boys


I never heard of Advent until I was already a pastor. It's not always a part of Protestant church celebrations, but particularly in the northeast it's one of those church traditions that has begun to grow across denominational lines. Advent by definition is the arrival of a notable person, thing, or event. The four Sundays that lead up to Christmas are weeks of anticipation of the celebration of the birth of Christ for the church. We're approaching the third Sunday of Advent on a traditional church calendar, and this is 
definitely a season of anticipation.

Last night I loaded my 3 nephews and grandson into my vehicle and we went driving around looking at Christmas lights. My role on a night like this is multi-faceted.
1. Drive said vehicle to locate festive light displays.
2. Conduct random seat belt confirmation checks. (This is important because, in spite of years of research by top automotive industry engineers, seat belts mysteriously loosen themselves in vehicles filled with young boys.)
3. Moderate all underwear and flatulance humor to insure it doesn't get out of hand.

Back to Advent.

As we would see homes down side streets with lights the boys would call them out. "Have we been down this street yet?" and "Let's try that road," are spoken in anticipation of what we might discover. Anticipation is a big part of the night, and this season.

There's more to our anticipation than lights, packages and bows though. Paul wrote to the church in Philippi that, "we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior." Philippians 3:20

I have heard it said that the hymn of the church, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," is a beautiful representation of the church's cry in this season.

"O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appears.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel."

The Hebrew people would have sung such a song in expectation of the birth of Christ. For the church today we sing it in anticipation of His return. My prayer is that the expectation in these weeks for each of us will surround a desire to be with Christ, our Emmanuel. We may not even remember what we received for Christmas last year, but how can we ever forget that Christ has come into our lives?

Following the Son,

James A Williams

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Get The Rebound

Image
If you've ever played or watched basketball you know that rebounding is a huge part of the game. If you're unfamiliar with the sport rebounding is quite simply getting the ball when a shot is missed. You can't score without the ball which makes the play of great importance. It's not unusual for a team with a higher shooting percentage to lose a basketball game because they were out rebounded. On the court what you do when you miss can be even more important than making shots. It's true in life as well. Everyone misses shots, but that doesn't mean you've lost the game. Get the rebound. "For though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again." Proverbs 24:16. People won't always give you the chance to rise again. For some your shortcoming is how they'll label you forever. Get the rebound anyway.  It was the historian Froude who wrote, "The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a singular a...
Read more

What’s In Your Cart?

Image
On this day in 1939, Sylvan Goldman who owned the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain got an idea. He was trying to think of a way for his customers to transport more groceries around his stores. He attached 4 wheels to the legs of a wooden folding chair, and then attached a basket to the seat. The shopping cart was born.  Before this shopping trips to the Humpty Dumpty or the Piggly Wiggly would be limited to what you could carry in your arms. I wonder if Sylvan’s original patent stated that one of the wheels was to either not spin or rapidly shake back and forth? It’s possible that this is some modern improvement on his original design. However it happened the carts keep getting bigger. When I bring my groceries to the check out counter I sometimes use the self check out. I don’t like the self checkout because the computer keeps telling me I put things in the bagging area when I didn’t. When I get a real person they will often ask this profound question. “Did you find ev...
Read more

Mercy

Image
We visited our nephew and his family last weekend. They have three boys, and witnessing their interactions brought back memories of both fun and difficult days of raising our boys. Sometimes when my boys were young I felt like all I did was discipline them. It seemed at times like we couldn't make it through a meal, homework, or even play time, without a fight breaking out, some inappropriate comment, backtalk, or a hundred other random things they could find to do to push their Mother and I over the line. I remember calmly saying things like, "I need for you to understand that I can feel anger welling up within me."  Sometimes this would result in corrected behavior, other times they would look at me as though I were speaking Chinese (I know this isn't actually a language, please don't write me a letter). I realize spanking children is controversial, so I tried not to spank my sons over 3 or 4 times a day (That's called hyperbole). On one occ...
Read more