After a mostly-sleepless night, I woke up this morning to the realization that the Advent season is here and I'm not ready for it.
Maybe that sounds pretty typical of a busy mom but it's not for me. After all, Advent is my favorite season of the church year. I prefer to do my Christmas shopping in November, so I can to make December as slow and reflective as possible. Our tree is always trimmed before December 1st and the Advent calendar Greg and I bought during our first winter in VA is always ready to go with little treats hidden behind each door. It's the only season I decorate for; the only one I wait for with anticipation. Before we flip the calendar to December, our tree is covered in ornaments (the only thing we collect as a family) that tell the stories of our life. It's a precious time of year.
But not this year. Blame it on the late date for Thanksgiving or me returning from a week of travel just last night but I know it's deeper than that: my heart isn't ready.
I've been avoiding Christmas this year. It's my 4th without Greg and grief has been heavier this fall than expected. New memories of Greg's last days have surfaced recently and the responsibility to do all the baking, decorating, gift buying, and sending of Christmas cards has felt too heavy to face. It all comes with grief now that Greg's not here: grief because we hang his stocking but don't need to fill it with treats; grief because he always put the lights and tinsel on our tree just so and, try as I might, I can't replicate it; grief because he loved this time of year and always found ways to make it special.
So I woke up today unprepared, with a Christmas to-do list a mile long and no partner here to help me. Rushing to get ready for church, I put on a Christmas hymn in an attempt to get in the holiday spirit and it occurred to me that Christmas has always come for the unprepared.
Christmas for the Unprepared
Young, ordinary Mary wasn't ready for an angel to come with a message that by the power of the Holy Spirit she would carry and give birth to the promised Messiah. Her life flipped upside down that day. God was about to do something that would change the course of history and she was right in the middle of a plan over which she had no control.
Honorable Joseph wasn't ready to hear that his betrothed was to bear the child of God. He wasn't ready to live under the weight of shame and condemnation from people who wouldn't believe the angel's words. He wasn't ready to travel to his hometown for the ill-timed census or to care for Mary as she gave birth to God's Son.
The shepherds weren't ready for an angel choir to light up the sky.
The wise men weren't ready to run for their lives from a power-greedy king.
The women of Bethlehem weren't ready for their sons to go to the grave as evil the sorrow evil tried to cut off Jesus' life before the tender age of 2.
Despite the prophecies and warnings, the world wasn't ready for a King to be born only to die.
Christmas is Grace
No, our hearts have never been ready for Christmas and that's what makes Advent so beautiful. Into our very mundane lives... into a world full of war, division, chaos, beauty, love, and grief... Christmas comes.
As we spend December waiting for Christmas, for the Advent of Christ, we are reminded that there is more to life than the mundane. Each year, we anticipate a day of joy and celebration that always seems to fall flat in some way, reminding us that even the most anticipated gift under the tree or most missed loved one returning home cannot satisfy the ache in our souls. Advent reminds us that through the joys and sorrows of life we will always be waiting for more: for what is yet to come.
Ready or not, Christmas shines light into the darkness of the world, reminding us that a Savior was born, died, and is returning soon.
Ready or not, Christmas came 2,000 years ago to a people unprepared.
Ready or not, Christmas comes again for us this year.
Because Christmas is grace: the gift of God's presence to a weary, distracted and grieving world.
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