Ageless Christmas

What is it about Christmas that makes us ageless?  Somehow this time of year easily and consistently takes me back to memories of years gone by.  I ponder the lights on the Christmas tree in our house and at the same time feel myself transported to the sofa in the living room of my parents house where every year my mother and I would sit side by side and admire the Christmas tree together.  The smell of coffee and Christmas bread reminds me of the early morning Julotta services at church where I would have to patiently wait for my parents to drink that second cup of coffee at church before we got to go home and open the presents that Santa had brought.    There is the same swelling of emotion and pride at choir concerts and Sunday School programs as I remember in the years when our children were young.    Now my heart is filled as I watch other parents and grandparents grinning ear to ear with their child’s performance.  I made rosettes last night and could see my mother and our neighbor, Julie, standing in the kitchen making them while I had to stay a distance away because of the hot oil on the stove.     The memories keep flooding back and I am 8 or 12 years old in my heart.   I am 25, 30, or 40 again in my mind.

All these memories can be comforting and reassuring but for many it is also a bittersweet journey.  Times and lives have changed.  People are missing from our holiday celebrations.  Traditions have evolved to accommodate scattered and busy schedules. I desperately cling to some pieces of the holidays that connect me to past memories while at the same time realizing that there is no way to go back and that time and change will continue to march on in our lives.  Of course some of that is good.   It is good to grow up.  It is good to be flexible enough to embrace new opportunities in life. Yet, it always seems to be an emotional mix in this season.  

And then I come to the Christmas story.  There it is again.  The same story from the gospels.  The one everyone knows and has heard over and over again.  For a preacher it is hard to figure out what could possibly be said that is new or refreshing... but then maybe that is the message.  In the midst of changes, in the midst of things we cannot control in our lives, in the midst of the sometimes bittersweet emotions of the season, there is something that is unchanging.  Jesus comes to us - a little baby born in Bethlehem.  Thanks be to God for the unchanging, unconditional love of God revealed to us at Christmas. 

Advent Tug of War

I had one of those days recently.  You know the kind.  A day when you have perfectly timed out a plan in your head so that you can make the most efficient use of your time and get everything done.  That is until the day actually starts.  What began as a happy morning, suddenly took a turn as activities took twice as long as expected.  Nothing went wrong but even pleasant interruptions and circling the hospital parking lot four times for a parking spot intensified my frustration of not keeping to the appointed agenda. 

This advent has been that way.  For much of it, God and I have been playing a game of tug of war.  I imagine God smiling and laughing as I have tried so hard to pull on the rope to get it to come my way. Alas, God has held strong.

Slowly and finally the message has come to me.   Our timing is not God’s timing.  How often I have used that phrase - usually in the context of someone dying or receiving a difficult diagnosis. But this year it seems to me that it is also the advent message that God has been trying to teach me.  The more I plan and get anxious about checking things off my “to do” list, the more hurting people come to visit me.  Each person, unaware, has been a messenger of Advent.  Not only is my timing not God’s timing, but my priorities of  tasks over  people have been misplaced.   This week, I thanked God for a couple that came in asking for assistance and told me all about their life story.  They were messengers of Advent as I put aside the piles on my desk and focused on their desire for better times in life.    
It is in Advent that we wait, we wonder, we hope, we dream and we believe that God will come to restore us and  make us new.    It is in unexpected interruptions -  the announcement of Gabriel, the imposed travel for a census, the appearance of angels in the night sky - where God’s love intervenes with hope.  And perhaps it is in the interruptions of our daily schedules that God continues to break in to redirect our paths.  The proclamations may come in such humble packages from unanticipated visitors that they could be easily missed in the frenzy of busy days.  It is in anticipation of unexpected interruptions that I enter in to the last week Advent with joy.