December 6, 2013

Good Morning Everybody!
It’s Friday morning, already the 6th of December. I don’t know where November went. I did very little, that I know, but the time went by and somehow the end of the year will be here and it will be 2014. The older you get the faster time flies by, doesn’t it?

I’m thinking this am about the coming of Christmas. It will be here so soon and I think, as we all do, about all there is to do to prepare. We decorate, we shop, we send out greetings, we buy specially good foods to serve, we prepare to entertain, we entertain, and so much more; just to get ready for Christmas.

I am thinking that this year I will be different. I will concentrate on the reason for the season and really prepare for a celebration of the coming of Jesus to this world. I will think about the fantastic idea of God, Himself, coming to be a man. He came to live among us and to be like us. He came to teach us how to live as His Father would have us live. He came to die for our sins; to pay for our sin so we might be good enough to be with our Holy Father and live with him forever. He came as a tiny baby, trusting His Father to keep Him from the ugliness that the world is. I want to really celebrate the beginning of all that. I am going to try to make this Christmas one where Christ’s birth is celebrated more that Santa Claus and all his trappings.

I love all the traditions of Santa, snowmen, sleigh bells ringing, and all the rest. Gift giving is a joyful tradition. I love to think of buying and giving something that will please the people I love. These are good things. But—, it is not all of Christmas.
I have a good friend who brought me a gift already. It was a book about Advent. As a Protestant all my life, I know very little about Advent. We went to a Lutheran church for several years and I think they celebrate Advent, but in that church, not so much. Stan’s church did an Advent thing, Since it was not a apart of our family tradition, we did not get a wreath or the four candles. I didn’t look into what it all meant. I continued to do as I always had done.

This little book made me think about Christmas, its meaning, and how I should be thinking a little differently than I had in the past. Maybe I should look into this Advent thing. Not necessarily as a ritual to be followed but as a preparation to get ready to really celebrate Christmas as the coming of Christ to this world.

I had to look up “Advent” just to see what it was all about. How it came to be and how it was traditionally celebrated. Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and can vary in length. This year it is shorter since the first Sunday is the first of December and there are four Sundays before the 25th. There are themes to each week: waiting, mystery, redemption and incarnation. So far I have only considered the waiting part. I hope to explore the other themes with you as I go through His birth and them. After the birth of Christ, there are twelve days of Christmas which stretch through to January 5th and a time called Epiphany. I haven’t even begun to look into that. I know what the word means, but need to know so much more about its traditions and what it may mean to me as a Christian.

So the first week is one of waiting. We know He has come. We celebrate His birth and His first coming. What should I be waiting for?
We are waiting for the second Advent; His second coming when we anticipate “all things being new”, when there will be “no more sorrow, no more tears.” We don’t know how much time there is left. This is a period of waiting and of using this time to remember what He did for us on the cross and to joyfully celebrate His first coming — Christmas. This “waiting week”, what shall I do? What does a person do while waiting? I think we watch to see what will happen; but even more, we listen. When I wait, I listen for the first sound of something that portends the approach of what I am anticipating. I won’t pretend that God talks to me. At least He doesn’t talk to me directly like He did to the prophets. Nevertheless, that “still, small voice” comes through the Holy Spirit when one prays. I will listen for it. I will wait for the Word to come and for the light to appear. This will be a special time – this waiting. I will get ready to celebrate His coming and His birth.

So this Christmas season, I will daily look for Christ’s coming and into waiting for Him

Irma Jane Fritz-Zager