A Season for Reflection

 I love Advent. Growing up attending a Baptist church, I didn’t know much about Advent other than the fact that we put little ornaments on a little Advent tree.  Now that I actually know about the liturgical year, I find Advent to be an extremely beautiful time. What is Advent really? To put it simply: As we prepare to celebrate Christ’s first coming, His birth, we take time to contemplate His second coming; to reflect upon our own spiritual lives and ask the Lord for forgiveness for our sins as we strive be more holy. During Advent we take the time, like the ten maidens in scripture, to trim our lamps and fill them with oil as we wait for the bridegroom to arrive. (Matthew 25) We are preparing our hearts to receive Jesus when He is born on Christmas day. We think about our own sin. We think about—and ask for—our need for forgiveness, our need for a Christ. 

  It is okay when we make mistakes because it is another opportunity to turn to God, to recognize our need for Him and our inability to do anything Without Him. Recognizing our own sin (and being sorry for it) is not an occasion for sadness, but for great joy because we can then more fully contemplate the goodness and mercy of God. Do not give in to sadness but rather, recognize it for what it is, a tool of the enemy. Over two thousand years ago those angels brought “tidings of Great Joy,” and that is the season that we are about to celebrate. 

    In Advent we think of Mary in her last stages of pregnancy, uncomfortable, RIDING ON A DONKEY!!!, anxiously awaiting the birth of this child that was promised to her by the angel. I know what it is like to wait, and wait, and wait for that baby to be born. This is the sort of anticipation that we want to have as we await Christmas morning. We wait with patience and with excitement as we anticipate the birth of our Lord. 

   I was recently reading about Advent and how to “live Advent” with one’s family. I am not a very crafty person, so I don’t tend to do a lot of that with my kids. Also, with school, life, and family in town, doing too much “extra” usually means that I do it for a week, and then it all sort of falls apart.  Thus, I want to establish family traditions that I might actually keep. What I read that I thought was just so genius, was, “live the church year.” Read the scripture readings for the day to your children.  Involve the children in the waiting and anticipation.  It is good for them to learn to wait for things.