I wrote the following reflection on Advent in late January of 2011. I never thought I would need to read it in November of 2011. But as I struggle to get ready for the holiday season, I re-read this to remind myself of how truly rewarding it can be when we focus of what truly matters during this special time of year. May your own Advent season be one of many blessings.
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The liturgical season of Christmas has officially ended. We now enter that time of year in the church called “ordinary time”. I never understood this classification. And especially after this Advent and Christmas season, it seems all wrong – for this year it was anything but ordinary.
I have always loved Christmas, and we have always done our best to follow the guidance of the church to embrace Advent and all that comes with it. We light a wreath, read some extra devotionals, have multiple nativity scenes around the house, play carols all the time. But 2010 had to that point been a year of great spiritual growth in my life, and I was wondering how I might make Advent a little different this year. So, I tried a few new things.
Active Worship: I have been involved in worship services before, but this year I had some new experiences. I helped prepare the church physically for the Advent season, and was blessed to sing in a choir for the first time in over 10 years. When you are involved in the worship service – whether seen or unseen, you can’t help but pay closer attention and get more out of it. Participation, especially during Advent, has the ability to heighten all your senses. It turns the ordinary worship experience into an extraordinary one.
Song: I had a bit of a music revival this year. In addition to the singing in the choir cantata, I was able to attend 2 performances of Handel’s Messiah that allow the audience to sing along – one at the start of Advent and one just 2 days before Christmas. One was in a quaint church with a couple hundred people; the other was at the Kennedy Center and involved over 2000 total strangers that I will never see again. I’ve done this on and off before, but never two performances in one year. What an incredibly wonderful way to start and end a joyous season.
Gifts: One of the main things people stress about at the holidays is buying gifts. I love when I get an idea for someone that seems just right – but hate to buy something uninspiring primarily out of obligation. This was the year to make a change. Many of the people I would normally buy gifts for have more than enough “stuff”, including my own immediate family. This year we used most of the money we would have spent on gifts and instead bought cows, chickens, bunnies, geese and bees from one of our favorite causes (Heifer International) in honor of others. My husband and I even challenged each other to a monetary limit on gifts for each other. It was absolutely the most peaceful and rewarding gift-giving (and receiving!) season I have ever experienced.
Fellowship: All that time spent NOT shopping and wrapping resulted in God providing opportunities to connect with friends both old and new. Time for building relationships took a higher priority. I lunched with a special friend I had not hung out with in way too long. I ran a race, not by myself as I usually do, but with a fellow church member and 3 other total strangers who were fast friends by the end. We opened our home for a fairly last minute “perfectly imperfect” Christmas open house, proving further the way God works in unexpected ways.
My pastor had made a reference in one of his Advent reflections about how much sweeter Christmas Eve is following an Advent truly spent in preparation. It was never more true than this year. And in re-reading this, I realize how inadequate these words are to convey the full experience I had this Advent season. When the lights came on after singing Silent Night on Christmas Eve, I was more than tempted to break the rules and leave with out blowing out my candle. It had been such a wonderful season I did not want to see it end. But really, it was only the beginning. My Advent experience proved to me that if we truly take the time to prepare our hearts and leave them open to how God wants to use them, the feelings of Christmas do not have to end.
In ending this reflection, I have included the third verse of “O Little Town of Bethlehem”. I have always had a special place in my heart for this song – I sang the fourth verse as a solo when I was in 6th grade and to this day have that verse ingrained on my brain. Maybe that’s why I never noticed the third verse as much. I sang this song more times this year than I can remember, and every time this verse stood out even more. By itself, the lyrics don’t seem specifically “Christmas” – which is really the point. The Lamb of God is truly a wonderous gift that is available to us whenever we let Him in – and the results are anything but ordinary.
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