Advent Christmas Epiphany
Advent saved my Christmas. I used to get overwhelemd by it all, the plastic decorations, the ‘peace on earth, good will to men’ that was someone how contained in the retail expierence. It drives me nuts, eats at my soul. Advent saved Christmas for me, cut open the four weeks leading into Christmas and made them about something else: waiting, wondering, pondering.
Do you not get it? Do you not understand this baby in a manger? This oldest of Christian symbols? Its not about any of the crap you have ever been taught. It is this: When God – when Spirit – when New Life – enters the world its among the vulnerable. Its among the poor. It comes with a body that could be lost on the side of the road.
Life is God and when Life comes among us it is delicate. It needs to be tended to. Looked after. It needs us to pause, to breath, to allow room for expectation and wonder and awe.
What else are you going to do? How else are you going to respond? Life is the only resposne, prayer and crying and laughing is the only response. Joy and sorrow and all of the things of our deep humanity.
Live. Love. Laugh. That is how we encounter God.
