Advent Calendar

Every year, my father-in-law likes to buy my kids an advent calendar. It is a daily calendar with little windows to open (often with chocolate behind them!) that counts down the days until Christmas. A couple of years ago, I remember how disappointed he was that after weeks of searching, he could not find one that had anything to do with Jesus. There was Santa and Rudolf, Frosty and even Barbie! But no Jesus anywhere. How ironic it is, that these calendars which mark the Advent season, which is supposed to help us focus on Jesus, seem to just contribute to distracting us from the point. Advent is supposed to be a time where we remember God’s people waiting expectantly for the coming of the Messiah, as well as looking forward and waiting for the second coming of Jesus. Much of this waiting however, seems to have been lost. I don’t want to be too critical of my own culture and generation alone, because as I think about, being distracted from what God is doing, especially around Christmas, is not a new thing at all.

Have you ever thought back to that first Christmas, when God entered the world in the form of a baby. We often have pageants and nativity scenes in which we celebrate all who were there to witness the amazing event: Mary, Joseph, maybe some animals, some shepherds and eventually some wise men from the east. But this was the coming of God into the world, where was everyone else? Although God’s people had been waiting for the coming of the Messiah for hundreds of years, when the event actually came, most of them missed it. They were distracted. Maybe they had expected something bigger or just different. Maybe they were distracted by the Census that was being taken which had everyone in the Roman world on the move. Strangely, the census meant that there were probably thousands of people in the town of Bethlehem at the time, but they all seemed to miss it. The only ones who seemed to get it were some shepherds, to whom that angels announced the event. They were an odd choice when you think about. They were marginalized from the religious community because their occupation made it a challenge to fastidiously maintain religious law. But then again their occupation meant they were out in the field away from a lot of the distraction going on in town. The wise men got it as well and they were not even a part of that religious community. But from miles away they saw a star and for some reason they were not distracted but rather paid close attention to this phenomenon. They too would get to see the infant Jesus and worship Him.

So how will we be? Will we be distracted? There is a lot to distract us, and I often find myself being distracted. It is a great question for this time of year and every time of year for that matter. Am I distracted from what God is doing? Am I distracted from what God would have me doing?


Here is a link to a song I recorded a number of years ago that reflects on the theme of waiting:
Waiting