Year after year, we are drawn to this season of Advent: This season with its carols, its combined fragrance of pine and poinsettia, gathering of family and friends. The gentle poetry of the gospel’s Christmas story and the comfort it offers draws us, too.
Who would believe that the Lord of creation chose to share the human experience with us, born to a peasant girl on the fringe of poverty and social status. The Word became flesh. God became man. What a strange and wonderful thing!
The glorious event of God becoming man is the good news of Christmas. In John Calvin’s striking metaphor, he says, the biblical witness of the incarnation is like a pair of spectacles that enables us to see God, the world, and ourselves in a radically new manner. Thus, Advent offers us the chance of a new spiritual beginning as we prepare for the birth of the Christ child. We celebrate the birth of the Christ Child this season, because the glory of Christ frees us to see the world as created and reconciled by God. In the light of Christ as the true image of God we are enabled to know and imagine God as a holy and loving Lord whose intentions toward us are gracious, and to understand ourselves as people created in God’s image and destined for communion with God and each other.
As we enter this Advent season let us join together as a congregation with a common prayer: Father God, this joyful season is radiant with the brilliance of your one true light. May that light illuminate our hearts and shine in our words and deed. May the hope, the peace, the joy, and the love represented by the birth in Bethlehem fill our lives and become part of all that we say and do. May we share the divine life of your son Jesus Christ, even as he humbled himself to share our humanity. In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.