Adventus

Last year, we decorated the room with four strands of Christmas lights and two pine garlands. This year, my roommate Mindy and I are just generally annoyed by all these Christmas festivities.

My complaint is (once again) radio stations that trumpet, "It's the holidays -- and that means SHOPPING!" It's also that everything is about domesticating Jesus, making his birth clean and minute and manageable. Her complaint is people who say, "Jesus is the reason for the season!" but really have no idea what that means. She's bothered that our contemplations on this holiday only go as far as feeling warm and fuzzy about a cute little baby in a manger. And then that's it.

Fortunately for us, we both attended a chapel a few days ago that addressed this very topic. Dr. Lunde talked of how getting presents, spending time with family, even thinking about Jesus birth is not the point of Christmas. Rather, the point is about worshipping a God who took on flesh, who "made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness."

I love those Christmas carols that treat the story with all the drama, awe and holy fear that it deserves. I love those songs and stories that capture the filthiness of the stable, the desperation of the Israelite people, the shock of the shepherds when creatures too holy to look upon burst into their dismal existence.

I love the word advent, because it means he came, but it also means he comes. I know no other God who does that. He is a God that leaves us not to our own devices, abandoning this race to wreck havoc in this world, all alone -- he is a God that made himself nothing to COME. "God near us" isn't accurate. He is Immanuel, God WITH us.

This is my current favorite Christmas song. It's about God who did -- and will -- COME.

O Come, O Come Immanuel
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appears!

Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
has come to thee, O Israel!