Let Advent begin!

One of the great seives of sanctification that children bring is intentionality. And as Sophia grows older and becomes more and more aware, my desire to be intentional rises to new heights. So for the past few weeks my mind has been racing with ideas for the special season we find ourselves in. Yesterday marks the first day of Advent, one of my favorite celebrations each year.

I want to create meaningful traditions for our family. Things that look like, smell like, feel like, taste like Christmas. Tangible memories that point to something much greater than presents under a tree. In the next few weeks, I hope to post some things that we'll be doing as a family, like a homemade Advent calendar, ornaments, and recipes. (hope is the key word there- we'll see if it actually gets typed out!)

These are things I don't usually do. Most Christmases of the past are filled with gift planning and buying, parties with coworkers, friends, and then family, and by the end of the month I find myself exhausted, ungrateful, broke, and wondering why I get so excited for this every year, because it all feels a bit like a letdown. I've spent all this time (and money) just scratching the surface.

Christmas is about Jesus. Advent means "coming," so in this holiday we celebrate the fact that God came. He came as a baby. Fully God. Fully man. Teaching, blessing, healing, suffering, delivering, redeeming, forgiving, dying, rising! We find ourselves in the middle of two promises of God. One already fulfilled in Jesus' first coming. We now await the fulfilment of the promise of His return.

I want to groan with the anticipation of it. But I don't. I want to say with John, "Come, Lord Jesus!" But I don't. What keeps me from it? My hope is in the now. I cling to the things I have here and now, forgetting the greater things that await me. Instead, I say, "Come, Lord Jesus! In 15 years! After Sophia gets the chance to know and love you, after I've had time to slow down and be more like you, after I finish the joys of my 20s and 30s. Come then!" But then I read verses like these:

"When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3:4)

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." (John 14:1-3)

"So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him." (Hebrews 9:28)

"For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord." (1 Thess. 4:16-17)

And all the loves of my life seem to dim in the face of Jesus, my first love. And my hands open from their death-grip and I give over to God what was already His. And I have to confess that I don't know how it is all supposed to work, but that I trust Him, for He knows best. He is good, He loves me, He will take care of all my needs.

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." (Romans 8:18 - 25)