Christmas can begin

Advent is the season when we celebrate God’s coming to us in the

Holy Child of Bethlehem. During this season of anticipation,

expectation and preparation, we light candles in an Advent wreath

symbolizing the hope, peace, joy and love that comes to us with the

advent of the birth of Christ. Our Advent waiting culminates in

Christmas as God comes into this world to embrace and redeem us.

Long before the coming of the Advent season, the Christian church

acknowledged that God is always involved with us. The Spirit of God

moved over the face of the waters and God made the world. This same

Spirit spoke through the laws, the prophets and the psalms before

speaking through the gospel evangelists. God continues to come to us

in the context of our daily living. However, it is often difficult to

understand just how God works within, among and through us. Often God

does not act in the way we might choose. Many of us would like God to

be a bit more active, stepping in whenever we have a personal need.

We long for a God to come and rescue us from harm. We would like a

God to guarantee success in every struggle and bring deliverance from

any threat.

One of our discoveries about Christmas is that God works quietly

and gently to lead us in the right direction. Jesus did not come as a

storm trooper and did not arrive in a media blitz. His birth was of

humble circumstances and attended by simple shepherds. By the

persuasion of an in-dwelling, present Spirit we find the courage to

face what comes and then move on toward the best that life can offer.

God was in Christ, and through that presence we can come to know God

more fully.

On the calendar, Christmas is December 25, but the meaning of

Christmas can touch our lives any day of the year. That’s the message

behind a new Christmas hymn, “Christmas Can Begin.”

You are invited to reflect on these lyrics as you prepare for

Christmas: