It is the beginning of Advent.
Advent is Latin.
It means coming.
Who is coming? 

Jesus is coming.
A baby born to save the world. A baby who is God.
He shows up in a fetal ball.
He who carved out the universe curved Himself into a fetal ball in the dark. He tethered himself into the uterine wall of a virgin, and let His cells collide, light splitting all white.
He gave up the heavens that were not big enough to contain him and let Himself be held in a a hand.
Thi is a mystery.
He became a baby so small, and an infinite God became infant.

The Giver becomes the Gift.

He has a a heart beating in the chest cavity of a held child.
His hearts beats hope, change, love - the whole planet has been spinning round waiting for Him.

Advent. 
Jesus is coming. 
When you open the Bible and read of his coming,
you first read of His genealogy. 
The gift starts to upwrap itself.
You know the stories of Christ’ family tree.
You need His geneaology.
The branches of His family, the love story of His heart
that has been coming for you since the beginning.

And you think about your own family.
Family matters.
Family gives you context and origin gives you understanding.
The family tree of Christ gives you hope.

There are women in His family tree.
Four broken women who felt like they were outsiders.
Women who were tired of being taken advantage of.
Who wants to go unnoticed, uncherished, and unappreciated?
Women who thought about giving up. 
Christ claims that those who are wondering
and wandering and wounded are His. 
Christ grabs you into His family tree, His line, His story, His heart,
and he gives you His Name, His lineage, his righteousness.
Christ gives you grace.
Is there a greater gift?

This is a love story unlike any other.
It’s a love story that has been coming for you since the beginning of time. 
You can miss it.
You can brush past this gift.
You can rush through it.
You can not see how it comes for you over the edges of everything.
Every page in Scripture has been waiting, reaching, coming for you.
You could wake up on Christmas
and only see
that you did not take the whole of the Gift.
Christ gives you grace.

Advent. 
Jesus is coming. 
Christ gives you grace.

Waiting for the coming of the Lord in the manger
who made himself bread for us who are starved.
Watiing for the Savior in swaddling clothes who later wears clothes of Righteousness for those who are worn out.
Christ brings in Christmas.
Without rushing, without pushing.
He is here.
Mark this waiting.
Mark this art in your life.
Mark Advent with a counting.
It’s a way of staying awake and not missing anything. 

The first Sunday of Advent I read of covenant keeping, promise-keeping God. 
“Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot -
yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root…
Is that the day the heir to David’s throne will
become a banner of salvation to the world.
The nations will rally to him,
and the hand where he lives
will be a glorious place” (Isaiah 11:1, 10).

It changes us.
It changes our hearts. 
Out of the stump of hearts…
Miracles will grow within, open slowly, bear fruit. 
Our hearts will make time and space for Him
to come to a beautiful, glorious place.
A place of sheer, readiant defiance
in the face of the world careening mad and stressed.

Advent. 
Jesus is coming. 
Christ gives you grace.

We will listen to Old Testament stories.
We will imagine the branches of the family tree of Christ
all the way back from Adam.
Each story points to Christ, the relief, the incarnation of God.

Advent. 
Jesus is coming. 
Christ gives you grace.

He is the exquisite gift cut and given for us.
Broken.
He is the Gift who hung on a tree for us.
The Gift who was pierced for you,
wounded and willing. 
He unfolds himself on the tree
​of your endless, greatest Gift.
​

Advent Season began on Sunday. This is my favorite time of the year with all the beauty and stillness that come with it. It is time to sit and be still, to think, to ponder, to wonder, and to reach for hope.

Advent means coming. The birth of Jesus is coming. We are waiting for this event that brings hope, light, and goodness into this world. 

The boys and I are taking out the Advent Candle holder in the evenings. I read Scripture to them and we pray together. after supper We are also reading one of the many Christmas storybooks that I have collected over the years. I have three little Christmas sacks that I hide them in, and the boys take turns picking one to read. 

Yesterday was the first day that they were actually quite calm for the Advent readings. They answered questions and prayed. I had a moment where I thought "Wow" and was absolutely delighted that no one was insulting anyone. It was a joy!

And just in case you were wondering, we do have favorite storybooks that we read over and over again. I will share three of them here.
​

Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree is a delightful story of the tip of the Christmas tree being cut off in order for it to fit in Mr. Willowby's front room. The top of the tree travels to another part of the house, out of the house, and around the the neighborhood as all kinds of animals find it, are delighted with it, and then end up trimming it a little bit more in order to make it fit perfectly into whatever space they are dealing with.

This storybook is written as a long poem with rather delightful language. I enjoyed each and every rhyme. 

Yes, this was made into a TV movie back in 1995. Check it out on Youtube! 

The last book I will mention is Song of the Stars by Sally Lloyd Jones. Yes, this is the same person that wrote The Jesus Storybook Bible. This one features creation. Each and every animals is excited about the coming birth of Jesus. They seem to sense the magnificence of the event that is about to take place. Of course, the story culminates in the stable where all the animals gather around to see the baby who was born in a manger.
​

Another Advent tradition I have is the reading of great poetry. I enjoy this because it is one way to be still and just savor the moment. We all need these moments where nothing is happening, all is quiet, and just sit with ourselves.

There are too many good poets to mention here, so I will save it until next year! 

Advent is here! We are waiting for God to come down and bear witness to the world. We are waiting for God to heal a broken world with his love and grace. We are waiting for God to pick up the pieces of our lives and and make something beautiful out of it all.

Advent really is a curious season. Originally, it was intended to slow us down. It was supposed to parallel Lent with its build up to Easter. In Lent, we become more somber, reflecting on how we are not worthy of the gift, and yet, he comes! Advent is like that. We are supposed to slow down, reflect, and enjoy each other’s company. Yes, we are supposed to slow down.

How can we do it? How should we slow down? I have three children, a full-time teaching job, and blog on here at least once a week. I also have a number of invitations that will keep me more than busy this Advent season. But I will slow down. 

First, I will light a candle. Don’t you love the light that the candle gives? It’s just enough in a dark room. It glows, giving off a warm, inviting light. It’s my invitation to slow down.

Second, I will read. I will read scripture to my boys. We will read it together as a family and I will tell them what it means. This is our family bonding time in the early evenings, and it forces us to slow down. We take in the words, and they learn new vocabulary. It will give them a vocabulary of faith. We are mysteriously joined with other people of faith and with the many people who came before us. Shared faith. It slows us down.

Third, we will hang an ornament on the tree each evening. The ornaments represent different Bible stories. This week we did the creation of the world, mankind’s sin, the Tower of Babel, and other Old Testament stories. These stories are the stories that will being healing. Eventually, we will get to the reading about Christ’s birth and all that it means. This slows us down. All those pictures will be a mosaic on our tree that points up to the star on top. The star that represents God telling us about the birth of his son. A complete picture. A slowing halt to the true story. 

Fourth, we will read again. Not scripture, but Christmas stories. We have many and the boys will pick one every evening that is carefully wrapped up. I want them to know it’s a treasure they will unfold. A slowing down to notice the beauty in a story. Thee boys will listen to the words which all highlight some part of the Christmas story. The Christmas Miracle of Jonathon Toomey and Song of the Stars both show aspects of slowing down and noticing. I look forward to the stories. I look forward to slowing down.

Fifth, we will say a little prayer. God loves to hear from us. And I love to hear from him. Listening to God is what we all want in this season. I want to feel wrapped in his love. I want to feel and know He is God. I want to know He holds everything in the palm of his hand.

Advent is about Christ. It’s about Christ’s coming. It’s about slowing down, waiting for the baby, and understanding those same stars that we all sleep under are the same stars He made. It’s waiting and knowing that He comes as a baby to feel and understand everything we go through. It’s about God’s love for us.
​

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas!

I came across this quote by G.K. Chesterton in blog post I was reading earlier this week. 

A mass of legend and literature, which increase and will never end, has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox:

that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle.

Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded...

I mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing were no turned inward to the smallest...

It is true that the spiritual spiral henceforward works inwards instead of outwards, and in that sense is centripetal and not centrifugal.

The faith becomes, in more ways than one, a religion of little things.

- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

We are about half through Advent and it really is a religion of small or little things. I think Chesterton should have added that it is about difficult things. It's about celebrating the difficult choices. God came down. Mary said yes. Joseph said yes. The shepherds went to find Him. The Wise Men went to find him. It is beauty in the midst of chaos. It's subversive.

There are Christmas lights shaped like a tree around Jochiwon train station. The squalor and dirt are there but so is this tree shape. This defiant shape stands in contrast to its surroundings. It's beautiful in the midst of Jochiwon traffic and the swarms of moving people. 

I want to be like that tree. I want to be a light in a dark place. I want to be like Mary and Joseph who said yes to the difficult and miraculous thing put before them.

In a world where people choose self-centered lives, where ugly things happen, where sin seems to spread unchecked, where daily assaults take their toll, we need to be able to point to the defiant beauty of a selfless life. We need seek the kingdom of God first. We need to put others first. In this way, we can proclaim the transcendent truth of something great than ourselves. 
​
We need to do more than just say Merry Christmas...

We need to say Merry Christmas and remember what the words actually mean. We’ve forgotten the weight that those words carry. We are saying we also unite with him in his death, his resurrection, and his call to make disciples.

If we really mean “Merry Christmas,” it will cost us something. It may cost us everything.

But am I really willing to make myself uncomfortable for the sake of the gospel?

I say “Merry Christmas,” yet I turn against Jesus again and again, forgetful and unrepentant, and twisted in my thinking. I lose my focus at Christmas. I spend more time with books than with Scripture. Don’t forgive like I should. Demand my own way. Stomp my feet. Get really bossy with God. Doubt. 

Man, have I doubted Him.

Christmas is not a greeting at the store.

Christmas is not a political platform.

Christmas — real Christmas — is not a political party, a certain set of traditions, a tree, a pile of gifts.

​It is not a happy little feeling for an hour at the church.

Christmas is all about Jesus. And it’s positively dangerous. in that we are owning the name associated with a holy God and His only Son. This alone should cause me to kneel — or fall flat on my face.

Here’s what Christmas really is:

Christmas is pick up your cross and follow,
and spend yourself on behalf of the hungry,
and act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.
It is The Way of the contrite and broken.
It is not my will, but Thine be done.
It is “blessed are the poor in spirit,”
and a rejoicing in our suffering.

It is salt and light and fruit of the Spirit.

It is "prepare him room!"

It’s a cup and broken bread.

It is the belief that Christ is our only hope, that heaven is our future home, and that we get to do His work right here, today, before we go there, someday.

Christmas is not a word for your greeting card, but a way to wrap your whole life around a cup and a cross.

It’s not an empty promise for prosperity, but investing our very lives in each other because of an empty tomb.

Merry Christmas is happily agreeing to “love your neighbor as yourself” — even when your neighbor looks an awful lot like your enemy, or someone who doesn’t believe the same things you do. Christmas also commands this: “Go and make disciples.”

It is a walk on water, hyssop on the lips, and a belief that Christ is the central figure of the most radical story to hit planet Earth.

Christmas believes that an enemy prowls, but that a King wins – that the battle isn’t over, but the war is already won.

I won’t deny it: Christmas People believe in crazy things. We believe that God’s Son descended from Heaven to Earth, not so we can have a party on December 25. But so He could die a horrific death and carry people’s sins away.

It’s scandalous, isn’t it?

Scripture whispers that scandalous truth that Jesus wants our ragged, rule-breaking hearts, these hearts that have spurned Him. There’s a word for it: grace. These are the foolish ways of the Christmas People. And so, then, I shall be a fool among them.

Today, I say to you with all the boldness I can muster: “Merry Christmas.”

And when those words cross my lips, I don’t even know the half of it.

​I don’t really know how much it cost my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Someday, I will.

Until then, I’ll say it to you, and I’ll say it out loud for the sake of the gospel:
Merry Christmas.

The Light of the World stepped down into our darkness.

And that changed everything.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The first week of Advent has been a flurry of activity.  Students are handing in assignments, last minute homework checks, christmas ornaments on the tree, stories being shared with the children, and very little reflection on HIM.

Flurries, busyness, activities, meals, and only a little of HIM.

Isn't that how it goes?  The season is planned, cookies are baked, prayers are said, meals are shared, and yet we seem to reflect only a little on the baby in the manger.

Advent is this season of waiting.  We are always waiting for Christ but the ache is more apparent in this season.

And then I heard "Silent Night".  For the first time, I was struck by the lines, "All is calm, All is bright."  These words do not seem in sync with one another at all.  They contrast, but it isn't jarring.  Together they evoke a longing and a curiosity.  

Whisper them together now, under your breath.  Really.  No one is listening.  "Calm and bright.  Calm and bright."  What do you feel?

Calm.  I feel peace.  Peace in His Presence.  Bright.  I feel light and lightness.  Together.  Calm and bright.  I feel peace, hope, and welcome.  I am expectant.  Another moment of immanence and transcendence.  

The calming peace of Christ lies in his nearness.  He has come.  He is here. He is close by. 

The brightness of hope is, in baby form, not too much too overwhelm.  His transcendence is a flame that could incinerate and stupefy the merest man or woman - but in the Christ child it is a bright gleam of hope that I am not afraid to be near.  Because "all is calm, all is bright," I can sleep in the heavenly peace of Christ.

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.  Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful..." John 14:27 NASB

During this season of joyful waiting, longing for the birth of Christ and the world's rebirth, I am struck by the beauty of it all.  The waiting and the longing, this spiritual homing device that has been placed in our hearts by God to lead us back to Him.  

As Psyche realizes in Till We Have Faces (C.S. Lewis), "It almost hurt me...like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty comes from...The longing for home."

Advent ache is real.  All is calm.  All is bright.  All is beautiful. As. We. Wait. For. Him.

This has turned out to be one of the most blessed Advent seasons I can remember.  There has been wonderful times in the kitchen baking cookies with friends and families, good food, blessed conversations, snow, snow ball fights, one really good snowman, and general goodness and sweetness in my three boys.  All is blessed, all is a gift.

All Heaven with Its Power

Lord Jesus, in this fateful hour
I place all Heaven with its power
And the sun with its brightness
And the snow with its whiteness
And the fire with the strength it hath 
And the lightning with its rapid wrath
And the winds with their swiftness along their path

And the sea with its deepness
And the rocks with their steepness
And the child in the manger
Sharing our danger 
And the man sandal-shod
Revealing our God

And the hill with its cross
To cry grief, pain, and loss
And the dark empty tomb
Like a heavenly womb
Giving birth to true life
While death howls in strife

and the bread and the wine
Making human divine
And the stars with their singing
And cherubim winging
And Creation's wild glory
Contained in His Story

And the hope of new birth
On this worn stricken earth
And His coming, joy-streaming
Creation redeeming
and the earth with its starkness
All these we place 
By God's Almighty Help and grace
Between ourselves and the powers of darkness