PUTTING MEANING INTO TIME

 

As we begin the season of Advent and look forward to Christmas there is a longing in our hearts. We, as parents, will try to celebrate Christmas with some sense that we are marking the birth day of our Savior. But out adult children and their children will have a very nice family celebration but it will be so secular. Their celebration will center only around themselves.It will not have spiritual depth.

 

In life, meaningful celebrations do not just happen. Just because you grew up in a family where the story of Christmas was shared, Christmas carols were sung with meaning and a Christmas crib was set up with a definite purpose, does not mean that the next generation will even find any of this worthwhile for their own lives.

 

Humans are meaning makers. We want to recognize a loved one and tell them how much we do care about them. We make a birthday cake, light the candles and sing ‘Happy Birthday.’ We have done this for other members of our family. We know what it means and moving through the rituals expresses our deep meaning for the loved one. It is very simple but very meaningful.

 

If someone comes from another country or culture, they may be bewildered by this birthday ritual. It will only become meaningful for them if they choose to enter into the event. 

 

Even if you are the only one in your family who will center your celebration in the birth of Jesus, in the workings of God among us, take deliberate steps to make this meaningful.

 

Try to enter the spirit of Advent by focusing on the workings of God in the past (our story of salvation in the Old Testament) and the hope that the Hebrew people had for the coming of the messiah. Try to get in touch with the suffering of the Hebrew people in their Babylonian exile and their longing for deliverance by God. We tell the story of our ancestors to deepen our sense of what God has done in the past.

 

Then study the story of the annunciation by the angel to the young woman, Mary, and the difficult birth story in Bethlehem. In your heart and your mind bring all the countless displaced people in the world who are living the Mary/Joseph story right now. 

 

 Try to have some decorations that remind you of the intense workings of God among us. You may make your own Advent wreath. You may have one special candle that you will light when you pray and study the Scriptures. You may have a piece of a spruce branch to center your attention when you pray. 

 

These may not seem like much, but they are a deliberate effort to put meaning and purpose into this season. The old adage, “Keep Christ in Christmas,” has never meant more because it applies directly to our own family.  Even if the grandchildren will have no exposure to the Christmas story, their grandparents will make it meaningful. 

 

This year will not be an empty season. We will make Christ happen in our own home.