Instant Christmas

This fall, for the first time I can remember, my wife and I completely forgot about the daylight savings time change. We showed up at church in time for Sunday School, which starts at 9:45. Little did we know, since our clocks did not "fall back" an hour we were actually about a half-hour "late" for the 8:15 service. Once we realized our mistake, we snuck into church as the offering plates made their pilgrimage through the last row. We sung the doxology and then pulled out our Bibles in preparation for the sermon. The sermon was, I suppose, just as "good" as any other week, but for some reason I felt very disengaged as Stu preached from the Word. Having given this some thought, I realized what the problem was.

Most Sundays we hear God's "Call to Worship," we worship through singing, we worship through corporate and personal confession of our sins, we worship by hearing the assurance of pardon, and we worship through giving. Only after all of this preparation do we worship through the ministry of the Word. Because we showed up late, we jumped straight into the sermon without any preparation of our hearts or minds for hearing the Word of God. It did not "return void," but we were ill prepared to receive it.

I fear that many of us (myself included) approach Christmas this same way. Our culture has conditioned us for convenience and "just in time" shopping, eating, recreation, and everything else. You're thirsty? Grab a soda from your fridge, one of the 74 convenience stores you drive by on your way to wherever you're going, or even from the check out line at Target. You want to be entertained? Flip on HBO, the DVR, your "on demand" digital cable programming, or one of a billion entertainment sites on the internet. You want a little Christmas? Sure there's the gift shopping that goes on months ahead of time, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about Christmas. Pull into the parking lot at church, pop into a comfortable pew, sing some pretty songs, and hear Luke 2 read by a junior high student. Check. Done in an hour. Have yourself a merry Instant Christmas. Bring on the bowl games.

This is why we celebrate Advent at my house. Every night, when we sit down to dinner, we observe a small part of the Advent tradition. Some nights this includes reading a passage from the Bible. Other nights might include a Christmas reading from a devotional book. Many nights (unfortunately), it simply includes lighting the candles of the Advent wreath before we dig in. Even though they are simple, these little things help to prepare our hearts and minds for Christmas. We know that we cannot step out of the chaos of our everyday lives, hit the pause button, and worship Jesus. It just doesn't work that way.

At Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Christ and the hope that is held out to us in the gospel. We remember God's faithfulness to his promises, and that the promised Messiah did indeed come. We remind ourselves that Christ continues to come to us today, through his Word and the sacraments, and we long for Christ's return when he will come to us again. The reflection and gratitude that these thoughts require of us can't be manufactured in an hour's time.

I'll end with one of my favorite Christmas quotes:

If we could condense all the truths of Christmas into only three words, these would be the words: "God with us." We tend to focus our attention at Christmas on the infancy of Christ. The greater truth of the holiday is His deity. More astonishing than a baby in the manger is the truth that this promised baby is the omnipotent Creator of the heavens and the earth!
     - John MacArthur