The turkey is barely eaten and, for that matter, piles of Halloween candy are still squirreled away here and there around the house. But we close our eyes, turn around twice and open them, and all the lights, music and commercial trappings of Christmas have sprung up like mushrooms after an autumn rain. We know it will happen, we brace ourselves to resist it, but still we’re drawn in. “This year,” we say, “only a few cards to our very best friends and a moratorium on gifts. The family did agree to that, didn’t they?”

Before long, we’re haunting the mails and sneaking looks at price tags in spite of ourselves. Or maybe we heave a sigh and haul out the stash of catalogues we’ve been meaning to recycle. Even the tackiest manifestations of the Season have a way of sucker punching our emotions and rekindling the most innocent and pristine memories of our childhood.

And maybe that’s as it should be, because the miracle of Christmas is that God broke into human history in the midst of ordinary events among a marginalized people in a backwater sort of place. The banal and the sublime met and kissed. “Advent” is the name we apply to this season. “Advent” means “arrival,” “dawning,” “introduction,” “beginning.” And this new beginning for humanity happened at a time as unlikely as any, as unlikely as this year.

It was the time of the Emperor’s cruel and arbitrary census--moving his subject people around to keep them displaced and disheartened. Ungodly power was doing its routine worst to discourage people and crush dreams. And yet, it was a time that saw unquenchable dreams and ancient prophecies, treasured by a people who then as now knew more than their share of suffering, suddenly, marvelously come true. “A Shoot will grow up from the stump of David’s royal line--yes, a new Branch from the old root.” (Isaiah 11:1)

So in a stable behind a public hostel, a conquered people had a king once again, only this time he was to be King for all peoples and for all time. And he was to be a new kind of king, persuading and transforming human character and human institutions with the sort of persuasive power that the best of us--our Martin Luther Kings and our Lincolns and our Mandelas--have repeatedly striven to emulate.

“He will be gentle--he will not shout or quarrel in the streets. He will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the dimly burning flame (of our imperfect wills). He will encourage the fainthearted, those tempted to despair. He will see full justice given to all who have been wronged. He will not be satisfied until truth and righteousness prevail throughout the earth, nor until even distant lands beyond the seas have put their trust in him. (Isaiah 42:2-4)
And so, we too hope and dream and repeat the story and sing the holy songs. We celebrate our magnificent services of lights and scripture and carols. And we dare to believe that the wondrous Child is being born anew in our own hearts, in the midst of our own families and our own congregation and our own fractured society.

Only his continuing, contemporary Advent includes the power of his life and teaching and his finished work upon Calvary’s cross. And we are gifted with his presence not only for ourselves, but for those “distant lands beyond the seas,” whose inhabitants have literally arrived at our doorsteps in these days we are living. So, I say, be alive to wonder in the midst of the ordinary! Be ready for a dawning, an arrival, a new beginning. Advent
–Dr. David L. Wheeler–