Advent is hard this year, y’all.
I suppose what I really mean is that anticipation of the usual cheer seems hard, although that means, conversely, that some aspects of the season are actually far easier to embrace.
In Advent each year, we play out Christ’s coming. For a time, then, in the church calendar Christ is not actually here yet, at least not figuratively. We are supposed to be in preparation mode, sweeping ourselves clean so that there is room in our lives and hearts for him to come in. Cue half-naked desert nomad with slightly crazed eyes:
Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 3:2b (KJV)
Or if you’d prefer your Baptizer a bit less Ren-faire:
Change your life. God’s kingdom is here.
(New Living Translation)
There we go: repent is a mystical but powerful spiritual concept; change is much more like an actual thing one must do. But they are both the essence of Advent, which is always about the means — the preparing — rather than the end.
Stone-Campbell Girl 