“Are you ready for Christmas?” a friend asked at the gym this morning.
My mind immediately went into task mode. I haven’t bought one Christmas present. Our tree is up with lights but is otherwise undecorated. I have more participants to find for various church events and activities.
“Nope, I’m usually not ready for Christmas until it’s over,” I admitted.
But since when did the Advent become a long series of to-do lists?
Imagine asking a small child the same question. “Are you ready for Christmas?”
See their eyes light up. Sense their unbridled enthusiasm.
“Me, ready? Yes, I can’t wait!”
“I can’t wait to open my Christmas presents. I can’t wait till my parents are off work and we have all that time together. I can’t wait to sing the songs, pet the animals, taste the treats, hear the stories, wear the Christmas pajamas. I can’t wait!”
Yes, someone must buy the presents, prepare the programs, bake the treats, and order the pajamas, if those things are going to happen.
But what if they all happen, and we’re not ready for Christmas until it’s over?
In Mark 10:15, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it” (NRSV).
This Advent, we’re hoping to enter with the wonder of a little child.
For our blog this year, we’re inviting community members to share a meaningful childhood Christmas memory and how that experience has shaped their sense of wonder about who Jesus is.
One of my favorite childhood Christmas memories didn’t involve any fancy Christmas decorations, formal programs, or baked goods.
I was 17, with a newly obtained driver’s permit. I drove our gray family Oldsmobile most of the way from Michigan to Florida, with my parents offering advice or holding their breath, and my 12-year-old sister in the back, oblivious to her current peril.
We went tent camping in the Everglades National Park. My stepdad remembers collecting wood for the campfire. It burned really well because it was half-charred already from a previous wildfire. We spent Christmas Eve around that fire, reading the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke.
Christmas day that year was on a Sabbath, and we went to eat breakfast at a restaurant, which we never did at home in Michigan. We spent the afternoon enjoying nature. That night, we shared Christmas presents around the campfire. They weren’t wrapped in wrapping paper or carefully placed in gift bags. They were in plastic bags from the flea market we had found that Friday. We had enjoyed looking at what they had and finding gifts for each other. My stepdad still has his tie that says, “On a mission from God.”
Those moments remind me that we experience the sacred, not only in the sanctuary, but in the sharing of Sabbath meals and plastic shopping bags. We experience the wonder of the incarnation, not only in formal programs, but around campfires.
God came into this world, not via a palace or according to royal timetables, but born to an unwed, teenage mother who only had a feeding trough in which to lay her newborn.
Yes, kings came bearing gifts. Later.
First, Jesus was joyfully received by manual laborers, whose night shift was interrupted by an unexpected light. The wonder of a star.
I don’t want to wait until Christmas is over to be ready to receive him.
This Advent, I choose to look for the wonder and unexpected gifts that each day brings.
The next time someone asks me the question I’m going to say, “Yes, I can’t wait!”
Raewyn Orlich is the discipleship and nurture pastor at the La Sierra University Church and mom to three little ones that teach her to wonder each day.