“I had all these plans for December to be different this year.”
Most Decembers recently have felt busy. The end of the year events, the end-of-school celebrations and gifts for teachers, the pressure to finish work for the year strongly, the preparation for Christmas and for holidays, the gifts and the parties.
And somewhere in there we want to participate in Advent – the season of the year where we prepare for the arrival of Jesus, thinking about his birth as a baby under occupation in the Roman Empire, and thinking about what it means that he might come again.
Casey and I have had an incredibly challenging December so far, and we’re only a week in. We’ve had Hugo’s birthday, we’ve had gastro in the home, we’ve had migraines, Casey launched a book with an event that took a lot of courage and vulnerability. We’ve got two funerals this coming week, and grieving with our families. I’ve got separation settlement and a divorce date and all the admin and costs that go with it. We’ve got a family holiday to prepare for. Kids swimming lessons. We haven’t been doing daily advent readings or candle lightings or even making it to church. It doesn’t feel like we’re embracing the spirit of the season.
But… this is the messy reality of human life. And when I think about it, there’s nothing more fitting for advent than to step into it all – the grieving and the sickness and the care, the worries about money, the moments of unexpected delight and joy and humour. The tiredness.
The season of Advent in the weeks before Christmas remembers what it meant for Jesus to come – emptying himself of the divine, leaving behind a place in perfect heaven – and fully embracing the mess of being human.
Perhaps mourning at funerals, cleaning up vomit, wrapping presents for kids and stumbling through work and school and life as best we can is a perfectly authentic way to honour the coming of God, who chose to become like us, with all the sadness and exhaustion and frailty and stress. He wasn’t above the mess, he embraced the mess – and stepped into it lovingly.
And we can too.