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Advent Devotional for Saturday, December 25
Did you get what you wanted this year? After all, we all love presents! They look so enticing under the tree, all wrapped up and pretty, and we love imagining what’s probably inside. Then we open them; and I’m guessing that, for a lot of us, there is never more anticipation about the gift we get than in that very moment of unwrapping — right before the treasure is revealed.
It’s like this for the church, all during Advent, as — sitting around the tree — it handles with wonder and excitement the package waiting to be unwrapped at Christmas. Every year, it seems, we shake and weigh and smell it and ask a thousand questions about what’s inside.
Is it the world’s cutest little baby who never grows up? Is it an avenging warrior who will overcome evil once and for all? Is it a warm sentiment that will succeed this year in making me happy with my life just as it is? Is it a kindly but ineffective old saint who will take, without question or challenge, anything he might receive from me — my least - coin offerings or my tax-deductible charity or just any little thing I may be willing to give? Is it freedom from pain? Freedom from struggle? What’s inside the package that God has wrapped for God’s people?
Every Advent, we sneak up to the tree, shake the package, and wonder what’s inside.
And in the days and weeks that follow the Advent season of expectation, when the package has been opened to reveal Jesus, there’s a tendency to be disappointed in the gift, once the newness wears off. It’s not what we wanted, we say. Not what we thought we needed.
The question to ponder in that moment is this: Do we actually know what we need? Or is it possible that there’s Somebody Who knows what we need better than we?
Meanwhile, here’s old Simeon and Anna. Two old people, shuffling around the Temple, waiting to die. Simeon, righteous and devout, unable to see death before he has seen the Christ. And Anna, constantly in prayer and fasting night and day. Here’s what’s so special about them: What they most want and what they most need meet happily in Jesus, and then they’re ready to die. They know this child won’t take away the pain of moral struggle. They know that, just because the Messiah is here, the rest of us are not somehow off the hook for living faithfully. In fact, Simeon tells Mary a disturbing thing, and hopes that the rest of us will overhear his words: “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel … and a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
No illusions, for Simeon and Anna, about what’s involved in following this child! And yet they still embrace him as the redemption of Jerusalem, and they are ready to die. How marvelous it must be when what you want and what you need can be delivered — all in one gift!
Did we get what we wanted this year, in this gift from God? Maybe not. Probably not. What we needed, perhaps, but not so much what we wanted. But for God’s sake, for the world’s sake, let’s try to keep the gift.
Thank you for the gift, God. You fooled us with the wrapping — the straw, the donkey, the peasant exterior, the challenges, the willingness to turn things upside down. We didn’t expect you to come in such a way. Honestly, it’s not what we wanted. But we believe it’s what we needed — even if we don’t always know what to do with it. So help us keep the gift of your Son—even when he embarrasses us, or demands great things from us, or is just plain different. Even when it takes more strength than we think we have, help us accept your gift. Thank you again, God, for the gift. Amen.
Theodore J. Wardlaw
President of Austin Seminary
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.
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