Yesterday was the first Sunday of Advent.
Christians around the world lit candles, sang songs, prayed prayers, and heard sermons centered around one topic.
Waiting for the entrance of Christ into the world.
And this morning, I began one of my favorite Advent traditions. Diving into Fleming Rutledge’s collection of homilies, essays, and reflections on this very topic.
In today’s section, she shared offered this observation.
I asked my mother yesterday to tell me why, in our family when I was growing up, we did not decorate our house until Christmas Eve… she surprised me. She said, “I think Christmas should come in a burst.” Exactly. Auden writes, “Nothing can save us that is possible.” The human race cannot expect to receive any lasting comfort from the world. The comfort that we so desperately need must come from somewhere else - in a burst of transcendent power breaking upon our ears from beyond our sphere altogether.
This is precisely what happens at Christmas - the Christ Birth - the Incarnation.
God enfleshes himself, bursting onto the scene at ground zero. As the Nicene Creed says, “for us and for our salvation.'“
It’s an in-breaking of divine power in a world ransacked by cancer, human trafficking, hurricanes, wars, interpersonal conflicts, and trauma.
It’s in this world that Advent begins.
It’s in this world that God bursts onto the scene.
Fleming Rutledge’s mother was right.
Christmas comes in a burst.
“Nothing can save us that is possible,” is an incredible thought.