Reason for the Season

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” as they say. The world has shifted from fall and harvest to the festivity and bustle that defines the Christmas season.

While I love the cozy festiveness of Christmas in many ways, in the past it has often been more stressful than joyful. The busyness, the expectations, the presents, the annoying Mariah Carey Christmas music. The season leading up to the holiday filled me with anxiousness about how to do enough and fit it all in. How to do it right, and make everyone feel loved and special in the midst of it. Following came the let down filled with all the things I wish I had done better and opportunities missed. Truth be told, I wanted to like Christmas. I enjoyed many parts of it. But as a whole, there was little enjoyment to be had.

To be honest, it was the holly jolly of it all that I found unappealing. The hollow flashy forced festivity, covering up stress and expectations that can never be met. 

Over the past couple of years, I have started to look more at the Advent season. The season of waiting. Of hopeful anticipation. Of remembering. Deep, meaningful looking ahead. Not to presents or lights or food. But to salvation. 

For a long time I misunderstood the Christmas season. The anticipation felt like it was for the festivities itself. The pressure to coordinate all the things to make sure nothing was missed. Christmas lights, holiday parties, breakfast with Santa, and all the present requests. If it didn;t all fit or if they were not executed perfectly, it all felt like a failure. 

But what if the anticipation was for the One in whom we say we celebrate. That if all other festivities fell through that we felt satisfied in the arrival of our salvation. 

At times it feels like Jesus is the excuse for the season. A mascot to all of our holiday festivity.

But what if He was truly the meaning for the season? What if He was the fulfillment of the season?

So this year, I wait. I give myself permission to celebrate, because celebrating is a form of worship. But what if our festivity wasn’t our savior? What if it wasn’t filled with a need to meet a desire? 

This year I celebrate, I plan, and I intentionally look ahead. But it is with a quiet intention. It is with a peace in knowing that these plans won’t satisfy, but Jesus will.

Come thou long expected Jesus, Born to set the captives free.