The Advent Season is once again upon us when we turn our minds to preparing for Christmas. However, I pose the question: Is Advent only about preparing for Christmas or is there more to it? After all the Birth of Our Lord happened some two thousand years ago, surely we are not preparing for it as if it were happening for the first time in 2023? There must be more to the Advent Season than simply preparing for Christmas.
The famous opening words of the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols states ‘O God who makest us glad wit the yearly remembrance of our dear Saviour’s Birth…’ In this sense Advent is a preparation for the yearly remembrance of the Lord’s birth and it is important that we prepare for it. Yet our Advent preparations should lead us above and beyond an annual remembrance.
A good few year ago now there was an advert for the National Lottery on TV with a mysterious finger pointing from the sky with an ethereal voice saying ‘it could be you.’ The implication of the advert was that you could win the lottery at that very moment when your lucky numbers were pulled out of the bag. Would you be lucky, would you be prepared and have your ticket ready to claim your prize?
Advent, as a time of preparation, moves us on from getting our hearths ready for ‘a yearly remembrance of Our Lord’s birth’ to his Second Coming at the end of time. It is a preparation for our own personal judgement when the Lord appears as the just judge. Will we be ready or will we be more concerned with the turkey and the tinsel and having a good time in the here and now?
The message of Advent is one of preparation, but for the end of time when the Lord will come again in all his glory escorted by the angels. None of us knows when that day or time will be. As the lottery advert says ‘it could be you’ at any moment. Will we be ready?
Folk often talk of the end of the world as if they knew exactly when that will be. We have often had people trying to predict the end of the world and they have got it wrong. They reality is we do not know. Yet at the same time we must be ready for when the Lord will call us from this life to himself. For us that call will be our personal ‘end of the world.’ It could be when we are sat watching Coronation Street and having ‘one for the road’ or when we are going about our daily tasks that the Lord calls us home. Will we be ready? It could be you.
Let us use this Advent Season to prepare for the annual celebration of Our Lord’s birth but let us also use it wisely as we prepare for Our Lord’s Second coming at a date and time yet to be confirmed.
