Every year I do the same thing, I resolve to be better prepared for the Christmas season. My thoughts are to get my shopping done early (preferable before ‘black Friday’), to get my lights up before it gets super cold, and to prepare my heart for the celebration of my King.  And every year, Christmas somehow manages to hit me by surprise.  I have no idea how this happens.  It’s not like I’m not warned.  Christmas always lands on the same day, December 25th.  The stores and television always begin their advertising way too early, and my kids always start offering ‘hints’ to help me in my shopping endeavors … usually about September-ish.  How could I miss it? 

But this year is going to be different.  Already this year is different.  I put up most of my lights last weekend, in sixty degree weather ! I don’t have all of my shopping done, but I do at least have it started.  And next Sunday is the beginning of Advent, the preparation of the coming of our King; so this week, I am preparing for the preparation of the coming of the King … an advent of The Advent if you will.

As I am sure that you are aware if you have known me for any time at all, I believe that our Christian life is opposed, and that opposition is never as fierce as it is over the Christmas season.  All of hell is set against our celebration of Jesus, of the Christ.  It’s really pretty spectacular if you think about it.  Christ is mentioned everywhere:  Christmas sales, Christmas programs, Christmas breaks, Christmas travel.  Despite the attempts of a few radical atheists to remove the name Christ from the season, it has in fact, flourished.  And yet, most struggle to find Christ in any of it.  Worse yet, I know a number of Christians that have literally sworn off Christmas due to the ‘commercialization’ of it. 

Yet I would really challenge those, and perhaps you, and definitely me: that disregard and even contempt for the Christmas season really plays into Satan’s plans to derail us from the life and passion that Jesus has invited each of us to live. You see, it is so easy to become cynical and lose the mystery of our faith, and when that happens, it is very difficult to have those eyes to see.  We begin to miss the work of Christ in our everyday lives.  We become dull to the moving of His Spirit, and we begin settling for a life of safety and comfort rather than risk the dangerous and daring. 

So I am going to prepare today to prepare for Christmas.  I want to be intentional about celebrating this season, not just surviving it.  I want Christmas, at least for me even if not for the rest of the world, to be about Christ, my King. 

My heart feels better already.  Unfortunately, I bet that I still find myself shopping for that last minute present on December 24.

To the King,

David