"Not only ``inside'' but also ``outside'', the light of Advent reveals the conditions that have turned into disorder in the world. It helps to get rid of the illusion that if we manage to build and protect our personal happiness during the holidays, we will have a nice Christmas," writes Bishop Zoltán Balog in the Reformed Newspaper.
How can you get close to the meaning of Advent? Four Sundays, four candles, four weeks of preparation. How is a Christian's preparation for the holiday different from that of those who, although with the best intentions, focus primarily on collecting the necessary "supplies" for Christmas?
As a young pastor, I tried the following game with the children. We made a huge mess in the completely darkened youth room. We overturned the table, stretched the chairs, ropes at knee height, brought in a laver of water, small jars of jam, and soot. When the children entered the room, there was a great commotion. They couldn't see anything in the dark and bumped into everything. When the uproar reached its peak, we lit a candle in one corner of the room. The storm calmed down, they tried to get their bearings. When the second candle was lit, they started tidying up, and by the light of the third candle, almost everything was in place. The fourth candle also found the children, who otherwise never quieted down, sitting around the table, waiting in total calm for what would happen next. A lively conversation developed about what order or disorder there is in our lives, in our homes, in our country.
This was the meaning and purpose of the first Advent. On the banks of the Jordan River, those who knew and felt that their lives and the world around them were not in order gathered around the messenger of the Messiah, John the Baptist. When John confronted them with this regarding the final judgment, they asked the question that changed their entire lives: What should we do so that we don't become obstacles to the arrival of Christ in our lives?
Look around in the light of God's word! Don't let your mind and emotions tell you in what state you are preparing for the holiday, what you should do differently, but look into the mirror in which you not only see who you really are, but also that through the love of God who could you be? You can see the place and meaning of the gifts you received from Him in your life. Are you using them for what they are intended for? Do you love that person with the love you received from Him, whom He entrusted to you or rather yourself, or something else from which you hope for your happiness? The word of God helps to discern the real faith in Christ. Advent candles symbolize the biblical light, in the light of which the bad and the good, the fake and the real, the hypocrisy and the example, the authentic from the fake, are separated from each other.
It turns out, are you just waiting for a little recharge from the holidays or are you ready to empty yourself, to let go of everything that fills you every day, so that there is a place for the joyous message of Christ's birth?
Do you want to add another shovel before the holidays, or are you ready to remove the obstacles from the path of the holiday?
Do you collect or release?
Do you turn to yourself or to those who need you?
Do you spend your financial resources on what you were given, or on something else, more desirable?
Do you just count the birth of Jesus into the holidays or can you wait for the Lord's arrival without expectations?
Do you want something from God or do you want Him?
Do you want something from the other person, or do you want the other person that God intended for you?
Not only "inside", but also "outside", in the world, the light of Advent exposes the conditions that have turned into disorder. It helps to get rid of the illusion that if we manage to build and protect our personal happiness during the holidays, we will have a nice Christmas.
Let's learn to pray instead, and still be with those who suffer, who have no chance of peace and security.
If we not only know, but also understand the Christmas story in its depth, we will see the shadow of the Golgotha cross in the flight of Mary, Joseph and the little child, in the evil impulses of King Herod, and in the multitude of homeless people. And we see that "yet-faith" triumphs even at Christmas. Not excluding and forgetting the troubles of the world and ourselves, but placing them in the light of Advent, we are moved by the fact that God still loves this world and everyone in it whom we love and those who do not.
Source: Reformatus.hu
Featured image: FKCS/BOON
