Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room: The Wonder of Advent

What is Advent?

Advent is simply this:  An arrival that has been awaited, especially of something momentous. It is from the Latin, "adventus" which means, coming.

Advent is celebrated in the church during the 4 Sundays preceding Christmas and for those in liturgical churches - it is the beginning of the "liturgical year". (a rhythm of scripture reading and practices)

Traditionally, it is marked by a wreath that holds 5 candles.  One candle is lit each of the four Sundays, the 5th on Christmas day.  Each candle represents an aspect of the spiritual preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

The first candle represents the prophets (Hope).

The second is the manger (or Love - the Love that came down).

The third - the shepherds or Joy.

The fourth - the angels - Peace

The fifth - is the Christ candle - which represents Jesus as the Light of the World.

In church history lingo - the 1st Advent of Christ - is His birth.  The 2nd Advent of Christ -is His 2nd coming.

I imagine myself standing somewhere on that timeline looking back at the one, looking forward to the other, and still a certain tension remains a constant for me.

The tension is that a busy town and a crowded home wasn’t just a problem for Joseph and Mary.  It is our struggle today as we still battle all that crowds out His presence in our hurried hearts.  Ahhhhh . . . I’m convicted by that sentence.  With what is my heart so hurried that it crowds out His presence? 

What is it for you?

What if, instead of landing on Christmas day exhausted and ready for it to be over, we held our breath in holy anticipation and wonder?  

What if we intentionally eliminated the hurry (not the busy) from our preparation and stepped onto the holiday stage with a rested and reverent, expectant soul? Sounds dreamy to me.  Sounds doable.

The enemy is at the ready with obstacles that muddy the soil of our hearts and souls.  

Advent is like a consistent turn on a familiar road, it shows up again right on schedule - a date on a calendar, a muted routine. How can engaging in a season of preparation (advent) prepare our hearts and make room for the birth of something unexpected?

The promise, when we remember advent, is this:  “Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed”.  Is 40:5a
Isaiah saw beyond a terrible time to a future blessing - the first advent (and the second!).

What a prophet!  What faith it took to believe.

Same for us.  

This year, it seems like it takes added curiosity and faith to recognize advent, in a season of natural disasters wreaking havoc on our groaning earth and lives, Hamas marching on in ever-increasing strength and terror, and the political landscape looking more and more like a bad reality tv show and revealing . . . little. Racial and gender tensions have never been higher and millions of people are without borders, homelands, and a show of hospitality, because well, it’s complicated.

Where will the glory of God be revealed?  

Where will the glory of God be revealed to you and through you? 

Right here. Right now.

In the worst of times . . . in the messiness of life . . . in the pain of loss and disappointment . . . in emotional, relational and physical uncertainties . . . in the secrets and sadness . . . and also against the backdrop of blessings and joys, seasons of productivity and praise.  Into all those moments - He comes.

If we will remember how it was in the first moments of the arrival of the Messiah, if we will recognize His face, His heart, and His fingerprints on the canvas of our lives, and if we will refocus our lives and expectations to include the unexpected - I believe Advent can evoke a response of audacious proportions. 

Some are not interested in God having a baby.  Some are wrapped up in the to-do lists, parties, and busyness.  Some deny it ever happened at all. Some, however, and I pray it is us - will have their breath taken away at the thought and reality of God with us.  Here.  Now. 

Let’s try something:

I invite you now to find a quiet place for a few minutes, pull up a chair, a bible, and a journal.  Let’s pretend we are all together in one living room, enjoying the sacred space of togetherness.  

Welcome. 

Together, let’s be still, let’s listen.

Frederick Buechner wrote, (read with your imagination)

“In the silence of a midwinter dusk, there is a far off in the deeps of it somewhere a sound so faint that for all you can tell it may be only the sound of the silence itself.  

You hold your breath to listen.  

You walk up the steps to the front door.  

The empty windows at either side of it tell you nothing or almost nothing.  

For a second you catch a whiff in the air of some fragrance that reminds you of a place you’ve never been and a time you have no words for. 

You are aware of the beating of your heart.  

The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens.  

Advent is the name of that moment.” 

Memory exercise:  Recall some of your childhood Christmas dreams or memories.

Try and recapture the feeling, the excitement - recall it, or acknowledge the lack of dreams and lean into the loss of that for a moment.

As we prepare the soil of hearts to receive Him, spend a few moments with each of the following prompts and respond to the questions in your journal, or out loud:

As I enter this season:

With what is my MIND preoccupied?

What are my dominating EMOTIONS?

What, if any, anxiety am I carrying in my BODY?

What is the longing of my HEART?

Whatever your responses - will you pray those back honestly to the Father?

Ask Him to reveal, to heal, to expose, to impose, to enlighten, to speak, to comfort, to transform…

Be still.

Listen.

Journal anything the Lord might be saying to your soul . . . 

Read here or in your Bible:

Isaiah 57:14 says, “And it shall be said, ‘Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstacle out of the way of My people.’”

I ask these questions of us to help us be better aware of any obstacles that might be in our way of fully seeing Him revealed on the pages of our story.

Why build up at all if we don’t expect Him to come?

I say with the hymn writer, “Let every heart, prepare Him room . . ." (Sing it if you want, I am!)

Let’s pray, “Spirit of the Living God, fall fresh on each one of us.  Breathe into our souls a sense of stillness, of wonder, of anticipation for celebrating the birth of Jesus.  Is there anything in us, past or present, that serves as an obstacle from You being fully revealed in us and to us? 

Spirit of God, speak freely throughout today, tune our hearts to hear you speak.  Be revealed in a surprising way today, perhaps it will even be clothed in sadness. However, it is dressed, help me not to miss it. In Jesus' Name."

Written by Kaye Hurta