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Prepare to be Surprised |
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Location: Blogs Brad's Blog |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 12/3/2007 12:53 PM | It is hard to believe that we are about to enter Advent! Where does the time go? Are you prepared for Advent?
You know, being an old Boy Scout – a proud Eagle Scout at that – I have had more than one occasion to reflect on the Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. So simple, so to the point, so utterly ignored by me too much of the time! But if I really do work at being prepared, things go much better.
In the church, the more I plan and get out in front of the seasons of the church, the special services, the special bulletins, the smoother things go. The more time I spend in study, the more prepared I feel for preaching and teaching. The more I think about how things can go wrong in a service, the more I am prepared to react when they do. The lesson is a simple one: when I plan, when I prepare myself, things go well. When I don’t….well, it could get ugly!
Advent by it’s very nature is a time of preparation. Certainly in our secular celebrations during this “most wonderful time of the year” it pays to be prepared. If we are having people in for a special dinner we want to plan and prepare just the right amount of jus the right food. If we are going to BCC to pick out a Christmas Tree, we better make our preparations by moving the furniture that needs to be moved, by getting the lights and ornaments out of their storage places. If we are going to travel to be with friends and family, we better be prepared to wait in line at the airport, or bring plenty of snacks for the drive, or make sure that the car is in good running order before we start on our trek.
In the church we are also in a time of preparation for the special nature of the Advent services. Services of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. The Christmas Eve Service where the Light of Christ is symbolically passed one to another in a beautiful ceremony of well… hope, peace, joy and love!
But hear my warning well: don’t let your heart get too prepared for Advent and the coming of the Christ child. Don’t spend your time getting so prepared, getting everything in perfect order that you miss what Advent and Christmas are all about. They are about the surprise that came into the world so many years ago, and the surprise that still grips us today when we realize that in Christ Jesus, we have been redeemed before God and because of Christ Jesus, we have come to a relationship with God.
And that surprise can come at the moment that you are most unprepared for it: in the eyes of a child gazing upon the Advent wreath in wonder; at the phone call out of the blue that comes from someone just wanting to catch up; in the realization that God’s grace is so wide and tall and broad and deep that even as we fail, God is there as we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin the process of beginning again. And no matter how many times we experience that feeling, it can still come as an amazing surprise.
So, here’s my bit of advice to you during this glorious Advent season: don’t get so overscheduled, overplanned, overprepared that you fail to be surprised by the joy and wonder that surrounds us all.
Be peaceful,
Rev. Brad
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