Well, Christmas Day is a week on Thursday. I can't believe how quickly the days have flown by! Maybe it's because we're all so busy at this time of year, or maybe it's because the hours of daylight are so few at the moment, that we have to fit everything into a shorter space of time.
Time and time management is an Advent theme. For Advent is a season of expectation and preparation, a time when we reflect. Advent is meant to be a little Lent, a time of preparation when we prepare to celebrate the birth of the Christ child.
But advent is also a time in which we look to Christ’s second coming as judge at the end of time. Now this is definitely counter cultural, for no-one is quite prepared, in the midst of the Christmas shopping season, to confront the theme of divine judgement.
However to truly celebrate Advent we are meant to consider what's known as ‘The Four Last Things’; that is Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell.
Now that would put a bit of a dampener on the festivities, wouldn't it? And I don't know about you but I could find it a little difficult, because culturally the world outside is getting ready to celebrate the Christmas holidays and we, as Christians, are celebrating the coming of God’s Kingdom through Jesus, the babe born in Bethlehem.
I definitely find it a great deal easier to focus on God’s Kingdom than ‘The Four Last Things’. For I imagine heaven to be a wonderful, peaceful place, where happiness is found in God’s presence, and I suppose that’s what we try to recreate at Christmas, a day of peace and plenty when heaven comes near. Though of course, in reality it never quite turns out that way.
So I wonder how do you imagine heaven?
I imagine God's coming kingdom as being a place with no wars, injustice, or prejudice, where the greatest commandment which is ‘To love the Lord God Almighty with all your heart soul and mind, and to love one another’, is truly lived out, for when love is central is people’s hearts no-one would kill, steal, or disrespect, hunger and war would end. Sounds good doesn’t it!
And so this Advent, in this busy time of preparations and lists and things to do, let’s put aside all that busyness, and for a few minutes let’s focus on God’s coming kingdom, and celebrate that.
God Bless 🕊
Lynda