I’ve started to wonder if I am ever going to get to that point where I’m done

 waiting, or preparing, or planning for that next thing. It occurs to me that the saying made famous by John Lennon can be true: “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.” Most of us are living from project to project, from event to event – not unlike the universally accepted dangerous practice of living paycheck to paycheck. We often have so many things going at one time that we’re often caught up in preparations for that next event, or looking forward to that next “whatever it is”. I’ve even heard people express their desire to get one thing over with so they can get on to the next one. (I may have in fact said something like that along the way too!)

Christmas has become the mother all preparatory seasons, and even outpaces the Christian preparations during the season of Lent for many of us. Before the secular grip on Christmas took hold, my guess is that the latter was the principle season of any real preparation for most Christians. We have been trained and seduced by the TV-movie and glossy magazine cover images of what Christmas can be and we labor long and hard to bring it to reality. The danger in doing so is that the beauty, peace and wonder of the season of Advent can get lost. In essence, we can be so busy ‘making other plans’ for the coming holiday that we don’t stop to enjoy the life between now and then.

We attribute danger in living paycheck to paycheck because it means we can be one hiccup from financial trouble. It often means we have no savings – nothing stored up for a rainy day, no cushion on which we can rest if trouble comes our way. Living lives that are overly busy, simply moving from one thing to another has a similar effect on our spiritual and physical well being too. As we get overextended and reach further and further ahead of ourselves in an effort to keep pace with the life we’ve chosen, we get more and more out of balance without having had the time or spare energy to store up the reserves that will guide us through the rainy and rough days ahead. Those days always come to us at some point.

One of the main things that we celebrate in the season of advent is the light of Christ coming into the world. That doesn’t mean there was only darkness in the days before Christ was born, but it does remind us that the world is much brighter having received the child in the manger – there is great joy in knowing that God chose to come to us, and to seek us out in such a radical and sacrificial way. Jesus lived and taught a simpler way of life, offering us light, sustenance, and a lighter burden than what we naturally tend to stagger under. Jesus came to give life, not take it away through busyness.

As we continue through the season of Advent, my hope is that each of us will be able to slow down enough to pause and accept that gift of life; that each of us would find ways to gather with friends and family for no other purpose than to share that life with each other whether we have the perfect centerpiece or not, or the presents wrapped with that special paper we had to run across town to get or not. Life is happening each and every moment, and if we don’t stop our busyness every once in awhile to enjoy it, it can slip right past us. The gospel of John laments that, “[The light] was in the world…yet the world did not know him.” (1:10) In all our effort to prepare for the season, let’s not forget to live it too.
Tom

PS – our Advent series on Sabbath starts up next Wednesday at 5:30 pm. If you need help taking Sabbath, come and join us!

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.