Advent, Waiting In Hope
Lucy Holt
In our family we have a number of advent traditions. We get out the same decorations, toys and books we have had since the children were tiny. Some traditions Alex and I bring from our own childhoods.
Each year my Mum buys an advent candle for us, my sisters and cousins. We aim to burn the correct number each day in a tidy and beautiful moment of reflection. It rarely goes well. In practice the real tradition in recent years is my sisters and cousins posting pictures of whose candle has gone wrong to a shared group chat. Someone is always behind because life is too busy and someone else will have wandered away and burned a few days ahead.
Perhaps this is more of a realistic metaphor for the passage of time: never quite a smooth as we want, moments which pass too fast, and other seasons which go far too slowly.
Last year we were waiting to move and had packed our candlestick, so the candle had to sit in a measuring jug of rice. We tried to celebrate advent while waiting to see if we would finally move, or if the house chain would collapse. Thankfully this year we are in the new house, but still managed to drop the candle on day 2 and had to melt it back together!
This year’s new tradition is to join in our street's giant advent calendar. We displayed a ‘17’ in our window until it was our turn to put up our tissue paper design. We wanted something which referenced the nativity story but would still feel relatable to everyone. Zoe and I discussed which bits of the story would be achievable with our art skills - sheep and a star seemed wise choices.
In the end the 17th was a really challenging day for me, but when I woke up in the morning I knew just which bit of the advent story to choose. ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people’ (Luke 2:10). We chose ‘Fear Not’ for our design (but avoided drawing any shepherds!)
The Christmas story and the nativity scene can be very comforting because we see it every year. We know the story and how it will go. The first Christmas was full of danger and reasons to be afraid. Giving birth was dangerous, marrying a woman whose reputation was in question was dangerous, travelling between cities and countries held huge risks, being a shepherd was a dangerous job.
None of the characters knew it would turn out well, and had good reasons to be afraid, but into this God breathed the things we remember: Joy, Hope, Peace and Love. These things are still at the heart of the Christmas story, which is big enough and complicated enough to still speak into our lives.
