Well, I had a nice blog prepared on my grand idea for this Advent season, and how it would help our family to center this holiday around Christ. This is not that blog. In fact that blog was never published.
I have been battling mastitis for over a week now (if you don’t know what that is and care to, you can look it up). I’ve made a trip to the ER, had a 104 fever, experienced a headache that was unbearable and generally felt horrible. I am finally on antibiotics, but while mending I will be home parenting from the couch for the next several days, while the house gradually gathers clutter and the laundry baskets get fuller.
While I was battling fever and chills repeatedly for days on the couch, I was forced to rest, not that I wanted to do much else. But it meant I couldn’t implement my grand idea for the advent season! And even now that I’m on the mend, I have strict instructions to rest until I have completely healed.
But in this time on the couch I realized that something profound is often missing from our Christmas season. REST. Rest was a part of God original plan. Rest was even specifically included in the creation narrative. Yet, Christmas is usually all about doing and having more! More gifts, more activities, more cookies, more, more, more! Don’t we already do and have enough?! How can we possibly center the season around Christ when we pack December with activities, expectations, shopping, gifts, etc.?
Oddly enough I had a dream last night where a man decided he was “skipping Christmas.” When someone asked him why, he skipped off, yelling back to is friend, “because I’m thankful for everything I already have, I don’t need anything more!”
Perhaps this Christmas the best thing we can do to center the season around Jesus is to skip all the “extras” and have a little more time to rest, maybe be a little bored for once, and enjoy all that we already have been given. Not only in possessions and relationships but first and foremost in Jesus Christ.
‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”’ -Matthew 11:28-30
“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive to enter that rest…” -Hebrews 4:9-11a
