Always Christmas But Never Winter

There is a quotation from CS Lewis’ work The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which describes Narnia after it has been cursed by the Witch, Jardis. Mr Tumnus says;

Always winter but never Christmas

I think the opposite is true today. It always seems to be Christmas but, never Winter.

Just for the record, this is not the annual rant about Commercialism at Christmas but, this is a plea to recapture something of the spirit of Advent.

Advent is the period of waiting, in anticipation, for the coming of Christmas.

In our fast paced, instant world waiting is not something we enjoy or relish. 

According to Paton’s Insurance, there are 33,000 traffic lights in the UK and the average driver faces 8 minutes a day waiting at red lights (https://www.patonsinsurance.co.uk/how-long-to-you-spend-waiting-at-traffic-lights/).  Not to mention the time we spend waiting to get to the front of a queue on the automated answering service at the doctors surgery.  When I joined the queue yesterday, I was number 43.  By the time I reached the front I had forgotten why I was queuing in the first place!

Let’s face it, waiting is frustrating!

However, in our fast paced, instant world where waiting equates with frustrating, I wonder how much we miss in our hurry. If you want to put it this way, our focus is so much on our destination, we miss the journey.  There is a line, in Luke’s Gospel that really spoke to me yesterday;

But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.

(Luke 2 vs. 19)

Eugene Peterson’s The Message translates these words as;

Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself.

Waiting gives us the opportunity to pause; to consider; to reflect; to hold.  That is what Advent is truly about.  It causes us to pause and to reflect upon our place in God’s story of salvation.  Waiting, in this sense, is a gift to us.

My prayer is that each of us has an enjoyable and as happy Christmas as possible.   I also pray, that each of us finds the time to stop and reflect not only on the time with our friends and family but, also the gift given to us in the Christ Child.