Many of us in our culture don’t wait very well. That may not apply to you. You may wait very patiently, with equanimity always. If you do, I congratulate you, and I tip my hat to you. I don’t always wait very well. I was thinking the other day when I pulled into the bank up here on the corner of 25 th and Keith, I assessed the situation very carefully. I looked at who was in what drive-thru lane, and I made my decision. Guess what? Every other lane moved faster than the one I had chosen. The thing is, that happens, seemingly, every single time! I mean a statistician could install a hidden camera in my car, and study how can this be that he takes the wrong line every single time! We really don’t wait very well in this culture.

I want to talk for a few minutes this morning about the arrival of Advent. This morning we have sung O come, O come, Emmanuel. You notice the Advent wreath has reappeared for the season. You notice the change of colors this morning. Whether we are ready or not, Advent is here. I want to talk about its arrival. I wonder how many of you think about the term Advent itself. We use the word in every day conversation. We may say, “Since the advent of the computer, since the advent of the printing press, communication has never been the same”, etc. etc. The word advent in English comes from a Latin word that simply means arrival. That is what advent means. It means arrival. So what we are observing beginning today is preparing for the arrival of Christmas. That is what we begin this morning. We intentionally begin to look at the arrival of another Christmas celebration.

Our culture is already in high gear, as you know. I was in a Christian bookstore in Chattanooga at least 3 weeks before Thanksgiving. It suddenly dawned on me that the music that I was hearing was Christmas music. Three weeks before Thanksgiving! I don’t think that was a coincidence. They have a marketing specialist who knows the power of subliminal advertising, and they are putting us in the Christmas spirit whether we were ready to be there or not. The culture is in high gear regarding Christmas and the holidays. We are already hearing it. We are already seeing it. Well, today it’s time for us, as Christians, to intentionally begin to prepare for the arrival of Christmas.

What I want to say today is very straightforward and, ultimately, very brief. Christmas Day will come and go. In one way it is the matter of the calendar, and the days go one after the other. Christmas will come and go from the point of view of the calendar. The question before us this year is: What difference will it make? Will we, this year, intentionally decide to truly ponder the significance of the coming of Jesus? Will we take the time this Advent to ask

ourselves the question, “What does it mean to me that God himself came to earth in the person of Jesus? What does my relationship with Jesus Christ mean to me?” Yes, we celebrate his birth. Months from now we remember his death and resurrection. But on a daily basis, real life, what does it mean that God took on human flesh, and offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins so that we can be free from that burden, and so that we can be at one with God through the grace of Jesus?

Today we begin to prepare for the arrival of Christmas. Whether we are ready or not, it is time. As time marches on I hear more and more people say more and more often, ”Time just seems to fly by.” I am the same way. This past year at Labor Day, I said, “I can’t believe it is Labor Day.” And at Thanksgiving, I said, “I can’t believe its Thanksgiving.” Well, today is the first Sunday of Advent. It’s time. It’s time for us as Christians, not just as participants in our culture, but as Christians, it’s time for us to begin to focus on the meaning of the Word become flesh, on the meaning of God coming to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. And, what does that mean to us? What does Jesus Christ, his love, and his grace mean in my daily life?

This morning I wish you a blessed season of Advent. Culture will continue to bombard us with images of busyness, and with talk about how to deal with the stress. That is what culture will bombard us with. My hope for you, and my hope for me, is that in the midst of all of that, we will still take the time to remember what this is really all about. Why are we trying to get together with family? Why do we offer gifts? Because, we are celebrating the love of Jesus. We are celebrating his forgiveness and his grace. The gifts that we give aren’t meant merely to symbolize the fact that we rejoice in the fact that we are loved by God because he sent his son. The gifts aren’t meant to be just more and more things that people really don’t need. They are to represent the love of Jesus in our hearts. At this time of year, we give that love away. So, with the coming of Christmas in just a few weeks, may we, in the intervening time, prepare our hearts to really celebrate the reality that God loves us enough to have sent His son to us. Amen.