Advent Thought

Part of changing a culture is education.  This year, I've been reading a wonderful Advent devotional.  Each day, the devotion features the writings of church fathers and mothers, both ancient and new.  I have been posting an Advent thought from each of these writings to my church's Facebook group daily.  However, yesterday's reading was a poem, and I didn't really want to take just a snippet of the poem to share, but the whole verse was too long to post, so I wrote my own.  Here's what I said:

Today's Advent reflection, by your pastor:

"The tension of Advent exists for many people because they do not understand Advent as a time to remember the first coming of Christ, while simultaneously being a time to anticipate the second coming of Christ. Part of the beauty of prophetic and apocalyptic literature in the Bible is that it calls us to examine our lives, our hearts, our motives - and to make adjustments so that we are truly ready for the entrance of Christ. Do we really see this call as beautiful? If we were honest, most of us do not. Such self-reflection causes us to see what is less than beautiful in ourselves. It is much easier to rush through Advent and get to Christmas because we then do not have to take the time to truly prepare ourselves for the Christ who comes and turns our world, our values, our lives upside-down. Moving directly to Christmas is safe, and perhaps somewhat shallow. Jesus calls us to a deeper faith than that, which is why we need Advent. Advent moves us beyond warm and fuzzy carols, conflated birth stories, gatherings and gifts to our deepest need - a Savior who brings us to the feet of God."

How might you be playing it safe this Advent? What hard work of self-reflection still needs to be done? Do you need a Savior?