Getting Ready
By Rev. Steve Meysing, Assistant to the Bishop
It had been a glorious Christmas Eve service. Our regular
pianist and flautist were supplemented by the college student home with her
cello and the children who’d not left for vacation. The new Advent and
Christmas decorations transformed our worship space. The singing was inspired,
the candlelight so warm and the mood even warmer. I don’t recall anybody being
in a hurry to leave.
Just before leaving, Paul, one of our most faithful members,
asked a question that sticks with me a dozen years later. After saying what a
beautiful worship service it was, Paul asked, “So is that all there is, Pastor?
After all the work done to get ready for Christmas—the shopping, the
concerts, the decorating, the parties—Christmas is over now? When do we get to
enjoy Christmas?”
Getting ready can be hard work. This Advent and Christmas,
give yourself the gift of a tiny break from the work and spending a few moments
with our Lord. After each hour of working to get ready, take a three minute
break and think about why you treasure Jesus, what he means in your life, why
you’d like to meet him. Tell Jesus those things. Then when your work of getting
ready is done and you’re ready to enjoy these Christian seasons of waiting and
rejoicing, spend three minutes a day looking at a creche, a manger scene, and
reflect on where you saw Christ out in the world and in others during the last
day.
Getting ready can also be done and enjoyed when we pause and
let the lights and sights, the sounds and smells remind us why God loved us
enough to become like us and live among us.
“Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning, 36 like servants waiting for their
master to return from a wedding banquet, so that when he comes and knocks they
can immediately open the door for him…. You also
must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not
expect him.” (Luke 12:35-36, 40; NIV)
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