Incoming!

I love dictionaries. As a person who takes pride in the breadth of my vocabulary, I find dictionaries keep me humble. Yes, they hone my understanding of the meaning of a word and see to it I spell it correctly. But they also can show me that a word may not mean what I think it means or they surprise me with an alternate meaning or synonym I was unaware of. When I started writing this Advent series, I dutifully went online to merriam-webster.com to see what it had to say about the word "Advent":

Definition of Advent

1: the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas and observed by some Christians as a season of prayer and fasting

2a: the coming of Christ at the Incarnation

As I expected, no surprises here. But the list of synonyms following the definition contained the words:

appearance, arrival, coming, incoming

"Incoming"...

I shouldn't have been surprised that "incoming", similar in meaning and spelling to the word "coming" would be a synonym for Advent, but the appearance of that word triggered a surprising and un-Christmasy childhood memory.

I was a child of the post-World War II era. My brother and I watched the television shows Gallant Men and Combat. We, as well as every kid on the block, had toy machine guns, army helmets and various other battle paraphernalia. My mother worked for the U.S Army, so we also had an assortment of genuine U.S. Army patches. We could be authentic staff sergeants or corporals. My brother even had a real hand grenade (minus the detonator and explosive, of course). We and our friends would spend hours on maneuvers, dodging bullets and playing "Bombs Away", which usually meant someone yelling "Incoming!" and the rest of us diving to the ground or into nearby bushes.

"Incoming!"

Somehow that word, the image it conveys of something surprising, even unexpected, appearing and, like a bomb, forcefully entering into the realm of our existence, seems like a good synonym for Advent. At this point, I wanted to write "minus the destructive part, of course," but in reality, Christ's coming into this world did do quite a bit of destroying. The Baby who came into the world in Bethlehem would grow up to die on a cross and destroy the power of death. He would destroy the power of sin in our lives. At the moment of Christ's death, the veil in the temple representing the barrier between man and God's presence was ripped in two, destroying the seemingly unbridgeable distance that had existed between a holy God and sinful man. Advent anticipates the incoming of a Child, born to an obscure couple, in an obscure village. This Child would live a life and die a death that would be as explosive as any bomb, as any hand grenade with its detonator intact. As with the shepherds on the night of His birth, we too may be taken off guard at His incoming and, like them, be "sore afraid", as Linus and the KJV express it. We may fall to the ground, dive into nearby bushes or drop to our knees. But whatever our reaction, He is here. He has arrived. And our world has been changed forever because He has invaded it.

"Incoming!..."

Something to Ponder:

Read Luke 2:8-20.

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. 10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. 17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Put your shepherd hat on and look at verse 9. What would it have been like to have the glory of the Lord shine around you and to be filled with great fear in the midst of that? Look at verse 15. What would it take for you to step out of your comfort zone and explore an unknown spiritual frontier?

Something to Pray:

Look at verse 9 again. Ask God to show you any ways that you are wrongfully afraid of Him, or the things of Him. If there are any ways you fear His glory/presence/power, confess that to God and ask Him to give you the relationship He wants you to have with Him. Ask for the grace to accept that as His gift to you this Christmas.