A final Advent reflection

Christmas is all but upon us.  It is the final day, the final few hours of Advent, our season of expectant waiting.  Tonight, our savior is born.  Tonight, as we approach to the banquet table of the Lamb, as candles dance joyfully in the sanctuary, and we the faithful resound in joy with all hosts of heaven, Christ once again enters our world.  

Today will be busy.  There is much baking to do and much wrapping.  How do I find you, my Christ, in the midst of all this holiday busyness?  Where can I stop for a brief moment to find solace in your rest?  How do I come to see you, the maker of all things, lying among animals in a manger?  Where are you in my Christmas cookies, in my materialistic gifts?  Are you there?  Are you truly in my heart?  

You came to give and to give all for the sake of all.  You came and you gave and you give, because you are Love.  You, the Father's Word, you are that most full expression of what it is to be divine.  And still somehow you are so fully human.  I don't understand this.  My gifts, my presents, and my presence are but a mere shadow of that, but they still reflect something of you.  Somehow, who you are has captured who I am, and I ask that each day you transform my heart into something new.

I am deeply struck by the name Emmanuel.  We have spent the last four weeks singing and calling for you, O Lord, to come and be God-with-us.  We beg and pray for you to join us in our earthly pilgrimage. But you are ever with us, if only we open our eyes.  You plant seeds of hope in our brokenness, watering and tending them to fruition in places we never expect.  You bring us through our darkest night, walking by our side, often so silent and unnoticed.  But you are ever there.

I pray that in these final hours of preparation for your birth that I may be more wholly aware of your presence in my gifted life; that I may see you in others, in the gifts that are prepared and offered, and in myself.  Help me not so much to understand but to be the love that you are.  For it is in receiving and embodying such love, that we most truly fathom what it means.