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One of the things that has made the Christmas season richer for me is finding new Christmas music. New songs. Old songs new ways. Music, much like a great book, has always gripped my heart in ways a sermon or other verbal communication doesn’t. I’m going to share a few thoughts and some of the music inspiring me this Christmas season. I hope you have time to listen, but if not I hope the thoughts will point your heart in a good direction. This first song has been my favorite this week. (And most of November if I’m honest. I’m one of those people.:)

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,
too small to be among the clans of Judah,
from you one will go out for me,
to be ruler in Israel;
and his origins are from of old,
from ancient days.
Micah 5:2

The first week of Advent is all about the waiting. As I’ve enjoyed some beautiful songs of expectation, I thought about the Jewish people. How much would the average person have even looked for a Messiah? Jesus told his followers to be on the lookout for his return, but I feel like keeping our lamps trimmed and looking to the sky is a very difficult concept for us. So then I started to imagine several hundred years, when the prophets were still making a lot of noise. The Jews and nearly every culture saw their deity or deities as the means of prosperity or punishment, executors of justice; their destinies were tied to whether or not they pleased whatever God, god or gods they served. (Side note: I believe this is also why God stressed REST in the Torah, especially the creation story. The BEMA podcast has a couple of great episodes on this. Yahweh is the only God that invites us to rest, because he’s actually got everything under control.)

When you think about the way individuals and nations interacted within their faiths, how their lives were extremely interconnected with spiritual things, it brings a whole new light to what it might have felt like for the prophets to cease for a few centuries before the Advent of Jesus Christ. Now, one of the elders at my church reminded me that just because we don’t have any prophesy for that period doesn’t mean God himself was silent. We have a relational God and I agree, he could have been downright chatty with his faithful ones. But for a nation accustomed to either frequent edification of chastisement, I’ll bet it was tense for them. And on top of it they were dealing with the Romans.

When Nic was a youth pastor, sometimes he would relish these terrible, awkward silences. Usually, he would ask a question, personal or interpretive, that no one felt inclined to answer. So he’d say, “That’s fine. I can wait.” And he would. It killed me. The silence was honestly painful to my brain. Apparently the youth kids felt the same because eventually someone would be tortured by the silence into answering. That was a tiny moment with tiny stakes. Can you imagine God saying, “Are you going to change your ways?” “Be aware that a time is coming…” And then he just—

Nothing. At least not through the prophets. Radio silence. And after several decades, the grandfathers might start shaking their heads. “Back in my day…” And the fathers might start wondering if their children would ever hear about the ‘words of the Lord’ like they had. And pretty soon the better part of the nation has an ache at the back of their mind. “Why is it so quiet? When will the Lord speak through his prophets? When will a messiah come to save us?!”

I began to think I could relate. I’ve often looked around at the amount of human trafficking, the addiction struggles in the neighborhood we’ve been doing a food ministry in, the evil agendas that we can only guess at and the way I have to prepare my children to be Heroes of Light for the battle ahead of them and then I think, Come swiftly Lord Jesus! But then God’s Spirit checked me. That very conviction was the exact point. We have his Spirit working in us and through us for his good pleasure. Yahweh is moving all the time and we get to be a part of it. There is nothing new under the sun. The evil may have changed its face to something hi-tech and infiltrated mainstream culture to accept its filth, but it is the same evil they were up against in the centuries before Jesus.

As you begin to celebrate, decorate and prepare this first week of Advent, I hope you can sit in this feeling a little, this thought of painful silence. Feel it in anticipation for Jesus’ birth, it will make the celebration richer. But also feel it in anticipation for his second coming, it will make Kingdom-service all the more urgent yet ever more sweet. After all, how lovely are the feet of those who bring good news. I hope you take time to enjoy this version of O Come, O Come Emmanuel by Josh Garrels as you sit in the painful silence this week. Below you’ll find a couple of resources we enjoy and how we use them to prepare our hearts to celebrate.

That’s SUCH a good one, right? It’s a really fun contrast to use with Cindy Rollins’ Hallelujah. This is an advent listening guide to Handel’s Messiah. If you’re not a classical music person, this is still a really beautiful experience. We do it during our homeschool “morning basket” time, but it’s a wonderful thing to do as a family after supper. The first week suggests singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel and I just love using the Josh Garrels version, so different from Handel but still so beautiful.

The other resource we’ve been using is called Unwrapping the Names of Jesus by Asheritah Ciu Ciu. I have read this to my children each morning for the past couple of years. I find I lose the younger ones by the end, but honestly most of the days have a beautiful thought right off the bat. Even though I’ve been tempted to keep it for my own quiet time, I see and hear my kids taking away good things each week. This book also contains sweet suggestions for celebrating together that week and links to additional resources. When I went to hunt down the link for you, I saw that there is a kid’s version now. We’re definitely adding that to our cart for next year!

We have two more traditions that are mostly just good fun. The first is and fictional advent story about different characters traveling to Bethlehem. For our family, it’s a fun little reminder to turn our hearts toward Jesus as we encounter cultural things that could be a distraction. We read it every single night at bedtime. It’s amazing how nearly any mode of celebration can be God-honoring or God-dishonoring depending on the position of our hearts. There may be more Bible-centric advent storybooks out there, but this is what I found at my local bookstore when my kids were little and it’s become a beautiful tradition that we look forward to every year. Some years I coordinate a figure in an advent box for each story. Other years I just hand them a chocolate chip. Tis the season to be jolly, not stress yourself over the finite detail. :)

The second is a fantastic book of letters from Father Christmas to the children of J.R.R. Tolkien. It contains scans of the original letters, complete with illustrations of the North Pole and mischievous interlopings of the Polar Bear. So fun. And how crazy is this? Ever since we started reading it, the Johnson kids have been receiving letters from Father Christmas in the same shaky hand. ;)

We have also used the free advent printable that goes with the Jesus Storybook Bible, found on Sally Lloyd-Jones’ website. They’re sweetly illustrated, and every story focuses on Jesus. Splendid! If you have a favorite resource, recipe or other tradition you’d like to share, please do in the comments! See you back here next week with more videos & thoughts.