Christmas is the second most important festival in the Christian calendar, after Easter. Advent traditionally starts four Sundays before Christmas Day. Like everyone else, we are preparing for Christmas by sending cards, planning family gatherings, and buying presents and food, but during Advent we are also preparing our hearts to remember what Christmas is really all about – commemorating the point in history when God became human in the person of the Jesus Christ, born miraculously in humble circumstances some two thousand years ago.
He came to get his hands dirty, becoming one of us, spending time with the lowly, the outcasts, the sick, the sinners, bringing healing and hope, forgiveness and restoration, serving and teaching, warning and loving. He was announcing the good news that God was enacting his plan to make all things new and heal the world – a plan in which God himself would do what we couldn’t do for ourselves and bridge the gulf that separates us from God. This is what we go on to commemorate at Easter.
