Bringing Gifts

The purpose of Advent is to take one’s mind off the preparation of gifts for man and; instead, focus on the preparation of gifts for our Father. Then again, the Little Drummer Boy, makes it very clear when he indicates, “we have no gifts to bring.”

So then, where does that leave us?

Yesterday, I was listening to an old John Piper sermon on Advent and it talked about the ways that Satan wants to thwart the gifts we can bring – The gifts of focus, attention, intentionality. Satan is consumed with wrapping us up in the frivolity of the holiday so that we neglect the intention of the season. In Christmas, He tempts us yet again to put religion in front of relationship.

CS Lewis sums it up fairly well in this quote from his essay God In the Dock when he says:

"The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into His own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with Him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left."

Advent is the reflection on the miracle. It is the bringing forth of the gifts of focus, attention, and intentionality on the birth of Christ. This is keeping CHRIST in Christmas. But, it is also the bringing forth of these gifts to the day to day that we live from now until Christ “bring(s) nature up with Him.”

May the day come expediently.