Advent has become an almost alien thing for many people. When I talk about it, I get a look from folk like I’ve just handed them an aardvark.

I’m always thankful to Pastor John Barton for explaining to our congregation the meaning of the season of Advent. Like our three in one God, Advent has a threefold meaning. It is a time for us to celebrate his coming in history. It is a time to look forward to his coming on the last day in mystery. Finally, it is his coming into our story.

This past year I was part of a Bible study on the book of Revelation. While many have used it to try to predict the end of days, and are terrified by it, I find it a cause for hope. A group of pastors were meeting one morning and arguing about the book when the host pastor’s son came into the room. He had overheard the conversation and wanted to help.

“I can tell you the meaning of the book of Revelation in two words,” he said. “We Win.”

So with the season of Advent, we find hope in His birth in Bethlehem, in which God comes in the midst of the greatest world empire of the day, not as war hero or great philosopher but as child. God chose to enter our air space as one of us.

A little boy once called for his daddy in the middle of the dark and stormy night, afraid. His father reassured him that God was with him. “I know,” he said, “but sometimes I need a God with skin on.” His enfleshment or incarnation tells us we knows our joys and sorrows, yucks and yippies.

Lastly it is a time of remembering that this “God with skin on” can come to us each and every day. Jesus is called the bright morning star in the 21st chapter of Revelation. Having a chance to study science in my retirement, I am awed by evening stars, the closest star to us Alpha Centauri takes four years to let its light reach us. Jesus comes much quicker in a simple meal of bread and wine. It will take seven months for the Mars Mission astronauts to reach the red planet. Jesus comes to us immediately when we but fold our hands in prayer.

Mizar, a star in the Big Dipper, is 78 light years away, it takes it light that many years to reach us. On my 78th birthday it will wish me greetings from the day of my birth. God daily comes to us in the guiding and guarding of fellow believers.

Looking forward to a Christmas present or two? Presents can be a symbol, very tangible of some one’s love for you. However, I was somewhat bothered by a commercial in which a little girl turns into a giant snowball barreling down the road, only to be materialized in front of a store. While I’d like to think she may be buying for others, it almost seems a picture of idol worship.

We are to love the Creator not the creation. When the presents are opened and long forgotten, will God’s abiding Presence still linger.

Henry David Thoreau once said, “It’s not what one looks at, but what one sees.” I once heard that a missionary was not just one that crosses the seas, but one that sees the cross.

May you know our Lord’s daily Advent, and take Jesus with you in whatever plans, persons or projects that will be your mission this month.

Don’t lose the Presence in the presents.