My Band of Brothers and the Advent Relived

Occasionally, I make the five-hour trek northward to my hometown. While there, I meet up with some of my high school buddies for breakfast.

It’s amazing how we can pick up where we left off. Sometimes it’s like we were never apart. We yuck it up, renew old acquaintances, and catch up on each other’s lives.

Inevitably, we tell a few stories that never get old. These are stories we’ve been retelling for forty or fifty years. We still laugh just as hard as when we first told them (or we still shake our heads just as much). Either way, they are a reminder of the history we share.

“They told me the same stories over and over again.”

Those stories remind me of my first parish. I often visited the nursing homes in my area as many pastors do. There were a few lovely, elderly ladies that stand out in my mind from that era of my life. They each would tell me the same stories every time I visited them.

I would patiently listen to those stories, nod, and act surprised by the ending. Then I would politely ask clarifying questions as if I didn’t already know the answers. It was a ritual I grew to enjoy.

This past Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent. I was reminded that it is the first Sunday in the Christian calendar year. A new cycle has begun.

We do the same thing every year. During Advent, we look back to the coming of Jesus and look forward to his return. In the short term, we gear up for the celebration of his birth.

We tell many of the same stories. You know the ones. Stories about John the Baptist, Mother Mary preparing for the babe, and Joseph trying to keep his family afloat. Along with that, we sing the same songs. Each of these things keeps a spark alive within us.

Some of it is nostalgic—harking back to childhood memories or more recent happenings. But all of it adds up to much more than nostalgia. Advent is the time for stories and songs and rituals that never get old.

“Advent means a coming into view or an arrival.”

The word “advent” means a coming into view or an arrival. While Jesus is always in view for a Christian, we use these four weeks leading into Christmas as a time to remind ourselves of how we got here. It’s a time of joyous anticipation as well as quiet hopefulness.

The Advent Season is really indispensible. If we didn’t tell these stories over and over again, we would soon lose sight of them. If we didn’t cherish the memories, we would undoubtedly become stale in our faith and in our daily walk.

We Christians are a band of brothers (and sisters) not unlike my old high school buddies and those nursing home beauties. So we retell the stories. In doing so, we help imbed the reality of the greatest occurrence in human history into our souls. God comes in the flesh, and our lives are never the same again.

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