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Advent 2025 Reflection December 4

 I am writing this December 3 after looking at yesterday's post of a quote by Bonhoeffer. We might read it and say, "Oh, that's nice," but there really is nothing "nice and sweet" about it. 

In fact, as I enter my eighth decade of living, I wonder if we are far too worried about nice and sweet and polite. A lot of it comes from not wanting to "get in trouble." Case in point. Yesterday I was at a luncheon with former colleagues (I recently retired, and they still work there). I learned a past employee was applying for a job in the organization again. Even though the HR Director was sitting there I said, "I know my opinion doesn't matter, but I wouldn't contact him about the job." I'm sure some of them were horrified and thought I was losing it. I was just being real. I wouldn't have said it if still employed there. The applicant was not someone I would want to deal with again if I were a supervisor, and I had been their supervisor. 

One of my favorite clips on YouTube is R.C. Sproul saying, "What is wrong with you people?" Curmudgeonly, like the famous Festivus clip: "We start with the airing of grievances. I have a lot of problems with you people and you are going to hear about 'em."

I think Bonhoeffer's quote posted yesterday had a little bit of R.C. Sproul's and Jerry Stiller's spirit of "get real." The birth of a baby in Judea in 4-6 B.C. or thereabout is about the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, who existed in the Godhead since God existed--not fathomable to us. His human body made redemption possible and He is the same person in Revelation 19 coming to conquer. 

His lowliness is not eternal, but it was the reminder to us of our human position. 

I will reflect more on this in the future, but as a white evangelical middle class American woman baby boomer, I have spent Decembers under the cloud of Christmas expectations. This cloud was largely one I created or allowed myself to create. I don't need to do that, and never did. I hope that anything I do for Christmas now is to show love to those around me rather than some sort of weird cultural/religious obligation. 

My house is decorated, I'm having fellow class members over this Saturday; I'll go to a concert or two. Because I want to. I'll bake, celebrate early with "the kids," visit with friends. Life is no longer a competition; it never was. It is not keeping up with a unwritten list I have in my head because I think others expect it or it makes me correct in some way. I am free, I hope, to live joy. 

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