That was the theme of Aaron Bryant’s sermon at church today. Specifically, it was about how God was fully content with Jesus and how we can have that contentment of God through Jesus. Well, he said it better than that, but that’s the gist of it.

This holiday season, just about every ad you see, hear, and read will play off of an underlying discontent. The cure is to buy this car or that television or this deodorant or that mattress.

The only problem with that is the satisfaction from buying things is temporary. As you might have heard before, we all have a God-shaped vacuum inside of us that God and nothing else will fill.

Even though I know that (at least intellectually), I still want to find contentment through more stuff. My Amazon wish list isn’t quite as ridiculous as it used to be, but it’s still shows how stuff-obsessed I am even now.

If I look back to the Christmases of my childhood, I can probably remember about 5% of the presents I received. What I recall most are the memories of family and friends and, above all, hearing the Christmas story of God coming near in Jesus and loving it more and more and I began to understand it more and more.

So many presents and things that are supposed to bring true contentment will end up at a local Goodwill or even the local dumpster once they lose their appeal, but true contentment in God is something that will last through this and every holiday season.

“My soul lifts up the Lord! My spirit celebrates God, my Liberator! For though I’m God’s humble servant, God has noticed me. Now and forever, I will be considered blessed by all generations. For the Mighty One has done great things for me; holy is God’s name! From generation to generation, God’s lovingkindness endures for those who revere Him. God’s arm has accomplished mighty deeds. The proud in mind and heart, God has sent away in disarray. The rulers from their high positions of power, God has brought down low. And those who were humble and lowly, God has elevated with dignity. The hungry—God has filled with fine food. The rich—God has dismissed with nothing in their hands. To Israel, God’s servant, God has given help, As promised to our ancestors, remembering Abraham and his descendants in mercy forever” (Luke 1:46-56, The Voice).

It all started with one small yes to God, and the world was forever changed.

Christmas means Emmanuel, God with us. Advent is all about God incarnate in Jesus, because when we couldn’t get to God, God came to us. When we couldn’t be good enough, God in Jesus became good for us, perfection for our imperfection, holiness for our filthy rags.

God came near and has not left, nor will He ever.

“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas).

My pastor said that Christianity isn’t that you can get to God but that God in Jesus has come to you. 

Advent is waiting on that promised Messiah, confessing that we’re not capable on our own of making our way to God but that we’re in desperate need of a Savior.

When we couldn’t find a way out of the mess we’d made of ourselves and our lives, God in Jesus came to us, loved us in our mess and rescued us from that mess. 

“So if you believe deep in your heart that God raised Jesus from the pit of death and if you voice your allegiance by confessing the truth that ‘Jesus is Lord,’ then you will be saved! Belief begins in the heart and leads to a life that’s right with God; confession departs from our lips and brings eternal salvation” (Romans 10:9-10, The Voice).

That is the Gospel.

Before you let the madness of the commercialism of the season overtake you, just breathe deeply and relax. Remember this is the season that celebrates when God became small– small enough to see you at your weakest and lowliest and most insignificant.

It’s humbling to think that of all the forms God could have chosen to reveal His incarnation to humanity was in the form of a newborn baby. Not as a learned philosopher or as a strong champion or a fearless leader, but as a helpless infant.

All for the love of you and me.

Since it’s late and I’m pooped, here’s a picture of Peanut, my little tortie. She’s looking and feeling as relaxed as I hope to be shortly.

There’s something peaceful and restful about a sleeping cat or dog. Or any sleeping animal for that matter.

That’s why most everyone should have a pet. Excluding those who aren’t committed to taking care of one through old age. But that’s another topic for another day.

This is one little tortie who’s feeling right at home.

I’m back to where I first started my Doctor Who adventure. Technically, this is the tenth doctor, for those at home who are keeping score.

Long before . . . well, actually months before I began my Classic Doctor Who quest, I tentatively put my foot in the kiddie pool and check out Series 2 from my local library. Not to say that the new stuff is strictly kiddie stuff, but I started off with perhaps the most beloved of the doctors in the new era — David Tennant, with my favorite of the new companions, Billie Piper.

I hadn’t noticed before, but David’s doctor at times can summon forth the righteous indignation of Tom Baker’s incarnation. He can also recall shades of Peter Davison’s doctor at times.

My plan is to catch up at some point to the current series featuring the first ever female doctor, Jodie Whittaker. That may take a little while, but it will be worth it.

“IT WAS THOUSANDS of years ago and thousands of miles away, but it is a visit that for all our madness and cynicism and indifference and despair we have never quite forgotten. The oxen in their stalls. The smell of hay. The shepherds standing around. That child and that place are somehow the closest of all close encounters, the one we are closest to, the one that brings us closest to something that cannot be told in any other way. This story that faith tells in the fairytale language of faith is not just that God is, which God knows is a lot to swallow in itself much of the time, but that God comes. Comes here. ‘In great humility.’ There is nothing much humbler than being born: naked, totally helpless, not much bigger than a loaf of bread. But with righteousness and faithfulness the girdle of his loins. And to us came. For us came. Is it true—not just the way fairytales are true but as the truest of all truths? Almighty God, are you true?

When you are standing up to your neck in darkness, how do you say yes to that question? You say yes, I suppose, the only way faith can ever say it if it is honest with itself. You say yes with your fingers crossed. You say it with your heart in your mouth. Maybe that way we can say yes. He visited us.

The world has never been quite the same since. It is still a very dark world, in some ways darker than ever before, but the darkness is different because he keeps getting born into it. The threat of holocaust. The threat of poisoning the earth and sea and air. The threat of our own deaths. The broken marriage. The child in pain. The lost chance. Anyone who has ever known him has known him perhaps better in the dark than anywhere else because it is in the dark where he seems to visit most often” (Frederick Buechner, The Clown in the Belfry).

“Dear God,
Speak gently in my silence.
When the loud outer noises of my surroundings
and the loud inner noises of my fears
keep pulling me away from you,
help me to trust that you are still there
even when I am unable to hear you.
Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying:
“Come to me, you who are overburdened,
and I will give you rest…
for I am gentle and humble of heart.”
Let that loving voice be my guide.
Amen” (Henri Nouwen).

“The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were ‘gods’ and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said” (C. S. Lewis).