When the Ordinary is Extraordinary
Read Matthew 25:31-45
Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. – Luke 24:35
Advent is a time of staging. We try to prepare the most beautiful tree, the exceptionally decorated home, the most wonderful presents, the perfect baked goodies, the feast of gastronomical delights, and the list goes on and on… as does the stress of creating the “Perfect Christmas”—that fictional place we think we can best experience the birth of our newborn King. We try so very hard to create the flawless Christmas season, making heart-warming memories for ourselves and our loved ones by staging a place for Christ to come into our lives.
I have a dear friend, a woman in her 80’s, who is experiencing memory issues so very common for folks in their mature years. When I called her the other week, she was somewhat winded from raking leaves in her yard, but was very excited because she had found a little baby under the leaves, somewhat buried in the dirt. After I determined that this was not a REAL baby, she began explaining to me how the baby was a “cute little baby, a pretty little baby, and it has its own little bed with it too!” After countless questions, I asked if this was a baby Jesus in the manger. She replied, “Well, maybe so…. You’ll have to look at it when you come out here next time.” Several days later, I saw the baby she found, which was in fact, the baby Jesus from a long ago forgotten Nativity Scene. She was delighted with it and put it in a place of honor in her home where she discovers it daily and rejoices with each discovery.
I thought about this incident in relation to the staging that we do for Advent. Baby Jesus came to my friend while she was performing an ordinary task in her life – raking leaves. There was no fanfare, or staging, yet she takes great delight in the visitor in her home. It seems to me that it is in the ordinary, mundane aspects of life that Christ can be found. He came to the world as a peasant, an ordinary person of first century Palestine. People didn’t find Him on a throne in Jerusalem, where they were looking for Him, but rather, in the ordinary places of everyday life. Those walking with Him to Emmaus didn’t recognize Him until He broke bread with them – a symbolic act for Christians today, but ordinary at that time. And, like my friend, many of them didn’t realize His true identity. Nonetheless, He was God clothed in humanity – the Word made flesh.
I am not saying that it’s foolish to prepare for Christmas with lovely decorations, special foods, and other trappings of the season. But I AM suggesting that perhaps, we should look for Christ where we don’t expect to find Him — in the ordinary, routine tasks of our daily lives: in raking the leaves… shopping for groceries… doing the laundry… as well as in the face of an elderly person… the cry of the hungry… the needs of the lonely. And when He is revealed, we should rejoice and honor our King.
Prayer: Lord, help us to prepare our hearts to receive You this Advent season. Let us not become absorbed with the tangible trappings of the season, but experience Your Coming in the ordinary activities of our daily lives. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Finding Christ in those around us and serving them in love.
Becky Walker, Covenant Class
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