Expectation, Surprise and Welcome

Here is an article I just handed in for our church newsletter:

If Advent is really our season of expecting, then Christmas is the season of surprise, for it is in Christmas that our expectations are turned upside down. Of everything I love about Christmas, the presents, the carols, the candy, the family traditions, what I most love is the surprise of Christmas. I love the surprise because it is not an out of the blue, unheard of, shocking, surprise. It is the sort of surprise that Aristotle said should punctuate every drama, the surprise that you should have seen coming, the surprise that you were totally prepared for, and the surprise that you still missed. This is the welcomed, surprise of Christmas

In an excellent, little book, Liturgy for Living, authors Charles P. Price and Louis Weil make this observation about Advent and Christmas, "The background of Advent is the kingdom of God, the rule of God over his creation, which is said to be "at hand." One prepares for judgment in the presence of a great king, and when advent is over, one confronts the child in the manger." This is the surprise of Christmas, our king comes as a newborn. All of our preparation was right, the Old Testament helped us to see it, and yet we are still surprised, and we welcome this surprising baby of Christmas.

It is in welcoming the surprise of Christmas that we begin to get eyes to see the ways in which God's kingdom is full of all sorts of other surprises constantly breaking in around us, in ways we have prepared for, and in ways we could never be ready for. God surprises us with family, with gifts, with old friends, with loss, with stillness, with peace, with stress… and it is in the midst of all these surprises the God of Christmas surprisingly welcomes us, in the still, small, cooing of a babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes.