A Year of Sundays: Week 4

Sunday 4: The Fourth Week of Advent

The fourth Sunday of Advent concludes the season with a focus on love.

The popular song, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, describes what one person thinks Christmas looks like. We hear that:

• The stores have candy canes
• The streets glow from the lights
• There are toys in every store
• There are big trees in the Grand Hotel and the park
• Homes (including your own) have holly on their front doors where inside Barney and Ben wish for a pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots, Janice and Jen hope for dolls that'll talk and will go for a walk, and Mom and Dad can't wait for the kids to go back to school
  

It's not quite as dreamy when you remove the music, is it?

Christmas looks different to a Christian.

Christmas looks like Elizabeth, a woman who could not produce an heir, and her husband Zechariah, who loved her so much that he remained married with her long past the time that a child ever seemed possible to him (see Luke 1).

Christmas looks like Elizabeth's cousin, Mary, a woman who found herself unexpectedly pregnant under surprising circumstances.  Her fiance, Joseph, loved her so much that he intended to break his engagement privately instead of publicly shaming her as he had the right to do (Matthew 1).

Christmas looks like the God who used this family to fulfill His promises to all of humanity by giving a child to Elizabeth and then to Mary.

Christmas looks like love.