At Home In Advent

The following words for reflection are taken and adapted from “At Home In Advent - A domestic journey from Advent to Epiphany” from Gordon Giles (BRF - Bible Reading Fellowship). The entire book is available from Eden.co.uk and would be recommended to get a fuller experience of this time of devotion and meditation.

The purpose of these devotional is to give you something of an everyday object or motion which can focus our thinking through Advent. There are 3 sections:

Travelling in Advent
At Home in Advent
The run up to Christmas

This is a journey…

Death Certificate: Marking the end

Read: Revelation 21:1 - 7

OK, so this is not the most cheery of subjects, but if it was good enough for Dickens is good enough for us. Death. It has always struck me as strange that one of the most loved Christmas tales, A Christmas Carol, is really a story about death! And a Merry Christmas to you Mr Scrooge…

This topic is something no-one wants to talk about but everyone must face. However, maybe we do face it over this period of time. Many of us will take a moment to think of those who have left an empty chair round the Christmas table.

The tale that Dickens tells is told as a warning against those who only think of themselves, those who are the ‘haves’ overlooking the ‘have-nots’. It is a story told time again to encourage people to be generous in the now because the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come is hovering nearby.

These verses in Revelation are a picture of what will come to us all. Not as a spectre in the night, not a warning of a possible future. This picture will be a reality for all people at some time in the future. So today is the day to understand where God wants you to be. If we are in Christ we have no fear of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, we have a blessed assurance that come the final day we are welcomed in without question or hesitation.

Do you know of anyone facing a first Christmas without a loved one beside them? How can you bring them comfort? Pray for those who remember this time with loss that they may see the gain of Christ.