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…

Chocolate: God’s Bounty

Read: 1 John 2:26 - 3:3

Christmas without chocolate is like … chocolate without chocolate! Nobody can really tell why chocolate and Christmas go so hand in hand. Is the luxury aspect of chocolate? The sweetness? The ability to make a nativity scene out of it? (And yes you can buy a nativity scene made from chocolate!)

What is your favourite? Are you the sort of person who gets into the tin and looks for the soft centres or the toffee chews? The brightly coloured wrappers holding the chocolate delights bring joy to children of all ages.

However, it is official, the sizes of tins and amount of sweets have been decreasing… you just don’t as much bang for your buck. In fact with a Selection box you are just as well buying a multipack of bars to give to someone… although it’s just not the same! A chocolate orange bar or a chocolate orange? Matchmakers, After 8s, Ferrero Rocher… all these speak to us of generosity and luxury if we receive them as gifts.

Look at what John writes to the ‘children’ here. Doesn’t he write of the goodness of God and what we are to receive through him?

Through the love of God shown to us in Christ we have an example of lasting generosity that we can show to others. We have something that never decreases in size and only gets bigger. The love of God brings delight and joy that outshines the most colourful of wrapper. We don’t even need to select only one as it is all available to us.

Next time you have a wee Christmas chocolate take a moment to give thanks for the bounty of God’s love for you.

Pray for those who don’t know the sweetness of God.