Texts: Isaiah 61:10-62:3; Luke 2:22-40
Growing up we had an Advent tradition in our house that is probably familiar to many of you as well. A few weeks before Christmas, my mother would have us clear off all the clutter that had been accumulating throughout the year on the hutch near the main entrance to our home. Once that was done, she would pull down from the attic a big box full of smaller unmarked cardboard boxes. One by one we would then carefully move the small boxes out onto the kitchen table. I think the fact that my brothers and I could never seem to remember after a whole year which unmarked box was which gave this normally mundane task a real sense of the mystery of ritual.
Finally, with the utmost care, one of us would open the first box, carefully sliding out the Styrofoam casing or bubble-wrap and exclaim something like, “I found an angel!” Or perhaps less excitedly, “I got a sheep.” Once we freed the Precious Moments figurine from its box, we’d place it on the cleared-off spot on the hutch where we thought it should go before returning to see what treasures the...