What Advent Is All About

The season of Advent is usually the time we also receive Christmas cards - although not as many any more. Just as email has replaced snail mail, so too has Facebook (though I'm not on it) replaced the Christmas letters that come in Christmas cards as the preferred method of updating folks on what's happened this past year. But we still get some and yesterday we received the card that is almost

always the first one each year, from some friends in Philadelphia. Opening the card and the letter, I immediately remarked to Laurie that the letter was shorter than usual. Well, turns out that was because it was all this now widow could manage to write as she told us of her husband's stroke and then death two days later . . . just one month ago. Sadness. I had even thought to myself last week that something must be wrong since we hadn't received their card yet!

Christmas letters have often been called brag letters, telling folks how great the kids are and all the accomplishments of the year. But a sad Christmas letter in Advent . . . well, it seems to me, that's what Advent is all about. Jesus coming for us. To save us from sin and the wages of sin, death. So a letter like this . . . it's why we celebrate Christmas. And it's the greatest gift this grieving widow will receive this year - the gift of knowing that her dear husband is celebrating this Christmas with Christ. And knowing that she will, too, someday. With him again.

So yeah, letters like this - this is what Advent is all about.