Tyler Stricklan
It is almost here — the precipice of the season. I use the word "precipice" for a reason. If we aren't careful, we will miss it. Today is the final Sunday of Advent. Soon, families and friends will gather to celebrate Christmas.
Some will head out for a vacation away, while others will sit alone, holding their breath, waiting for the day to pass. I have done both of these. Nothing evokes the spirit of Christmas to me more than the shared experiences of my adolescent life, bouncing from house to house over three days to see family and friends across the St. Louis metroplex.
Early mornings turned to late nights, while people shared the same old stories. Stories that you have heard and laughed at an endless amount of times. We celebrated family, exchanged presents, and consumed double our body weight in food and drinks.
Each year, Christmas would pass, December would come to a close, and a new year would dawn. Hindsight is 20/20. In the celebration, it felt like we missed something; it felt hollow. I didn't notice the hollowness growing up and cannot pinpoint the moment when the hollowness became the prevailing feeling.
At some point, the fun soured. I felt more like Scrooge or the Grinch before the end of their stories. The check engine light was a gut feeling on Christmas Day 2018 or 2019. I was driving with my wife from one place to the next and saw the exit for Highway 70.
Every emotion I could muster urged me to hit my blinker, take the exit, and drive the three and half hours back home to Kansas City. I was disconnected and depressed. I wanted something more from the day or the season.
Santa could not just wiggle his nose and make some magic happen. I decided to soldier on, choked down what I could, and was ready for the day to end. Standing on the edge of a cliff can be exhilarating, and the view can be captivating. However, it can also be dangerous.
The precipice of the season became hazardous for me. It left me with a whole bunch of longing and confusion. I missed it; I had missed it for most of my life. I felt despair, chaos, moroseness, and loathing in a season built on hope, peace, joy, and love. Something had to change.
Advent, another name for the Christmas season in church circles, is our remembrance of Jesus' birth or arrival and our anticipation of his return. Have you ever waited an abnormal amount of time for something? I don't mean like a delayed Amazon package or counting down the days until your vacation. I mean, years and years hoping for something to change.
That is the feeling of Advent. It's longing, wrapped in expectation. It is God in the form of a fetus, growing for 40 weeks, coming into the world screaming and crying, having an umbilical cord cut, and being swaddled and placed in a manger.
It's the birthing pains of a young mother and her husband aiding her. Christmas isn't a silent night, but it is a holy one. It's the experience of chaos in a world created for good and destined for salvation.
Hope, peace, joy, and love in its most authentic self-entered the world to restore what was lost. That is it; that is the precipice of the season. A messy birth in an awkward familial situation leads to the redemption of all creation.
The cliff's edge can be exhilarating if we know what's coming next. If you want to know more about this hope, peace, joy, and love of Jesus, please check out a Christmas Eve service in the valley. I am saving you a seat at LifePoint's 5 p.m. or 6:30 p.m. service.
Tyler Stricklan is associate family pastor at LifePoint Church in Minden.