John weeks looked into the origins of the word Advent (the church season we are in right now) and this is what he discovered…

The word Advent comes from the Latin word, “advenire”, conjugated as “adventus” which is a combination word of “ad” meaning, “to” or “toward” and “venire”, “come” which is conjugated as ventus, which means more specifically, “coming”. Combining them gets us literally, “toward the coming.” The Latin definition is, “(a thing) about to happen.” Expectation would be an appropriate synonym here.

Funk & Wagnall’s defines the lower case version of advent as, “a coming or arrival, as of any important event or person.” So you can see that the definition has not changed significantly since it was taken from the original Latin.

We are preparing for the advent of Jesus. Not just in the Christmas story but also the advent of our King at the end of time. After all we profess in the Apostles’ Creed that, “He will come again to judge the living and the dead.”

Christmas is the reminder that God comes to us! Sure, he came to us 2000 years ago in Bethlehem when Jesus was born! We also beleive that he will return one day to take us home. In the meantime, the Holy Spirit dwells within us and promises to never leave us.

If we know that Christmas is coming and that Jesus will return one day… let me ask the question, “Are you ready?”

If you don’t know the answer to the question I am asking, let me tell you by turning to one of our favorite Christmas hymns, “Joy to the World.” The first verse tells us everything we need to know. “Let every heart, prepare him (Jesus) room.”

It is that simple. Make room for Jesus in your heart. Not just once, but each and every day. By the way, you might need to push out some other stuff to create more room for Jesus but I will leave that to you to figure out.

Let your heart be a manger to lay the Christ child in.

The promise of Advent is real, don’t be the inn, be the stable. Make room for Jesus today.

Happy Advent,

Pr. Ben