We have now entered the Christian season of Advent celebrated in Christian communities throughout the world. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin word adventus meaning “coming”. It is a season of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the birth of Jesus taking in the four Sundays preceding Christmas.
For Christians, the season of Advent serves as a reminder of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of their Messiah, as well as the waiting for Christ’s return to the earth.
And so, we have now started on our journey towards Christmas Day. And our individual journeys will have some commonalities with each other, such as planning where we will celebrate the day, deciding who will come, choosing what we will eat and what presents to buy. However, I want to look back for a moment on the events surrounding the birth of the Christ-child Jesus because those experiences also consisted of journeys, and they may bring messages of challenge and hope for us to contemplate.
First, we find a disturbed, soon to be married, pregnant Mary travelling eighty miles from her home in Nazareth to the home of Zacharias and Elizabeth in the south country. She made this journey following an angel telling her she had been chosen by God to be the mother of the Son of God. Mary must have felt the need to speak to her cousin about this strange blessing the Lord had placed upon her. How Mary travelled this distance we are not told. It could have been by donkey or on foot. But I am sure it would have been under great difficulty given her condition. It would have been even more difficult for Mary to return to her home heavy with child, because she had remained with Elizabeth for three months!
Not long after returning to Nazareth Mary was married to Joseph who had also been visited by an angel telling him of the news of the birth of this special baby. Still heavily pregnant, Mary and Joseph were required to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem to participate in a census called for by the Roman emperor Augustus Caesar. This was a long journey down the mountains to the river Jordan, then following the Jordan almost to its end, and then climbing the mountains of Judah to the town of Bethlehem. What a journey this must have been for the young couple! Soon after their arrival in Bethlehem the baby Jesus was born.
On the same night Jesus was born some shepherds were tending their sheep in a field near Bethlehem. They were also visited by an angel who told them of the birth of “a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.” Upon hearing this news, the shepherds immediately decided to travel to Bethlehem to see the child and worship him.
A further journey undertaken a little time after the birth of Jesus was the long trek of some very wise men who studied the stars. They lived in a country many miles to the east of Judea. One night they saw a strange star shining in the sky; and in some way learnt that the coming of the star meant a king was soon to be born in the land of Judea. These men felt the call of God to go to Judea and there see this newborn king. They took the long journey, with camels and horses.
Each of these groups of people had a goal before them as they started out on their journeys. The common element in their goals was to see and be present with this holy child, God’s son.
In terms of distances travelled I would guess that most of us in our lives have physically travelled many more kilometres than the above people. We have all had different goals to achieve on our journeys. I would hope that one of those goals was to be with and journey with the Christ.
However, just as these characters were tied together in the miraculous birth of Christ, their journeys did not end at Bethlehem. They had continuing lives to live. Joseph, Mary and Jesus had to flee to Egypt for safety. The shepherds would have had to return to the field to continue taking care of their sheep. And the wise men would have been obligated to return to their responsibilities in their homeland.
Our visits to Bethlehem each Christmas are not an ending in our lives. We need to journey beyond Bethlehem and follow the call of Christ to serve Him to the end of our days. No matter our age, our lives must continue to journey onwards.
I was impressed by this statement made by Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) diplomat and wife of US President Franklyn D. Roosevelt: “I could not at any age be content to take my place in a corner by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. One must never, for whatever reason, turn one’s back on life.”
May each of us plan to go beyond Bethlehem this Christmas, turn our eyes toward the future, going beyond today into tomorrow guided by the hand of our God.
Bill Gillard