Nesting for Advent

I have been eagerly awaiting the start of the Advent season this year. Well, it’s not like I don’t always get excited about Advent (like, since I was 5 and spent every weekday in December pouring over the “toy” section of the Service Merchandise catalog), but this year I have been particularly eager.  Part of it, I think, is that paying attention to the church calendar from All Saint’s Day through Christ the King Sunday has “prepared my heart” to be open to the acceptance of the Christ child.

Anyway, there are two little nuggets I gleaned last week that I wanted to share. This post from Blog in my Eye and the chapel message given Friday by my colleague Roger Lundin (available for download here).  These things together have really gotten me thinking about Christ entering into this world as a baby. OK, there is a “duh” factor here, I admit. But God, even as an attempt to reconcile us to him,  certainly did not have to enter this world as a baby. He could have just as easily come as an adult. Or a teenager, or, at least, as a child old enough to do more than eat, sleep, and poop. I mean, isn’t this the same God who took Elijah to heaven in a chariot of fire? Wouldn’t Christ descending in a chariot of fire been a little more apropriate (if not a little redundant)?

But no. A baby. Completely helpless. Completely vulnerable.  Dependent on his parents for survival.  Can you wrap your mind around that? God on earth completely dependent on humans for survival? I can’t, not really. Just as an aside, I love the way God acts in ways that remain so completely foreign to our logical way of thinking and ordering the world that it’s downright insulting to us.

Anyway, I appreciate how Lainey and Roger have reminded me of my own parenting experience.  I remember eagerly awaiting each of my children coming into the world. I remember pulling out the sonograms and showing them to all our friends, I remember listening to the baby monitor at night, I remember playing “tag” with my kids while they were still in Lainey’s belly.   I remember painting the walls, finding the right art to hang, buying curtains. I remember learning the difference between a “onesie” and a “jumper.” In short, I remember nesting- that time you go through when you prepare your house for the new lil’ nipper.  And how you can’t really think about anything else.  And I remember the weight of the responsibility, and the anxiety that I’m not good enough/ don’t make enough money/ am not ready… (well, I can’t leave out the bad stuff)

Then the joy and miracle of the birth. And the flood of love that almost paralyzed me when I saw my kids for the first time. Held them, all swaddled up and warm. Constantly giving them my pinky to grab. So in love with them when they fell asleep on my chest…

Ok , there’s a point here. I think, in part, God came as a baby to tell us something about what he wants our relationship to be. He wants that kind of love between us- not just that he loves us like a parent loves a child (which he certainly does)  but that we should love him as a parent loves a child.

Flips things on end, doesn’t it? Well, I’m going to work on that this season. I’m going to nest.