Season of Advent

With exams out of the way, I can finally soak in the wonderful season of Advent for at least a week before Christmas! Exam-time was really intense and I have not felt such a release of relief in a while after my last CTC paper last Thursday. :p The next couple of days was just about resting in all aspects after pushing ourselves hard and long with adrenalin - everyone had the same experience of still feeling tired even after sleeping long hours after the exams!

I was especially looking forward to this time because everywhere around were just reminders of the coming season... invitations to marvel at the miracle and beauty of incarnation, when God was made flesh. Just a week before exams, we witnessed the first snow of the season! It was just beautiful... covering the houses and streets in a blanket of white!

But it went as quickly as it came... By the next day after a weekend of snow, everything melted away and the streets were back to normal... such is an example of the notoriously bizarre Vancouver weather! :p But apparently it will be back as it is predicted to be one of the coldest winters in Canada and that Christmas will be a white one this year... I'm hoping for that! So long as I'm warm and indoors with a good view of the snow at that point... heh.

Also, because many students were returning home to other parts of the world for the holidays immediately when term ended, we had all our Christmas gatherings and fellowships interspersed with our study 'cramming' time... which was initially frustrating, cos I figured I couldn't be fruitful at either. I was even tempted to skip the programs to bury myself in my books - which I thankfully did not do, because as it turned out, the experience was quite the contrary! Having things this way really helped me not to be sucked into all the studying, and pulled me back to prepare my heart for Christmas, and certainly made me look forward to Christmas with greater anticipation and eagerness. :) Sure reminds me of the Mary-Martha dilemma... :p

For the past 4 Sundays at First Baptist, we have been lighting Advent Candles each week and singing carols of Advent which really draws out the season by slowing us down... and through this, I do wonder if this time of Advent perhaps holds just as much significance as Christmas itself, if not more... Often Christmas greets and leaves us in a flurry of activity, and once gone, we are often bewildered by the fact that Christmas is indeed over! I do suppose that even as God desires of us to spend our time now purposefully anticipating His Second Advent, and not be caught by surprise when it does actually come... similarly it could be a good idea to start 'practicing' - by how well we discipline ourselves in preparation for Christmas each year during this time of Advent... :)

Yet another illustration of Advent was given by Rev. Tom Cowan a few weeks back when he shared how we are now living 'in between two advents' in biblical history which is not cyclical, but rather linear - awaiting the final act of history. As such, our anticipation should not be characterised by a 'hanging around' kind of waiting... but an expectant moment of pause. What a great mental picture eh?? :p

Will leave you now with some 'Advent Snippets' at Regent...