A Slowness to the Season

One aspect of Christmas that I often forget is the slowness of the season. What I mean is this: there always seems to be a period of slowness as a pregnancy comes to full term. The mother is very ready to give birth. And, the child is in tighter and tighter of circumstances in the womb. Time must have slowed for Mary as she awaited the birth of her Lord. She must have felt very ready before the hour finally came. She must have felt the desire to give birth and have this precious, worthy Baby in her arms.

I would like to think that we can emulate the slowness of the season—as Mary experienced it. We can think about the preparations. Just like preparations for a newborn baby, do we have everything ready? There is a yearning to make preparations. But, they don’t make us less ready for the hour of celebrating our Savior’s birth, as if a to do list must tear us away from the season—they can make us more ready as we feel increased readiness. Though I know that time does not go by slowly, I think that we can allow our seasonal preparations to feel like the preparations for a newborn: they make us so expectant.

Slowness can also come in the form of waiting for the actual day. We make preparations, we travel, and we put up lights as a sign of the season’s illumination of our souls. All of this is done in preparation for a particular day of celebration. God had a few things prepared for the birth of his Son—the Shepherds, the star, and the angels, to name a few. Even though our preparations are for a celebration and not a birth, I think that the preparations can make us eagerly anticipate the day of celebration. Perhaps we can key into the slowness of the season here too. We are awaiting a day, a particular time, and it won’t come sooner than it’s scheduled.

Everywhere we look, there seem to be Advent devotionals or the encouragement to read the gospels, Isaiah, or the birth accounts in particular—Scripture makes us ready for the season, as do church sermons that have helped us meditate on the coming of Jesus. They all prepare us for a special day of the Baby’s arrival—of celebration of the birth of God. There is a slowness and a lingering that we can take over our spiritual preparations as well. This is a time of year when I often think even more about the people around me who aren’t walking with Jesus—taking time in prayer for them and hoping for their salvation. Scripture and sermons and Bible reading and prayer all make us ready.

It seems that we can mimic the slowness that describes those few days before birth—the deep and abiding readiness for the baby to come. It seems that we can take up our celebratory preparations and our spiritual preparations to make us feel ready while we ponder this special birth.

The slowness of the last period of a pregnancy was mirrored, I think in the slowness of the time of Jesus’ upbringing. He had a childhood. He had a career. He had a life—all before his public ministry. He must have felt so very ready in this gestational stage of his life to do what he was born to do. I wonder if he, in his humanness, felt the time slow as the day and hour of his ministry drew near.

Slowness can help us; pause can ready us. There is an inherent slowness to this season. And, I think that we are wise to let it come upon us. Just as Jesus’ life ushered forth into a period of public ministry, we can have seasons of time that are preparing us for more of what God wants us to do. Are you in a period of preparation? Are you in a period of becoming readied? Are you in a season of slowness before a new stage of life starts?

This season we call Advent reminds us that there are seasons of slowness before seasons of work and calling. Mary held the Christ child closely in her womb while she waited, waited, and waited for his birth—to hold the precious child, her Lord. Jesus lived a life of waiting all before he picked up his ministry. There is a slowness that is precious for our souls. A slowness of remembrance of Christ. A slowness of remembrance that we belong to God, for his work and purpose. A slowness before the celebration breaks forth. A slowness before we are led into another phase of life.

Let’s allow our preparations tune us into our readiness, as God prepares us to see Christ’s birth freshly and as we are gathering ourselves for what God has for us in the new year of walking afresh with this Jesus. Take up these moments as we wait for the celebration of our Savior’s first breath and gracious life.