Have you been to a carol service yet? Or have you heard Christmas carols being sung? I expect most places you've been over the last fortnight have been full of Christmas decorations and music.
Those of us who find Advent a very beautiful and profound season, separate from Christmas, find it a bit strange singing or doing Christmas things ahead of time. To some of us it feels like it takes away from Advent. It feels a bit like celebrating Easter during Lent, or celebrating your birthday a fortnight early! Some of us really like maintaining a sense of waiting and expectation during Advent, and then enjoying Christmas carols and celebrations over the twelve days of Christmastide.
Quite a few of us are keen to help people enter more into the separate season of Advent. But sometimes something like a Christmas carol service ahead of Christmas can't be helped. I realised a few years ago that this in itself can help us reflect on something beautiful about God.
The Bible is full of stories of God coming when least expected. Jesus even says that his second coming will take us by surprise.
God isn't a tame God that we can have carefully arranged appointments with that we count down to on a calendar. God's loving and faithful nature always stays the same, but there's a freeness and unpredictability about our God. God doesn't wait until we're ready for an encounter with Him.
In Advent we talk about preparing for God, which is important, but at the same time God is extremely eager to come round or come in or be in relationship with us no matter what condition our homes or hearts are in! When it comes to our hearts and personal lives, God often waits to be invited in out of respect for us. But in general God is eager to be encountered and will show up in all kinds of places at all kinds of times.
Also, as much as we focus on waiting for God, especially at this time of year, there's an element of God's loving and passionate nature that "can't wait"!
In one of the most beautiful parables Jesus told, the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), Jesus depicts God as a loving Father running out to meet his wayward son. The son was still a way off from the house but his Father ran all the way out to meet him and embrace him as soon as he spotted him. The son can represent each of us individually and he can also represent us as a human race.
In the Church of England, one of the prayers we often pray after receiving communion says,
"While we were still far off, you met us in your Son and brought us home."
Next time you hear or sing Christmas carols during Advent, you might like to use the experience to contemplate our God who in love and passion and eagerness runs out to meet us before we're there yet!