Advent and Toys

Many kids think that Christmas morning is the best morning of the year. I was one. I know. It is the morning they get the toys they have been longing for. I find, however, that the longing built into Christmas is part of what's good about it. Advent is about longing too. I've noticed something about both longing and toys. They both fan imagination into flame. They both require vision. One year, as a kid, I received a model train set (Marklin HO) for Christmas. My sister received some dolls she wanted. These were not real trains or real people. They were instruments for imagination. Whether we could identify the desire or not, my sister and I wanted to be able to expand our imaginations via these special toys.

The Advent of Christ is meant to do the same for us spiritually. There may be no toys in faith, but there is the seeing what can't be seen. Imagination is a raw ingredient for vision and a rehearsal for faith. Scripture demands imagination. Pretending turns to contending when the unseen is mixed with the certain hope of God's Word to generate faith. The Magi demonstrate this. They had all kinds of information, true and false. The Holy Spirit - and it had to be Him - used this mixture, combined with imagination and determination, to lead this group of gentile astronomers to meet and subsequently worship the newborn incarnation of the King of the Universe.

All great things begin with great vision. This is how God runs Creation. Idolatry cancels imagination. When we worship something we can control, we replace imagination with delusion and domination. Anything we worship or live for that is less than God is something that allows us to play the role of god ourselves. Sin blinds imagination with this desire for control. The little kid sitting with his new train set on Christmas Day is reaching out with his mind. I wonder sometimes if I can remember what this was like. Can I remember what it was like to ask, "what if?" The world, via our culture, sometimes hijacks imagination itself. Music, film, and video games look like they inspire imagination, but, by design, they often squelch it. As with so many other things, Advent and Christ stand as the antidote to what happens to us in this life and in this world. Come Lord Jesus and let my imagination worship You.

PRAYER: Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear what eyes and ears alone can't see or hear. Give me faith in You. Remove the fear the world attached to my imagination and replace it with Your love. Help me rely on You and Your Word more. Thank You, Jesus, for being more fascinating and satisfying than anything else in all Your Creation.

TOMORROW: Advent and Forgiveness