Busy or Beholding?—

Busy. The word usually follows a justification regarding an absence, a lack of service, or a dropped responsibility. It is often a bedfellow of self-absorption as well. “I’m sorry that I didn’t put more thought into your birthday, I’ve just been so busy.” “I’m sorry that I forgot to check on that for you, I just got busy.” “I’m sorry I couldn’t make your anniversary party. We’ve been so busy.”

I recently have been struck by its lie. Is busyness the issue, or is it that I prioritize my comfort, my desires, and, well, me? Busyness has become the muttered word as I scramble my way to sit on a throne that doesn’t belong to me. It is the idol that promises control, security, and self-worth but leaves me empty as I look back on harried days, weeks, and months. Busyness is the opposite of God tenderly calling, “Be still and know that I am God.”

So let us go back in time when Christians surely lived simpler, slower, and sweeter lives. The saints of the early Church must have had everything properly ordered in their lives and worshiped in purity and holiness, right? Scripture tells us otherwise: the people on the road to Jerusalem had their dead to bury and farewells to say before they could follow Jesus. Martha was too busy readying her home to take a moment to sit at Jesus’s feet. Let’s not forget the prodigal son’s pious older brother who had been working while his little brother played! It was indeed the early Church, over 1700 years ago, that instituted Advent as a way to make room for a holy space in the weeks leading to Christmas, reminding people to turn their hearts away from the idols of busyness and self-absorption.

Let’s now fast forward to the twenty-first century. Advent has come to mean decorations being unpacked and hung, Christmas songs on the radio, travel, concerts, plays, meal planning, and last-minute gifts being purchased. Busyness! Thus, the Church continues to practice the observance of Advent to not only push back against man’s idols and misplaced priorities but at the same time to say, “Behold, the wondrous mystery of God as the baby in the manger, wriggling in His new, flesh-bound body and as the Savior straining His newborn eyes to focus on the young face of His gentle mother. He was and is the Almighty, come to begin the harsh and foreign journey where He would become personally acquainted with the effects of the curse, even to the point of death.”

For over 1700 years, the Church has in varying forms and to different degrees, set apart this season, an adventus, to call her people to rest, to be still, and to behold the miraculous arrival of her Ruler, King, and Sovereign, as a baby, a blessing, a miracle. So, friends, can we push back against the checklists? Against human expectations? Can we behold Him first in our days and our lives, especially during Advent? We cannot. But Christ in us, sets our faces to gaze upon the baby in the hay. He opens our ears to hear His voice, soft and gentle. He places our hands upon the rough, broken wood of the manger and calls to our minds the final wood upon which He would one day be laid. And then He says, “I am coming back with a trumpet and in glory. I came as a baby to seek and save you and I am coming again to bring you home to be with Me.”

How can we cling to busyness and self-absorption as He reveals Himself to us this season? How can we say that anything else is more important than beholding Him as our Savior, come to us as a baby? Let us make room in our hearts to wonder on His first coming, to prepare for His second coming, and finally, to join with the saints before us, singing:

“Come, behold the wondrous mystery

In the dawning of the king

He the theme of Heaven’s praises

Robed in frail humanity

In our longing, in our darkness

Now, the light of life has come

Look to Christ who condescended

Took on flesh to ransom us.” 1

1.  Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, and Michael Bleecker, “Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery,” © 2013 Getty Music Publishing/Love Your Enemies Publishing.