Ponder: A good start along the path

“So yeah, most of what I loved about this time of year was secular and perhaps even a bit shallow. I had no sense of Advent at all, except that it was the churchy name for getting ready for Christmas. But even in the middle of all the hoopla in my thoroughly secularized Christmas, there was a strange kind of grace imparted to me. There was a magic and wonder to the whole thing that was not just about Santa Claus. It was not intellectual. It was an experience, a feeling even, almost imperceptible, that Christmas meant that the world could change. Christmas meant that old things would die and something new and larger than life would be born. Christmas meant the beginning of the end of evil, as good was being born into the world — not exactly the doctrine of the Incarnation in all its fullness, but a good start along the path.”

Jonathan Mitchican, “Stop Being Jerks about Advent.”  Covenant, 15 Dec. 2015