Belmont University Advent GuideSample

Listen, everyone, listen.
Remember.
Watch closely.
Pay attention.
Slow down.
Focus on one thing.
What do you see?

In our world, in our culture, slowing down and paying attention to one thing is quite rare. Walking through the Advent season, even when we are working to anticipate the coming of the Christ child, we find ourselves moving faster and faster. Our “to do” lists run to the next page, and while we dream of sitting and enjoying the season, sometimes we find ourselves instead simply falling asleep anytime we slow down.

The psalmist and the gospel writer beckon us to listen, to slow down, to ponder taking the long view—of what our lives are worth and of what God might be up to. In Psalm 49 we are asked to take a step back and see how living hungry for wisdom is different from living only for oneself.

It compares hunger for wisdom and honor with hunger for property and power. Clearly the first is the better path but neither path keeps us from death, from the fragility of life. Some call this pessimistic. But I wonder if there is not deep wisdom for daily living in all these texts. What if we lived with a looser grip on so much of to which we have given importance?

The Gospel of Mark helps us with these questions by pointing us to the “great anticipator,” John the Baptist. He got himself worked up on a regular basis trying to get folks ready for the One who was coming along behind him. And he never seemed to lose track of the fact that this one who was following him belonged in front of us all.

Each year as we walk toward the coming of the Christ child into our lives in fresh and new ways, we pray that our hearts and minds will be open to the transforming power of the incredible and creative One who dreamed up such a plan—to send His Son to live as a human and show us how it is done, how one could live, connected to God, fully alive, open-hearted even when brokenhearted. May it be so in our hearts today.

Judy Skeen
Professor of Religion