I’ve heard it all before

by Major Lauren Hodgson

How can we experience the story of Advent as if for the first time?

In case you haven’t heard, Christmas is coming. We all love Christmas. The story is one we know so well, whether we hear about it sitting in the pew on a Sunday morning or listening to Linus in the classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. Could it be possible to know it too well?

Around 1990, Kellogg’s had a slogan for its cornflakes: “Taste them again for the first time.” Battle Creek, Mich., the birthplace of cornflakes, was the source for America’s breakfast menu, with every grain, fruit flavor, color, and shape invading the cereal bowl. Kellogg’s wanted the public to revisit the simplicity of cornflakes— to look at the cereal from a fresh perspective as if they’d never experienced the unpretentious flakes before.

Maybe we all need a dose of “hearing the Christmas story again for the first time” to approach this account with wide-eyed wonder. Don’t blow off this opportunity. Dust off the imagination you had as a child. Rediscover the surprise and amazement stifled by the mandate to stop daydreaming or grow up. Let your mind be open to the viewpoints of the Advent characters and don’t just hear the story but feel what they must have felt.

A personal perspective

We look at life through the eyes of narrative— our own personal narrative. When we can place a person, situation, or thought in the context of story, our story, we can frame it and arrive at a conclusion, but our perspective shades that conclusion. Labeling has become an art in today’s world. We are identified by where we grew up, how we were brought up, what our belief system is—you get the idea. Something happens within us when we take the time to know someone and really understand their story, perspective, and viewpoint. When we can see life through the eyes of another, it is amazing how God’s grace and mercy stir within us in a way we never knew before.

Have you ever imagined what it would be like to be Mary when she received word of carrying the Son of God? Your doubts, fears, acceptance, and holy wonder? How about Joseph caring for his cherished betrothed, pregnant through the Holy Spirit? Do you feel a bit betrayed, or are you willing to participate in this miracle, knowing you’ll hold the savior of the world in your arms? How would you feel to be a chief priest in jealous Herod’s court receiving a mandate to locate this newborn king? What would be your fate if you didn’t get the historical facts just right?

We seem to glaze over the lesser-known characters who make up the Advent account. How about the innkeeper, who responded to a knock at his door to find an exhausted young couple inquiring about a room for the night, with desperation in their voices, as the young woman cradled her fully blossomed pregnant belly? He could have waved them away because there wasn’t a room available, but he didn’t. He reconsidered, and as humble as the inn’s stable was, it was an offer, nonetheless. What made him reconsider?

Only imagine

Then there are the Bethlehem babies slaughtered on the jealous whim of Herod the Great, king of Judah. One fell swoop to secure his power. Can you feel the cries of the mothers trying to save their baby boys? They are part of a prophecy they never wanted to be part of: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18). When it comes to the Christmas story, none of us can say, “I’ve heard it all before.” What is so awesome about God’s Word is that we can read a portion of scripture for the rest of our lives and never reach the extent of its bottomless insights. All that is asked of you is your time and imagination. Take some time to read the Advent account again for the first time. Don’t rush through the narrative. Let it get embedded in your soul. Then, use your imagination to dig deeply into the lives of those who lived the story, for you will find some of yourself in them.

Thanks be to God for His incredible plan of bringing Christ into the world for us. The God who loved humankind so much that He sent His Son thousands of years ago is the God whose “compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).