Christ Our Shepherd Advent Calendar 2019
Daily Advent Reflection from Pastor Miriam
The morning started around 6am with English muffin and a scrambled egg, our family Christmas breakfast. It had to be quick; gifts were calling! Yet, we needed something before we chose our own breakfast of stocking chocolates and candy cane. Later we would eat ambrosia, freshly made from our stocking fruit, with coconut, pecans, and maraschino cherries, the only-at-Christmas salad. Is it true for you – certain dishes are reserved for Christmas day? Our Christmas-only menu included asparagus covered in Hollandaise sauce topped with slivered almonds, the Christmas ambrosia, Mrs. Ivie’s cheese ball, Russian Tea, and a special dessert, such as pecan pie.
One year there was a notable exception, you know the kind, a Christmas tale that lives on in infamy within the family. Well, for years Mom wanted to make something VERY special for dessert, Cherries’ Jubilee, flaming, of course! There was one little problem with one little ingredient, the alcohol. Our house was supposed to be a no alcohol-drinking house, for certain a teetotaler mother! So, what should she do? What could she substitute for ¼ cup of brandy, the ingredient required to elicit a flame? Aha! From her resourceful creative mind, she had her solution – use 100% pure vanilla extract! After all, she thought, it’s a cooking ingredient, not an alcoholic beverage, which in her mind made it allowable. Then, for good measure and to insure an eye-caching flame, she poured not ¼ cup, but ½ cup of 70-proof 100%pure vanilla extract. Well done, Mom! It was the most glorious Christmas dessert ever, securing its place in infamy. It was scary, hilarious, cute, and oh, was it ever flavorful with an aroma that obliterated even the slightest scent of the fresh pine tree. It was an Acker Christmas dessert never to be matched in the ensuing years.
Why this Christmas memory for a devotion? Well, it reminds me of the first Christmas. Think about it, so many details hinged on words like improvise, finesse, or the theme of transforming ordinary into magnificence. A plain barn became lodging for a king, an animal’s cereal bowl became the soft bassinet for the new-born prince, a deep dark night sky erupted into an out-of-this-world baby announcement for the night-shift crew, complete with chorus, special lighting, and a dramatic entrance. Then later came nerdy astrologer-magicians showing up at a most unique baby shower.
At times Fritz and I ask each other and all of you, “Where is God active day-to-day in our lives? Can you find him in the ordinariness of life? God IS active around us all the time, from vanilla extract to baby showers. Allow the drama in our lives, our over-committed self-expectations, as well as, the strain and stress of a normal day, unveil God’s presence and magnificent movement in our lives. It’s an advent promise: wait, watch, take notice.
Bless you as you, “ Wait…wait…wait for it…!”
