The Last Lesson of Advent

Christmas Eve.

I started off the day in the kitchen.  Matt is slaving over dinner on Christmas, so I slave over dinner on Christmas Eve.  By "slave over dinner" I actually mean prepare a whole bunch of appetizers.  That is our Christmas Eve tradition.  Well for now anyway.

I finished preparing all the appetizers and we headed off  to the 3pm Christmas Eve service at our church.  It wasn't a quiet "Silent Night" candle light service like we are used to.  It was a loud rowdy celebration....and we liked it!  We should be loud and rowdy.  Jesus was born!  400 years of silence forgotten, the Messiah came! If there is ever a day to celebrate it is today!

After service we came back home, stuffed ourselves with mini-wellingtons, southwestern egg rolls, baked brie, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  We made a quick video/Christmas greeting for my parents and sister's family and then settled in for reading the Christmas story.

This year Gabe read it.  He did so well.  He got really excited at "Don't be afraid for I bring you good news of great joy that will be for ALL people".  He memorized that and the following verse for AWANA last week so Gabe was ready to roll through that part with confidence.

After the story I started to speak on the last topic for Advent.  I loved this lesson.  I was so excited to talk about gifts.  Not the gifts the wise men brought, but the gifts the Drummer Boy brought.  A few months back I secretly listened to the Little Drummer Boy and felt moved by the words of the lad "I have no gift to bring thats fit to give a King".  It is so beautiful.

I decided to sing the song tonight before rolling out my lesson.

A few lines in and Gabe had already complained about being required to sing "a million songs tonight" and Eli was rolling all over the couch and protesting.  Gabe started being the class clown, Eli was laughing hysterically and everyone missed the best line of the song "come they told me".

I turned off the music, picked up the lyrics and marched upstairs.

This was the lesson I wanted the boys to hear this year.  Of all the lessons, of all the truths, this one was the one I wanted to be louder than any other.  Come.  Worship.  Play your best for him.

Gabe met me upstairs and apologized.  I said "thank you" and closed the door.

As I sat in the bathroom I felt my eyes filling with tears.  The message was lost in the sugar high, excitement of Christmas.

A quiet voice in my head said "I gave my best for him".  I did give my best.  Not just for my Children, but for my God and King.  My little listeners were not interested but I came and I played my best for Him.  

I came downstairs a bit later and gave my boys a lesson I had not planned for, studied for, and surely didn't have a coordinating song for.  It went something like this:

"Jesus humbled himself to become human, he died on the cross, rose on the third day and ascended into heaven with plans to return in the future so that people can be saved, sanctified, filled and spend eternity with Him.  Right now there are millions of people out there who are too busy to worship God, too busy to be bothered with obeying him, too busy to know Him better, and live for him.  They are too busy worrying about their own lives to even acknowledge that Jesus is their savior.

Tonight in here, you are too busy worrying about your presents, your movie, and your dessert to worship Him, to celebrate His birth, and listen to me share with you about what God desires of you.  

Tonight, you are no different than the others.  No different than Bethlehem.  No different than the people who had no room for Jesus to be born in their home."

The boys both looked to the floor.  Neither ventured to look into my face.  Neither attempted to offer some excuse.  They had just received their last Advent lesson of this year.  And it hurt a little.

I guess they get the Little Drummer Boy lesson another day.