The Substance Behind the Shadows
Over the last two weeks my family and I have been preparing for and celebrating the Christmas season like most families likely are. We pulled boxes down from the attic and began "decking the halls." We put a wreath on the door and erected and decorated the Christmas tree. The fireplace saw its first fire and we prepared the stockings which will hang on it.
This Christmas, however, is different. It will be our daughters first Christmas! She's 8 months old so she won't remember very much this year, but my wife and I will make memory after memory after memory. We've already begun taking dozens of pictures and they will soon be eclipsed by the hundreds which will follow. The joys and delights of the season have always been a joy to me and the memories I have of Christmas past are precious to me. I now have the privilege of creating and cultivating traditions and memories for my daughter and I've been giving it a lot of thought. What do I want her to think about Christmas. About Christ? About gifts and trees and traditions and family and celebration and food and a dozen other "Christmas things?"
The fruit of my contemplation will undoubtedly produce good things for our family's future. One such thing is an intentional concentration on Advent. I don't recall ever focusing on "Advent" as a child, but (my wife and) I decided to make it a part of our family tradition. I found a little book called Good News of Great Joy: Daily Readings for Advent by John Piper and began on December 1st reading and meditating with my family and filling our home with Hope. Today's reading was especially stirring. Here is a snippet:
"Here’s an Advent illustration for kids (and for those of us who used to be kids and remember what it was like). Suppose you and your mom get separated in the grocery store, and you start to get scared and panic and don’t know which way to go, and you run to the end of an aisle, and just before you start to cry, you see a shadow on the floor at the end of the aisle that looks just like your mom. It makes you really happy and you feel hope. But which is better? T he happiness of seeing the shadow, or having your mom step around the corner and seeing that it’s really her? That’s the way it is when Jesus comes to be our High Priest. That’s what Christmas is. Christmas is the replacement of shadows with the real thing."
As I consider the Christmas season and as I consider my role as a husband and a dad I am overwhelmed by the position I find myself in. I am, in a sense, only a shadow. My wife and daughter look to me to be strong and courageous, gentle and comforting, wise and true. I am provider and protector and priest of my home, but my ultimate aim is that they would look past me. That they would see the substance behind the shadow. That in my loving my wife and raising my daughter, they would see the love of Christ and the care of a greater, stronger more wise and compassionate father. And not only see it, but become overwhelmed with the joy of what seeing means: that they would run to and embrace the real and great God who makes the wonder of Christmas what it is.
So are you looking at the shadows or the substance behind them? I challenge you to look past the "ordinary things" and the shadows and see the "real thing."