An Advent Reflection
525,600 minutes. The opening song to the Broadway musical “Rent” tells us that in a single year, there are 525,600 minutes. The song then asks, how do you measure a year? Is it in daylights? Sunsets? Midnights? Cups of coffee? Inches? Miles? Laugher? Smiles?
Psalm 90 talks about time, both our own concept of time within our lives and cosmic time as it relates to the universe. We’ve learned the phrase “from once upon a time to kingdom come”. Time can feel vast when we are young, as though we have all the time in the world. As we age or become ill, time seems daunting, as though every tick from the clock brings us closer to the end of our time in this life.
Advent is a season of anticipation and preparation in Christian tradition, but as our culture and society shifts and changes, advent has become less of a focus as we tend to jump straight to Christmas. Sure we still have the anticipation, as it relates to the gifts that are wrapped beneath the tree. We still have preparation, though it is more hurried and stressed as we rush from store to store, clean the house, cook the food, wrap the gifts, travel to see family, etc., etc.
From noon today until midnight Christmas (Eve), we have 13,680 minutes to anticipate and prepare ourselves. How will you measure this time? May I offer the suggestion that the opening song from “Rent” gives us, and measure this time in love? The love you experience when you awake each morning. The love you experience with each gift you give and receive. The love of each person who takes the time to wish you a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Measure these next 13,680 minutes, and the 525,600 after it, in love. After all, it was God’s pure love that lay in the manger in the form of a little baby, that morn.
Originally shared by Cairn Christian Church, Lafayette, Colorado USA
