At Christmas time, we do things differently.
The house is decorated differently. We eat different foods. We sing different songs.
The ho-hum of the rest of the year fades in the twinkle and sparkle of lights, yet we expect our different traditions to remain the same.
It wouldn’t be a tradition if it wasn’t the exact recipe, the exact decor, the exact group of people, the exact location that it was before. Even in our month of differences, we want it to remain the same, or the season leaves us feeling disappointed with unmet expectations.
The truth is that we are creatures of habit. Routine makes us comfortable. Tradition is familiar and nostalgic.
Jesus came to break us out of our routines.
He knew that what is comfortable, familiar, and nostalgic wouldn’t be enough to free us from the burden of sin or the devastation of lostness.
The whole Old Testament shows a daily routine that didn’t even change much for the holidays. Everyday, the priest was expected to offer sacrifices for sin. The tragic part was that the tradition didn’t meet the need.
“[The law] can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near,” Hebrews tells us. The Old Testament sacrificial system was broken and ineffectual.
And the Psalmist told us why: “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.”
That was never what God wanted. The Jews got stuck in their routines and traditions and never even achieved the very thing they were looking for- a relationship with God.
Aren’t we the same way? Even our Christmas traditions are routines that don’t make us happy in the long run but leave us with the empty January doldrums. Even our Advent celebrations, candlelight services, and nativity scenes don’t absolve us of our pride, selfishness, and greed.
But at the incarnation, Jesus said something that broke the endless cycle of routine:
“Sacrifices and offerings You have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me…Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God.”
The incarnation is mind-blowing, routine-breaking, tradition-smashing. It is Word within Word within Word, as Jesus, the Word, quotes His Word from Psalms, as He becomes the Word, fulfilling the Word He later spoke to the Hebrews.
“And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, waiting…”
Make this Advent a waiting that has never happened before, a time of embracing the single sacrifice for sins, a time of living out the will of God in the body He gave you to be a living sacrifice, obediently following the One who came to bring what we’ve all been yearning for:
A loving relationship with our Creator God who never desired sacrifice but instead became a sacrifice so that we could draw near.
Sarah Dixon Young 