This time of year can be a mad rush. In Aotearoa New Zealand, Christmas sits within our summer holiday so all the arrangements of time off work, a long time off school and the festivities of Christmas and New Year all come together in a perfect storm. It can be stress central. Advent speaks to that.

With only hours to go before Christmas Day and many being in the middle of the mad rush of making sure you’ve got all the food and presents sorted and ready to roll out, Advent takes its last gasps as well. During Advent the themes of hope, joy, peace and love have been considered, but there is an underlying theme worth taking time for right in this very moment – the theme of waiting. It’s the silent theme that has been running through the whole Advent period.

Waiting – it’s not glamorous and it doesn’t come with much fanfare. It involves patience, self control and perseverance. Waiting is not the celebration – rather, it’s a pause, pregnant with hope. Waiting is under-girded by silence; silence because the thing that we wait for is not here yet – there is nothing but the wait.

With all the rush placed aside, taking the time to pause and be in waiting can be a valuable practice at this time of year and with hours to go, it offers a good chance to recalibrate where the rush and busyness might have taken over.

So wait, pause, be still. Take a moment. Be silent. There is a still, small voice whispering in the midst of the chaos. That voice is telling you that you are loved. It’s offering hope – a quiet hope. In receiving it there is joy. That silence offers peace. More than anything, that silence and the story it embraces in the time of Advent is letting that still small voice tell you one thing – you are loved. No matter what your circumstances, no matter what you feel at this time of year, no matter what your story has told you about who you are up until this point, the gift of the Divine entering into the world, moving into the neighbourhood in the form of a man we call Jesus, is telling you that you are loved.

In the next few hours take a moment to embrace Advent. Choose a moment to pause, wait, be silent and know that you are loved. That’s the theme of Advent and that’s the heart of the Christmas story. Because of it, as we emerge from the silence we declare, glory to God in the highest.