Often, the season of Advent means the „end-of-year” rush and the Christmas present shopping stress. Our world speeds up and so do we. Our calendar is overbooked, there are no free weekends, and our days seems to be never-ending. These days it feels like we must do shopping, buy candles, sweets, and gifts; and on the top of it all, we need to perform at our workplace and close the year off well. Instead of experiencing the joy of waiting for Christmas, as adults we feel we must be a little bit better, more gracious and just simply be more.

We can understand why the children want to behave well: they know if they are naughty, they will not get presents. However, after a certain age, the „forced Christmas rush” is only a way of repentance for everything that we have done or may have missed to do during the year. Thoughts never spoken, promises never kept, decision that were never made, and postponed steps make us liturgical. But somewhere deep in our hearts we remember that Jesus is part of the Christmas feeling. It might have already been forgotten, but in fact He is the foundation that means more than anything else what has first came to our mind about Advent. He is the only One who makes the Christmas really a holy day.

In December, we remember as individuals and as a community that God became a vulnerable human being just as we are. However, it is not enough to remember one night in Bethlehem from a long time ago. We need to realize that there, two thousand years ago, the story began, it continues today and we are part of it too. Christmas started with Christ, the New Testament and every day of our lives we are all going towards Him.

The crucial and hopeless world is not God’s creation, but humanity’s, who broke away from God in the Garden of Eden. The Lord has already then promised that He shall send a Savior, who will restore order and peace. Even if it took thousands of years to wait for the promise to be fulfilled, God will send His Son. He came closer so in this recognition we may come closer to Him and each other as well. This is the most realistic story in the world.

Once, long time ago we must have learned the definition: Christmas is the holiday of love. Nevertheless, it is harder to realize that it is the celebration of that love, by which grace became tangible and this is what brought the real light. "In your light we see light"- reminds us Psalm 36:10 that the only way is the one that leads from Bethlehem to the cross and from there to the eternal home.

In December, there is a lot of light, sparkle around us and it feels like a fairytale. Santa Claus, reindeers, angels, sometimes the Grinch, and more recently, the characters of the movie Frozen are showing up everywhere. But among all the nice characters there is the story of Christ’s birth in its simple beauty, that is nothing like any of these things. This story is not a fairytale, and this is not just for a season but it is woven in our celebrations, our New Year and our entire life. The Christmas miracle has happened. The season of Advent, and in it the RCH Christmas campaign, help so we may not be only passive partakers of the holiday but we will join in the story that is much bigger than us.

The Reformed Church in Hungary wishes to remind society of the essence of Christmas, so may the holiday be a real encounter with the love of God, embodied in Jesus Christ for more and more people. We wish that compelled by this love, we turn, and head towards each other.

Written by Zsuzsanna Farkas

Video by Melinda Szabó-Nyulász

Translation by Ecumenical Office