If I’d been clever, I would have synced this advert with the second Sunday of Advent, because I want us to think about prophets. Traditionally the second week of advert is a time when we recall the part the prophets of the Old Testament played in the foretelling and advent of Jesus.
In the advert, the hare is desperate for the bear not to miss Christmas Day. The hare knows that Christmas day is so exciting, so good, that he wants his friend the bear to be there, to see it and experience everything. And so the hare does all he can, giving the perfect gift, to the bear to ensure that he wakes up in time for Christmas day. That’s how important it is.
The prophets of the Old Testament are like the hare, their message from God weighing heavily on their hearts. They are desperate for God’s people to wake up, to not miss the coming Messiah, not to sleep through the promise of their salvation.
These prophets, although you won’t find them on a Christmas card or nestled in a nativity scene, are vital to Christmas. Without the prophesies of old, even the people in the birth narratives would have slept through Jesus’ birth. These prophesies were the alarm clock alerting humanity to the coming Messiah.
I wonder how often we are like the bear, sleeping our way through advent, perhaps this year we could all reread something from the prophets, waking us up to what and who is coming.
Lexisms 