Advent is upon us.  Advent is a time to celebrate:  Messiah is born.  It's also a time to reflect, to remember.  In Advent, we think about Christmases past and the joy they gave us; we think about those with whom we enjoyed those  Christmases but who are no longer with us; we think about things as they were, we think about things as they now are.  We think, we ponder.

     Advent brings time and memory together.  It's the culmination of hundreds and hundreds of years of memory, hundreds and hundreds of years of preserving those things that, though now disappeared, remain with us still.  Advent tells us that we can remember with hope.  It reminds us that we can believe in the worth of the present precisely because it is built on the trustworthiness of the past.
     Advent says to us that what has disappeared hasn't disappeared at all.  In the person of Jesus, the point of Advent, it is here, completely and wonderfully present and new.