If you’re anything like me, you are pretty jazzed this time of the year! It’s the Season of Advent on the Church Calendar.

Advent is the time when we anticipate the coming of our LORD. We look back, remembering His coming to us as a baby long ago; and we look forward to His coming again – any day!

My son Simon’s kindergarten and first grade teacher, Joanna Gellermann, like her mother before her, had an annual tradition of giving her students an Advent Bag. The class parents were awestruck!

Twenty-five tiny gifts in a small paper bag were actually object lessons for the Bible passages tucked inside! Kids and their families got to unwrap the season with a reason, one day at a time.

This Advent series is dedicated to my Sister in Christ, Joanna Gellermann.

Special gifts for a special baby!

Matthew 2:1-12 (NIV)

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

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Please come back tomorrow, for another installment of: ADVENT — Counting the Days to Christmas!

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