Every year when Advent rolls around, I find myself feeling two things at the same time: excitement and exhaustion. Excitement because I genuinely love this season—the lights, the music, the food, the traditions. And exhaustion because somewhere along the way, Christmas became…a lot. A lot of buying, a lot of planning, a lot of pressure, and honestly, a lot of noise.
And I’m not sure that’s what God intended.
This is why I chose Advent Conspiracy for our Advent sermon series. Not because it gives us something else to add to our December to-do lists, but because it asks a very simple question:
What if Advent wasn’t just a countdown to Christmas, but an invitation to step inside the story of Jesus’ birth?
That question has been on my mind a lot lately. If I’m honest, I can go through a whole Christmas season and realize somewhere around mid-January that I actually missed Jesus in the middle of it. I celebrated Christmas, but I didn’t really prepare my heart for Christ.
And I don’t think I’m alone in that.
Why Advent Still Matters
Advent has always been a season of preparation. The early church understood something we often forget: you can’t celebrate a miracle if you never slow down long enough to notice it.
Isaiah speaks to this. He wrote to a people who were overwhelmed, scared, and convinced their world was falling apart. It’s striking how relevant that still feels today. Into all that fear, Isaiah says:
“A child is coming.”
Not a general.
Not a politician.
Not a celebrity.
A child.
A small, ordinary, unexpected beginning. Yet that beginning was enough to change everything.
Advent is our chance to sit with that promise again—to remember that hope doesn’t always arrive the way we expect.
When Christmas Stops Feeling Like Christmas
Somewhere along the way, Christmas became more of a performance.
These days we measure Christmas by how many presents we bought, how busy our schedules are, how many parties we attended, and whether the family picture looks like a Hallmark movie instead of what it actually is, real people just trying their best.
Meanwhile, the first Christmas happened in a town no one cared about, in conditions no one envied, with people no one paid attention to.
And I think deep down we know this. We feel the disconnect between the simplicity of the manger and the chaos of our lives. We feel it when we say we want the season to be meaningful, but then fall into the same frantic patterns because it’s just so hard to say “No”.
The truth is, we’re not really stuck. Advent offers another way.
What Advent Conspiracy Is Really About
The book talks about four practices, Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All. Each one is important. But first, we talked about the foundation of Advent Conspiracy:
We prepare our hearts to encounter Christ.
That’s it.
That’s what Advent has always been about. Not the candles, not the music, not the decorations—beautiful as they are. Advent is the quiet, gentle work of letting God rearrange something inside us before the celebration begins.
And if we let Him, He will.
A Hard Question We Need to Face
To be honest, and I’m preaching to the choir here, most of us let our culture shape Christmas more than Christ does.
We take on expectations that exhaust us, spend money we don’t have, try to please people who will never be pleased, and then we wonder why December feels more stressful than sacred.
Maybe it’s because we’ve been following the wrong story.
Advent invites us back to the right one.
It invites us to pay attention to the small moments.
To make room for quiet.
To slow down enough to actually feel the presence of God.
To look at the world with compassion.
To return to what matters before everything else drowns it out.
Advent is pro-Christmas and anti-distraction.
Stepping Into the Story Again
Imagine reading a piece of the Christmas story each morning to pause and center your day.
Imagine noticing someone who’s hurting and choosing to be present with them despite your busy schedule.
Imagine giving gifts that are thoughtful instead of stressful.
Imagine your home feeling like a place of peace instead of pressure.
Imagine encountering Christ in simple, quiet, ordinary moments because that’s the kind of place He was born into.
Advent gives us permission to live that way.
Actually, it invites us to live that way.
A Season for Small Beginnings
Isaiah promised a child to a weary world.
Our world is still as weary as ever.
And God is still offering hope in small beginnings.
If your life feels too busy, too noisy, too stretched, too scattered, Advent is the answer to this.
But you don’t have to overhaul your entire December.
Just start small.
Ask God for one thing you hope to experience this Christmas.
Name one thing that might get in the way.
And trust that God can work with even the smallest amount of space you make for Him.
That’s the foundation of Advent Conspiracy.
It’s about reclaiming Christmas.
And I truly believe, if we’re willing to participate instead of merely observe, we will encounter Christ in a way that actually changes us.
And that, after all, is the whole point.
Closing Prayer
Gracious God,
as we enter this Advent season, slow our hearts enough to hear Your whisper.
Draw us back to the story that anchors our hope.
Disrupt the noise that pulls our attention away from what matters
and free us from the pressures that have shaped our lives without our permission.
Teach us to wait with intention, to love with courage,
and to step into the Christmas story as participants, not spectators.
Restore our wonder.
Renew our joy.
Recenter our lives in Your peace.
Prepare us, Lord, for the coming of Christ—
not just on the calendar, but in our everyday lives.
Amen.
The Rest of the Sermon 