Advent: Dimming the lights.

I was fortunate to go to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as a child, and, although I’ve never been one who fully appreciates opera, there was nothing like the moment when the performance was about to begin. The lights did not just dim, the crystal chandeliers literally rose the three or four stories to the roof of the hall. Despite my parent’s best efforts to convert me into an opera lover, the moment when the lights went up was, by far, the most exciting moment of every performance.

To this day, when the lights dim before a movie, when an orchestra plays its initial notes, I am filled with an instantaneous childlike enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter whether I’ve seen the show before; I wait as if it’s my first time. The audience quiets, and I shift my focus from daily concerns to the drama about to begin.

Advent is that moment for Christians.

The season before Christmas is when the spiritual lights dim, music begins, and we’re invited to watch the drama unfold. Our focus shifts from daily concerns to eternal ones, and we wait with rekindled enthusiasm. It doesn’t matter how many times we’ve heard the story, each time Gabriel shows up with God’s annunciation we listen in with the frightened young woman. When the shepherds hear “For behold . . .” as they are keeping watch over their flocks by night, it’s as if our second grade teacher has opened a book and said: “once upon a time.” We sit up, pay attention, and listen as if for the first time.

That’s the magic of Advent waiting each of us. May we dim the lights and hear the ageless song of angels.