Jesus in Philadelphia?

I was getting my boots on and getting ready to leave the church when I heard one of the Sunday School kids talking. She was telling some of the other kids that Jesus was coming and he was going to be in Philadelphia! I am not kidding. She was dead serious. I asked her to repeat what I thought I heard her say. She said that Jesus was going to be in Philadelphia next week. Some of the other kids started laughing. She started to get upset and said "I'm not kidding, Jesus is coming to Philadelphia, and I know that it is true because I saw it on the news." She couldn't have been more serious. I would have liked to talk with her more about what she "heard" on the news (maybe she got Jesus and Santa mixed up?!) but I had to run to the other church.

Yet, I started to think about how serious she was, and how positive she was that Jesus was coming. Isn't that what Advent should be all about. Shouldn't we be taking Jesus' coming seriously. We have this time called Advent to prepare our hearts and our lives for Jesus to enter. We hear the story of how God came to earth in a little baby. We have been reading about the second coming of Christ in the lectionary. Yet, how serious do we take it.

How are we really preparing for Christ to come? That little girl on Sunday made me aware of how, as we get older, we grow more skeptical. Maybe we get so skeptical that we fail to see the truth in front of us. That little girl is positive that Jesus is showing up. Are we?

"And a child shall lead them".