Yesterday I was speaking with my friends in a treatment program about the meaning of Advent. Advent is a season of hopeful expectation and preparation for the coming (and returning) of Jesus into the world.

The whole season affirms that God is not tragically absent, but mysteriously present.

We talked about what that means for the life of the Church, and gave some examples of what this incarnation could and does look like in everyday life:

• It is a prayer room in a youth drop in centre, where decidedly non-Churched kids encounter God experientially through art, music, relationship, and presence.

• It is a Salvation Army officer starting up a cigarette in a dingy room for a dying man who hasn't the breath in his lungs to get it going himself.

• It is a woman deemed "crazy" by society offering hospitality and protection to a man being escorted by security out of an upscale area of Vancouver.

• It is a member of a congregation offering to shower and clothe a man who regularly soils himself in the middle of a Sunday Holiness Meeting.

During the break after I spoke, I noticed there was a man outside the treatment centre - a man well known to myself and to others in the program - who was slumped by the doors, dangerously inebriated. A couple of the guys in the program immediately went to him, ministered gently to him, offered him care and support, and evidenced the beautifully present love of Jesus to him in a desperate moment. It could hardly have been more - and less - of a Christmas moment if we had orchestrated it.

I love it when we speak about Jesus, develop our theories and ideas and arguments about him, and then he shows up to affirm but also to dramatically enact more exactly and materially who he is and what he really desires from his children. And I love it when his children respond.