My seven-year-old had a very convincing argument this evening, the Saturday before Advent begins. She believes we should unpack some of our Christmas decorations, or at the very least, the Advent wreath and calendar. She wisely (she knows my weakness) reasons that we will need to rest tomorrow on the Sabbath, so we should certainly get ready to “get ready” tonight.
It must be hard to have a mom like me. Ever since I read To Dance With God years ago, I have looked at Advent differently.
Lutherans are a lectionary church community that celebrates seasons. This way of celebrating the cycle of the church year is an aspect of faith in and of itself. It is poetic. The early church adopted the tradition akin to celebrating the Roman emperor’s birthdays as holidays and a Pagan recognition of the lengthening of days after the longest night of the year. If you can’t beat them, steal their rituals as your own. Thus Christmas was born. (If we find clues of when Jesus was really born, it most likely would be Spring, when the shepherds would have been in the fields.)
However, I’m not proposing we throw out the baby or the bath water. Two thousand years of church history has given us the gift of revisiting and ritualizing the most baffling mysteries of our faith, year after year: God came to live among us, God was killed at the hand of humankind, God conquered death and still loves us no matter what. These mysteries probably don’t sell cards for Hallmark.
So if Christmas is our collective recall of the Word born a wordless child, Advent is pregnancy. You can’t rush pregnancy, without dire consequences. Pregnancy is about wonder, waiting and surprise. It takes a long time. Advent is our faith community’s way to pretend together we don’t know what God’s face will look like, or when God will come, or what color God’s hair will be. But wait—we don’t. We really don’t KNOW–our gifts of Advent are faith and hope. Like pregnancy, we can’t rush faith and hope.
Okay, don’t tell my seven-year-old, but I’ve already been sneaking around trying to get ready for Advent. However, my attempts have failed. My simple task was to find blue candles for our Advent wreath. I went to Garden Ridge a few weeks ago. The nutcrackers were plentiful and 50% off. I’d say 80% of the store was Christmas: wreaths, lights, aisles of ornaments. Feathered birds are big this year. I saw pool-ball ornaments, Disney princess ornaments, an array of dog and cat ornaments. The nativity aisle was downright cheesy. There were many white, red and green candles. But no blue (or even purple and rose) candles for our Advent wreath. No market.
Is Advent extinct? Is there no commercial gain in the secular world for Advent? Can our culture not even embrace the lessons of delayed gratification in waiting?
So on the first Sunday of Advent, the children remember the prophets. They were angry men (and probably women) who stomped on their soap boxes: “Pay attention to what we are waiting for!!!” Stay awake!” You are missing the angels in the sky for the TV specials, the wild star outshone by the strings of lights, the baby in the manger for the line at the mall!
Oh faithful ones, I’m sure I’m singing to the choir. I’ll step off my soapbox. We’ll skip our Sabbath nap tomorrow and get out the Advent wreath.