The odd season: some dare call it 'Advent'
The Christian season of Advent is often overlooked; we could do well to learn from its patient, measured spirit.
In my lifetime Christianity has gone from mainstream to margins. This is especially true for the mainline Protestant traditions, like Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, and my own, Congregational/ United Church of Christ.
These were, by and large, the neighborhood churches with names that indicated their tie to a specific town or place. Now they have been eclipsed, largely by secular culture and partly by more consumer-oriented big-box or mega-churches.
I am never quite sure if our new location at the margins of the culture is a good thing or a bad one. We’re further from the centers of cultural power and influence, but probably closer to Jesus.
At no time of the year do I feel our marginal location more keenly, and yet more gratefully, than now.
For Christians the current season is Advent, not Christmas. Advent began this past Sunday. It lasts throughout the four weeks before Christmas. Christmas for us is also different. Not a single day but a season, a twelve day season that begins on December 25. Not only that, but Advent is — for the church — the first season of a new year. For us last Sunday was a New Year’s Day.
And that’s odd. Annually, I get a calendar produced by a congregation in Canada that begins the new year and calendar on the first Sunday of Advent. Instead of pages devoted to months, each one is for a season: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and so on. These days I find hundreds of Christian congregations that are shifting the focus, from consumption to compassion.
Not only are we out-of-synch with the dominant culture’s calendar, but we mark a new year not as the culture does, when days get brighter (after the winter solstice), but as they grow darker. As the darkness deepens, we say something new is at hand. What can that possibly mean? Perhaps this — that everything isn’t in our hands, that it's not all up to us. And that there is another power at work in the world besides our own. In the darkness, a hidden holy spirit stirs.
Just before this Advent began we learned that our second grandchild is on the way. Though the child’s mother does not yet look pregnant, she feels the change and so do we (though not quite, thankfully, in the same way she does). Together we pore over the black and white ultrasound photos as if looking at grainy snapshots of great-grandparents. The photos shows a slip of new life curled like a half-moon in the womb.
This will be that couple’s first child. They are full of a quiet excitement and anticipation, as are we. But the show, so to speak, is not entirely their own. They are not in charge. They whisper their news to a widening circle. They begin to think about how their home and their lives will be rearranged. But mostly they wait. They wait while life gathers and grows on its own timetable, hidden from view, here but not yet here. The darkness of the womb is a holy darkness.
So, the darkness of Advent — holy darkness and a season of waiting and watching. As with the earth in the winter, important things are happening but they are hidden from view beneath blankets of leaves and snow — without our conscious and active labors.
That’s really what makes Advent both odd and wonderful. That’s what puts Advent and those who keep it against-the-grain of the culture. Ours is a culture that believes it is all, really, up to us. We’re in charge here, there is no Other.
So, we tell ourselves, if we don’t do it, no one will and it all depends on you. There’s an important truth in such propositions. What we do and what we fail to do does matter. It matters a great deal. But the words also conceal a lie. The lie is that the world depends only and utterly on our own too often anxious doing, our own frenzied activity.
I remember how strange it seemed to me when I first learned, years ago now, that in the Bible the day begins not at sunrise but at sunset. In the majestic story of creation, in Genesis, a day runs from one sunset to the next sunset, and not from sunrise to sunset. The day includes the night and the darkness. In fact, the day begins as most of us call it quits.
Until I learned this I had presumed, with the usual conceit of the species, that the day began when I did, when I got up, stretched, and set about my daily doing. The church taught me something different, that I join a work-in-progress, a day that began when I was dead to the world. Life does not depend on me, but it does welcome me. Once I got over the demotion, I found this perspective calming. I joined a day begun long before I was awake, a grand and mysterious work in progress.
There’s so much in contemporary culture that urges us to anxious and unending activity, especially, and ironically, in the so-called “holidays.” There’s so much that communicates that it all depends on us and that we must be in control (whatever that means); even that Christmas won’t happen unless we make it happen. At least in my experience, Christ-coming — a new birth of hope and life — happens as much in spite of us as because of us. It arrives in the stranger we did not expect, in the reconciliation upon which we had given up, in a new possibility we had never imagined.
Advent is a judgment upon our pretensions. It is also a word of grace: Even if we’re not constantly busy, it doesn’t mean that nothing important is happening. Hidden in our daughter-in-law’s womb, new life grows at its own behest and timing. In the wet winter ground, seeds seemingly dead bide their time. Advent’s invitation: Trust this wild and holy power.
Newcomers to our faith and churches, and even those that have been around a while, are often bothered that we do not now join in the Christmas carols and other holiday songs that blare forth in every store and mall. They find the typically minor-key music of Advent to be disconcerting. Priests and pastors are sometimes pressured to, “Get with it — it’s Christmas.”
But it’s not. Not yet. The baby is not ready yet. We must wait, wait, and watch. We keep Advent, trusting that even if we’re not doing something, that doesn’t mean that nothing is being done.
For all these reasons, Advent is the oddest and perhaps the best, of seasons.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Dec 1, 8:32 a.m. Inappropriate
A lovely piece to read on the first of December, when our days indeed begin in darkness.
Posted Thu, Dec 1, 8:33 a.m. Inappropriate
We have been ripped off in our culture by ignoring Advent and not celebrating the full 12 days of Christmas.
Imagine having a month to prepare for two weeks of celebration. Imagine not having every office and social holiday party jammed together in the short month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Imagine Christmas Eve only being the start of a longer season of parties, family gatherings, vacations and feasts?
We have the mad rush of consumption leading up to a single day where families try to arrange their present opening time with the husband's family and the wife's family. For many, there is church sometime in the 24 hours between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We try to jam several events into a brief window of time.
Imagine having the parties and gatherings in a separate period of time from the shopping and preparing? Imagine having the luxury to relax and really enjoy the company of your family and friends and even co-workers instead of keeping an eye on the clock to make sure you get to the in-laws on time.
Christmas Eve at church. Christmas morning with my own wife and kid. Then 11 more days for the party at work, for the parties at my friend's houses, for concerts and ice skating and the lights at Warm Beach and playing in the snow. Time to relax. Time to celebrate with light and warmth in this darkest of seasons. Time with family instead of with the crowds in the mall.
Posted Thu, Dec 1, 11:05 a.m. Inappropriate
You can celebrate the 12 days of Christmas if you choose. With my blended families it's been very easy to schedule different events all along those two weeks. The kids seemed to enjoy each event and more time was spent with each part of the family than if we had tried to cram it all in on one day.
It's all in your mind. Change how you feel about the holidays then change your schedule and instantly you can create your own reality about it. (Whether or not you choose to participate in the mass consumption is also up to you.)
Posted Thu, Dec 1, 3:52 p.m. Inappropriate
On Thanksgiving Day, a relative of mine commented that Christmas was a secular holiday. I have to admit that this comment bothered me more than a little. It is true that we spend a lot of time and effort on non-Christ like things during the season, but I truly feel that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ.
After reading this story about Advent, I now realize this is how we can keep Christmas a religious holiday, at least among my family. Focus on the Advent season, not the commercialized Christmas season to keep in touch with the true meaning of Christmas.
Posted Thu, Dec 1, 5:18 p.m. Inappropriate
Xmas is a secular holiday. I like Tony's article and the arching, ancient human traditions, hopes, and aspirations mentioned. Why wall this season off and declare it only for true Christians? Doing so denies the lineage of Xmas and excludes many of our fellow citizens. Can you imagine Jesus advocating this?
Posted Thu, Dec 1, 7:29 p.m. Inappropriate
That said, the holiday we call Christmas is an amalgam of winter holidays extending back into the mists of time. Some traditions wax and some wane. Advent is a big observation in many European countries, and used to be a bigger observation here. I remember advent calendars when I has a kid. My parents had a beautiful one which looked like a romantic scene of Bethlehem thousands of years ago. You had to find the opening for each day, and when swung away, it revealed a similarly interesting icon for each day. That advent calendar, like most, was made of cardboard and was probably discarded some time in the 70s.
Posted Thu, Dec 1, 8:01 p.m. Inappropriate
Anyone know of a good advent calendar these days? I got my kid one last year and all the chocolate fell to the bottom and was not behind the little doors...
Posted Fri, Dec 2, 12:43 a.m. Inappropriate
I've recently seen advent calendars in Rite Aid and Bartell's.
I agree with Gary P. After reaching my 70's, I not only tossed my high heels and 'dress-up' stuff, but I've chosen to decorate for Xmas every other year or so. It's a gift to myself to not have to take it all down and put it away yet again. I do gifts, but on the whole I feel like I celebrate family and friends all year round. I'm trying to truly enjoy and appreciate the time I have left and not spend more time on tradition for traditions sake.
Posted Fri, Dec 2, 9:22 a.m. Inappropriate
When I was a kid, my mom made an Advent calender. It was just sew out of felt and had numbers on a series of open topped sleeves sewn on holiday background. I think she sewed bells and candy canes on it as well. But anyway that's not important. What she did was take a piece of paper and write something for each day. Some were just holiday wishes, some were things like "decorate cookies", or "drop off food at at the food bank.", or "write your grandparents." Again what we did wasn't important either but the fact that she tailored the notes for our family made it our family tradition.
Heck with those stupid paper calendars from Bartells. You can make one yourself with a sewing machine and a yard of fabric and some scraps from old clothes. Hot glue some numbers on, and some decorations, get a pad of paper had have at it.
Posted Fri, Dec 2, 10:32 a.m. Inappropriate
A beautiful piece; thank you Mr. Robinson.
Posted Fri, Dec 2, 10:40 p.m. Inappropriate
For those of us who can be classified as Type AAA+++ compulsive personalities the "waiting" of Advent is one of the real gifts. Thanks for the excellent reminder Tony and the parallel with your waiting for the new grandchild. A baby does bring us together!
Posted Sat, Dec 3, 5:49 p.m. Inappropriate
Anthony Robinson wrote
http://crosscut.com/2009/05/28/politics-government/19023/A-gutsy-commencement-address/
Crocker is likely involved in genocide.
http://www.prosefights.org/deaton/deaton.htm#titomadrid
Posted Sat, Dec 3, 10:59 p.m. Inappropriate
Xmas is not a secular holiday, because every year there are articles reminding us (especially those of us who are Jewish, etc.) that the true meaning of Christmas is Jesus. Just because there's a crazy commercial side of it doesn't mean it's secular.
Posted Sun, Dec 4, 6:30 p.m. Inappropriate
Thanks, Pastor, for a reminder that we need spaces--religious and secular--that are outside the rather sick culture of stuff and phoney partying and saccharine music and hype.
Sarah90,
You'll appreciate that my QFC is thinking Jewishly--gelt in red and green foil and a large end-cap display of Jewish food for the holiday--matzoh and gefilte fish. Never hurts to be four or five months ahead. Chanukah, Passover --what's the difference?
Posted Mon, Dec 5, 3:40 p.m. Inappropriate
Being a reformed evangelical druid, I don't throw any phoney parties. Nope mine are the real deal, with real people who like each other. The solstice day is one to remember around my household!
Posted Thu, Dec 8, 2:48 p.m. Inappropriate
sarah90, just saying "Xmas is not a secular holiday", does not make it so. You ignore thousands of years of history. Christians plopped xmas on top of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia, which is probably related to the solstice somehow. Thankfully, that cynical plan has never really worked out for them.
Anyway, why do you want to make xmas only for Christians? To me it is a time to get together with family, friends, and neighbors and share the joys and hardships of getting through the winter. To the overly religious it appears to be a time to assert their superiority and exclude those who do not believe in their true way.
My advice to Christians is to put an extra shot of whiskey in your eggnog and climb down off your high horse.
Posted Thu, Dec 8, 3:30 p.m. Inappropriate
This article is a must read:
https://atheistoasis.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/an-open-letter-to-christians-merry-christmas-from-an-atheist/
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