Advent is an unusual season in the church year. A season celebrated in every nook and cranny of the community, holiday songs fill the air, Christmas markets pop up, concerts and recitals are performed, mailboxes are stuffed with catalogs. On air ads encourage us to buy the perfect present for someone else, or for ourselves. Saccharine Hallmark movies abound. It’s a time to mask the reality of the world as it is so that a sense of peace, joy and good will can be experienced, if only in our imaginations. Sadly, however much we get into the sport of the holidays, the reality of January ends it with a thud.
In the meantime, the Christian church takes another path toward Christmas in a four week Sunday worship season of reading stern sayings and warnings. It seems out of step with the happy holiday cheerfulness on display everywhere else. Advertising promises a more attractive path to riches and a better life. But it is a way is distorted by envy, selfishness, greed, and desire for status. However, we are preparing for the greater, more authentic joy discovered once again in a manger where the greatest gift of all lies sleeping. Fullness of life abundant in God’s grace, a life of courageous peacemaking and godly justice for all is to live into Jesus’ teaching and commandments.
There is something in our human nature that favors following our own devices and desires with a passing nod to the way of Jesus. As God has warned us time and again, it never works out as hoped for. It’s not that we are hopelessly incompetent creatures as our collective “better angels” have proved us to be more just, less miserly, more willing to make shelter, food, education, and health care more available to more people. As a society we have repented for our ancestors most egregious sins even if we are loathe to repent of our own. Nevertheless, it never delivers the fullness of a better life that so many desperately need and passionately hope for.
Advent, therefore, is a time to reflect on these things and recommit to the better way proclaimed in the annual celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, and King of Kings. It is a time to resolve that this year we will be more intentional as Christians to live into the way of God’s love, and bear the light of Christ through word and deed in the ordinary affairs of daily life.
Advent, although not a somber season, is a season of serious contemplation about the reality of life as it is.We contemplate the deeper meaning of the nativity for us and for the salvation of the whole world. At the same time, we are free to enter into the joyful preparations that surround us. If society sees it as a season of joyful good will, then let us engage in it in joyful goodwill with everyone who we meet and we can help make it a happy holiday season for others, regardless of their religion or lack of it.