A few months ago, Pasty, our organist/choir director, bounced into my office (if you've ever met Patsy, you know she literally bounced in her energetic little way, into my office) and asked if I'd be willing to work on the Christmas Joy Service. This service has the children's choirs and perhaps some youth leadership, and it happens on December 6. "And this is all Christmas," she said, "We don't try to contain them to Advent, it's just Christmas."
The more I spoke with other pastors I know about our Christmas Joy Service, the more I began to hear words of "you sold out" and "Isn't it terrible how Advent has been forgotten?" My Facebook feed is flooded with memes like this:
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In the Church, we take particular care to telling the story of Jesus' birth and taking Advent seriously. We really want to get it right; we really want the birth of Jesus to be new and exciting and important. I would even go so far as to say that some of us even feel resentful toward the Christmas hullabaloo with the greed associated with Santa Claus and the surveillance of his creepy Elf on the Shelf. Advent/Christmas activities at the church are given the same priority to other Christmas traditions like decorating the family tree, visiting Santa Claus at the mall, and watching Charlie Brown's Christmas: the church isn't more important; the story of Jesus is just one more fairy tale contributing to the special "magic" of Christmas.
And this isn't just 21st century crazy Christian angst. The church calendar and traditions center around Advent in its truest sense. Advent comes from the Latin words ad and venio. Venio means "to come" and ad means "to/toward." So Advent is when we celebrate the coming to us of Jesus Christ; it is a season characteristically associated with waiting for the coming birth of Christ. Advent is the first four weeks of the church calendar year; We begin in the Old Testament with the preparation for and prophecy about the coming messiah's birth. Scripture prepares for the birth of Christ, and so should we. With something as big as Jesus coming into the world, we emphasize the waiting and the watching and the preparing.
We read the prophets who tell us of Christ's prophecy.
We read about John the Baptist and his preparation for the way.
We read about Mary's acceptance of God's call and the Holy Conception.
We read about Joseph's initial denial and eventual faith.
We refrain from Christmas carols, we light one candle at a time, we even talk about how the Christ child hasn't come yet.
There's just one minor problem with all of this...
Er, I hate to break it to you, but Jesus DID COME. God became flesh more than 2,000 years ago. And he remains active in the world through the power of the Holy Spirit. In other words, we're asking fully grown adults to suspend their disbelief and contain their Christmas joy until after our extremely solemn Christmas Eve service, and then you can have 24 hours of cheer far away from the Church. Sure, we will occasionally throw a Christmas party or a caroling event, but when it comes to worship during the Christmas season, we are like a Jack-in-the-Box winding up, waiting to spring into joyful action at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve.
Sure, I understand: this is all a part of how we celebrate the same event over and over again each year. I understand that we need to have some preparations in our hearts for the magnanimous event of Christ's birth. Certainly, I understand that we are a people of ritual, who need to be reminded every year of the influence of Jesus Christ and the transformation of our lives.
But I have a few challenges. First, because we focus on the story of Jesus' birth as though it were a mythical story, like the Night Before Christmas, we cast ourselves into the same light as Santa, Elf on the Shelf, and Rudolf: as simple children's stories that teach us to be good and buy gifts for other people because it will make us feel better. When we treat the story of Jesus' birth as something that happens in the past, we've made it irrelevant to the world today.
Second, because Jesus is already alive, the story becomes old news faster than the birth of Kanye and Kim Kardashian's second child {Saint West...I ask you...}. Rather than take on the solemnity of Advent and the devotional practice of waiting, many of us simply check out of Advent. It seems more and more like the church is out of touch with reality.
Finally, why can't our waiting be joyful? For some reason, it feels as though the church is attempting to dictate our emotions: OK, on this Sunday, you should feel a sense of reverent peace. Throughout Lent, you should be absolutely miserable and self-loathing. But on Christmas Day and Easter morning, you should be filled to the gills with joy.
And for me personally, that is the most difficult part of Christmas: I can't feel anything when I'm being told to feel a particular way. The Christmas season in the world perpetually tells us to be joyful, to be grateful, to be anxious, to be charitable. Meanwhile, the winter season reminds me of many loved ones I've lost over the years, and I feel sad for them. This will be my first Christmas away from family, and I am sad for that, but also excited. I find joy in baking Christmas cookies and listening to carols and decorating our tree, but it is fleeting, quickly replaced by anxiety or a belly-ache.
I propose that Advent brings about a renewed sense of quest: a quest for joy that can only come through Jesus Christ, not from eggnog, presents, or decorations. If Christ is present in the world by the power of the Holy Spirit, why can't we celebrate his birth every day? Why can't we be filled with joy each and every time we see God at work in the world around us? Instead of our endless to-do list in the Christmas season, why can't we pursue an Advent quest of discovering Christ's new life within us and our lives each day?
If we are seeking Christ in the holiday season, if we are submitting ourselves to discipleship to Christ, if we are discovering Christ's presence in our midst, then we are discovering true joy. True joy that is not replaced quickly by a belly ache or by credit card bills or by loneliness; a joy that fills us from bottom to top, that changes our lifestyles and uproots us from our monotonous lives. The birth of the messiah, the Word become flesh, the incarnation of God: this is worth celebrating, it's worth getting joyful and excited over because it keeps happening. It happens again when we see people serving one another; it happens again when we sacrifice our own benefits for the benefits of others; it happens when we lay aside our anxiety at the foot of the cross so that we can bravely follow God into a new place.
On Sunday, those of us who were there experienced truly the joy of Christ in our midst as we sang together, prayed together, and celebrated new life. It was a perfectly joyful affair, and it inspired me to be a more committed servant of Christ.
This week, I challenge us to lay aside our burdens of anxiety and grief and our fake joy found in Santa and cookies. I challenge us to give those things the time of day they deserve and move on to the all-consuming quest for Jesus Christ in our midst. I challenge us to be grateful for the exciting task of finding the Holy Spirit at work and to embrace the quest with joy and excitement.
Here's some resources
I love Advent. It contains a beautiful paradox. As you said, Advent is all about "Jesus is coming" and at the same time "Jesus is already here". But we can also use Advent to look forward to Jesus coming again in glory. As I write that, it seems so un-mainline Presbyterian of me to say it, but the idea of God coming again to rule the earth in justice and mercy is sometimes the only hope I can see.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, absolutely it is okay to be joyful during Advent. There are a cajillion excellent Christmas carols, and about 6 good Advent hymns. If we try to limit ourselves to only Adventy songs, we would quickly run out of songs and have to stop singing. And that's not any kind of world for anybody to live in.