Let Advent Be Advent

Throughout my ministry I’ve waged, at best, a marginally successful campaign to “Let Advent Be Advent.” Let Advent be its own distinct season of the spirit and in worship, rather than simply turning it into pre-Christmas, preparing for Christmas, or even full-on Christmas.

It’s not that I am uptight liturgical purist, though I have known a few. You’ve heard the old joke? “What’s the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? Answer: you can negotiate with a terrorist.”

No, my reasons for valuing Advent — in addition to loving the Advent hymns — are both pastoral and theological. Advent is a season that tells an important truth, one we need to hear, perhaps especially in the weeks before Christmas when the pressure can be on to be constantly jolly and generally perfect.

Advent positions the church where we do in fact live, between hope and fulfillment, and in contested territory where all that distorts, disfigures, and destroys life is yet real and powerful.

Fleming Rutledge opens this up in her excellent book Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. She notes that many assume there are but two actors on the biblical stage: God and the human being. When things go awry it’s because we, the h.b.’s, have failed to live up to our full potential. But, writes Fleming, “The New Testament presents us not with two but three agencies: God, the human being, and an Enemy, variously called Satan, the devil, Beelzebub” among others. The point is there’s a struggle going on, a battle really. Hence, the frequency of Jesus’ encounters with the demonic and his many exorcisms.

We live, says Advent, on the battlefield. We live between Christ’s two comings, like the figures in Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The first coming was in Bethlehem. The second, not yet, in the promised consummation of all things when Christ shall come again. Between the times, faith is no slam dunk. We struggle to believe, to trust, to keep faith as days grow short and darkness deepens. In such seasons we cry out, “Where’s God?” “God, why are you silent?” “Why don’t You do something!”

Maybe you’ve been asking such questions of late? These are Advent questions, questions for those who live between the times and in the midst of a great struggle in which we each have a part to play.

In the medieval period, the four Sundays of Advent were keyed to the so-called “last things” — death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Those medieval folks did not, apparently, suffer from an excess of jollity in their Advents!

Nowadays, we name the four Sundays of Advent, hope, peace, joy, and love and light a candle on the Advent wreath for each one in turn. A return to the older themes is, well, let’s just say “unlikely.” Probably just as well. I’m sure the death, judgment, heaven, and hell menu gave rise to plenty of fearmongering sermons and urgings to “clean up your act or else,” which by the way is not the gospel.

Still, the modern quartet — hope, peace, joy, and love — do suggest that we don’t have a lot of room for the darker side, which is often now relegated to a special “Blue Christmas” service for those who can’t quite pull off the bright-side program of this, “the most wonderful time of the year.”

So again I urge, “Let Advent be Advent.” Hold off on the Christmas carols until the twelve days of Christmas. Sing the Advent hymns of waiting and watching, those that acknowledge life and faith can be and are hard. Don’t make Advent only about preparing for Christmas as if Christ can only come when we are completely ready and have everything under control. Hah!

God comes, Advent promises, when we least expect him, precisely when we are not ready and don’t have our act together. God comes to those places where we think God cannot possibly be found, a cattle shed, a cross.

This is the promise of Advent, that it’s not all up to us, not all on us. However hard it may be to see or discern at this moment, God is faithful and God’s grace is at work. Something is coming. Someone is coming. 

Some years ago, an eight-year-old named Elizabeth stood at the back of large, drafty sanctuary on the first Sunday of Advent. Her job was to process down the aisle and light the first candle on the Advent wreath at the very beginning of the service. On schedule, Elizabeth’s candlelighter was fired up by an usher in the foyer, and Elizabeth, a most determined expression on her face, began her trek to the distant chancel.

But no one was ready. The clergy weren’t in place. Only half the choir had made it to the choir loft. Members of the congregation were racing around the sanctuary, greeting friends, and chattering about an important meeting that would follow worship. The organist looked out on the mayhem and tried to signal an usher to stop Elizabeth. She waved. She mouthed, “No, not yet, we’re not ready yet.”

Elizabeth was not to be deterred. Almost invisible in the frenzy, the small figure came down the center aisle, carefully shielding her flame from the upswell of air at the furnace grate.

By the time Elizabeth got to the front and started up the steps to the chancel, the choir was all there. The ministers were settling in their seats. And the congregation had, somehow, fallen into a worshipful quiet. Elizabeth reached up to the Advent wreath and lit the designated candle. Advent was underway.

Ready or not, God comes. That’s the promise of Advent.