You know you're in San Francisco when...
I stepped into one of our (many) local Starbucks today to enjoy a cup of coffee courtesy of my family. Giftcards for coffee are always a winner with me. It took me a moment to recognize why it looked sparse inside the cafe; after a pause I realized that nary a Christmas decoration remained to be seen.
Now, given that their religiously-neutral red-and-white snowy winterscapes had been up since Halloween, I understand. And anyway, this week America lies sprawling in the wake of buyer's remorse, sugar- headaches and the melancholy that accompanies getting your cake, eating it, and feeling rather ill afterwards. (My friend Steve commented today, "All I want to eat is fruit. No more chocolate!") All the same, as far as the church calendar is concerned, Christmas is only started. For centuries, Christmas was a season. Lasting 12 days, from the Feast of the Nativity on the 25th (Christ's mass), until Epiphany on the 6th of January, the church recognized that meditating on the incarnation was too big a job for one day. Advent prepared us, turning our longing toward the presence of God—and now is the season to rejoice! Emmanuel—God with us—has indeed come. So this year I am celebrating still. My advent wreath is lit each night (the first candle is getting perilously low), the tree is glittering in the window and I am unabashedly playing my Christmas music in the car. But more: I am trying to ponder the mystery of the entrance of God into this world as one of us. Luke tells us of Mary's quiet pondering, treasuring up all the wonder surrounding the birth of her Son and meditating on them within her heart. She is our guide in this season—a time to continue on in quiet, rapt wonder of our God.Most forms of Christian practice devolve, over time, into a system of sin management. What begins with passion for the felt presence of Jesus, shifts. Generally we become aware of how our sin pulls us into guilt and shame, and makes us lose the sense of closeness to God we had so enjoyed. So, with the primary intent of drawing close to God, we buckle down against our sinfulness. But our eyes are now on us, and the self (to use Plato's imagery) is a burning fire, bright and attractive and even magnetic. Once we attend to ourselves it is very difficult to pry ourselves away. We find ourselves infinitely interesting—even if self-absorption is also stifling and reductive. Eyes on self, our desire for Jesus wanes and wanes and we are left at last win only a terror of sin and enslaved to our need to be better than we are.
Advent is a season to break out of this cycle. We are reminded of the many, many texts in the New Testament that promise freedom from sin ONLY at the return of Christ. It is inevitable; but we are to wait patiently, even with groaning. (See Phil 1:6, Romans 8, 1 John 3:1-3, Colossians 3:1-4.) Essentially, Advent is a time to remember the other half of the Gospel —that Jesus is returning to restore and recreate and heal. And the effect of this, strangely, is to free us more from sin now. Because if our hope is certain that we are both forgiven AND made new, and that we await only the revealing of who we are NOW in Christ, then and only then can we get our eyes off ourselves. My sin or lack of it is no longer the issue. I am reconciled to God so that I can turn my eyes to Him, boldly and with joy—not so that I can leave them fixed on myself. And this means we are free to love. So long as we remain obsessed with self, our "love" is only a reflection of self. We will treasure those people and things that make us feel worthwhile. But if we are assured of God's love and presence—as only the full Gospel can assure us— then we are fully free to begin paying attention to the things around us. We can look attentively at God, at the creation, at others, with loving regard. It is a terrible shame when the Gospel is forgotten among Christians because it is then tha we become self-absorbed and ignore the needs around us; and our lives become as stuffy and stale as a room without windows or fresh air. The Gospel opens the door, airs out our lives with the Fresh breeze of the Spirit and love, draws back the curtains and lets us look outside. All because we need not be concerned with our selves. We are freed from the magnetic pull of self to the far greater pull toward God, who is not only a fire but a Sun.A good post here about Advent—have we become idolatrous in our celebration of Christmas? Are we bowing down in worship and expectation of Christ, or before the throne of commercialism and empire?
I expect this is not an either-or for most Christians. It is not a matter of outright rejecting the giving of gifts or enjoying our American traditions associated with Christmas. But how can we recapture them as worship of Christ?
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Silent nights, chestnuts roasting on open fires, bleak midwinter and silver bells.
Trick is, it's not Christmas. It's Advent. Our culture has rushed us into a premature Christmas fixation, mostly because it sells things.
Real conversation between myself and Caleb Porter, Aaron's son, well before Thankgiving:
Caleb: Why does that store already have Christmas decorations? It's not even Thanksgiving!
Ben: Because they want your money, Caleb.
Caleb: Oh...
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not against Christmas music, so long as it's played between the Friday after Thanksgiving and January 6 (Epiphany). But what does frustrate me is how we've forgotten Advent songs.
Why does this concern me? Well, mainly because Advent songs give voice to the longing and need for Christ that I've been discussing over the past few posts. Christmas songs rejoice in fulfillment; Advent songs look toward what is still unfulfilled. We need both.
So, in an effort to promote Advent celebration everywhere, here is a list of some of my favorite Advent hymns, and links to newer recordings of them. Enjoy!
For someone who grew up with Advent as simply 4 more weeks of Christmas, the readings in the Common Lectionary can be somewhat surprising. The Lectionary provides an order of readings for Sundays, used by many denominations—Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, etc. It reflects the church seasons, and the choice of texts for each week is one of the primary ways that many Christians interact with the church calendar.
So when Advent comes along and the readings are about the end of the world, that can be a bit odd.
Advent is not simply a longer span of time to enjoy eggnog lattes, Silent Night and Christmas trees. (Though I do enjoy those, a lot.) It's also a time for us to fix our hope and longing on Christ's return.
As I said yesterday, Advent lets us speak our longing openly and plainly, by helping us fix it on Christ. One way this season does that is by reminding us that all the things around us are going to fade away.
We know very little about what it will be like when Christ returns—but we do know that it will be very different. So different that the things which obsess and worry us now will not even be on the radar.
Advent is a time to breathe deeply, and remember that the Gospel frees us not only from our sins but from our fears and fixations as well.
We take to heart the words of the apostle John:
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
1 John 2:15-17
Pastor of Spiritual Formation at First Baptist Church, SLO (www.fbcslo.org). Working on figuring out how a local church community can move toward a healthy, Gospel-centered rhythm of spiritual disciplines, community and missional presence. Sure that, whatever it looks like practically, the mechanism is "beholding the glory of the Lord."
