Friday column on Advent

I was raised Roman Catholic, so the start of the church year, Advent, comes easily to me. Over the years, especially since Vatican II in the 60s, a number of Protestant churches have grown to adopt more and more from the liturgical year. Our reformation traditions argued against this, but for the sake of being ecumenical we have adopted practices that were once more the province of Catholics. I don’t think we have done a good job working with the liturgical year with congregations, and it feels more like an imposition to many. So, I thought I would walk through some of its meaning, as the first Sunday in Advent is December 2.

Immediately, one notices that we don’t agree on the color of the season any more. It usually was a shade of purple, but a deep blue is gaining popularity. Advent precedes Christmas of course, and Lent precedes Easter. Both periods were used to prepare, to prepare with penance and repentance, for two major events on the Christian calendar, and purple was the symbolic color for that activity. The shift to blue shifts the focus from repentance, as part of our aversion to speaking of sin. Second, it opens scope for the creative imagination. Blue is a royal color, so it links the end of the church year, Christ the King, to its start. Third, it heightens the sense of the darkness before the dawn.

Then, we sometimes assign a meaning to each of four candles for each Sunday either to highlight some part of the Christian story or virtue, or something from the readings for the day. Four candles  are in a circle, a symbol of eternity, and evergreen for the perdurance of life itself often is garland.  A Christ candle occupies the center position, to be lit for Christmas itself.

For church planners, Advent is most challenging. The culture is filled with Christmas carols in the malls but not at church. The idea is four Sundays to prepare for the first Advent, the first arrival, of Jesus in Bethlehem, and the Second Arrival, presentation of Jesus at the culmination of the age. I have people call me a Grinch for not singing Christmas songs until the third Sunday in Advent, but the same people want to follow the culture exactly and stop singing Christmas songs right at Christmas. They seem undeterred by the twelve days of Christmas starting at Christmas, as they would much prefer them to end at Christmas, just like the malls. Everybody loves Christmas carols, but Advent hymns are in most people’s top ten list.

A part of me thinks this all is much ado about nothing. At the same time, care with a worship environment tells a story, one that starts to get bred in the marrow. Songs and symbols speak more loudly and clearly than words alone at times. Our failure with Advent has led to the excrescence of left behind theology. It purports to be biblical but is liturgically deficient in its understanding. it grasps only the piece of fear and ending and loses utterly the sense of restoration and new beginnings in apocalyptic material.

In the end, Christians view time itself as God’s creation, and we get to share in it and help manage it wisely. So, we can dare to cut against the secular calendar’s demands, especially with the Sabbath. For Christians, history is not cyclical, not meaningless repetition, but it moves in a direction, as an extension of what we call Providence. Christmas point us to God’s deep involvement in our world, to the point of Incarnation. It did not end there. Advent points us to a glorious time of completion. One fine day, God’s way in the world will be allied with our lives, no longer in opposition but living in sweet heavenly peace.