Column on Advent

The Christian season of Advent is upon us. Many older Protestant churches adopted the practice of Advent in the last few generations. Many Christian churches do not acknowledge it. Our culture does not. Christmas stations started before thanksgiving this year.  Then we have some conflict in churches when we should start singing Christmas carols. Basically the culture call off Christmas at December 26, but that is when the season just starts in the church year.

It is ancient, but it does depend on the firm dating of Christmas on December 25^th, so it took a while to be adopted. Its preparation was basically a call to fasting and prayer prior to the great day.  Please recall that Christmas was barely celebrated in this country until the mid 19^th century, with a wave of German immigration. The frosty asceticism had started to wear away from our Puritan culture.

Advent means arrival, especially in the sense of a great person moving in a grand procession.  In current tradition, it points first to the Second Advent of Christ, that time when god’s vision for the world comes to fruition. Given the childish views of most of us on this great promise, reflection on this theme could well mature our faith. On the Third Sunday we shift gears and look toward a consideration of the first Advent, the birth of Jesus Christ. Again, the Incarnation is a pillar of the faith, but we scarcely consider it but merely salute it and move on past.

Some churches have adopted the use of candles to mark each Sunday. Typically, Protestants have made this a free expression of the untethered religious sentimental imagination, so the candles often represent whatever themes the church wishes to present. Unwilling to even consider that Advent could be a call to radical repentance; many churches have chosen royal blue as a color for the candles, to push Lent into the only season of discipline in the church year.

Many of us have adopted  the relatively recent German practice of the Advent calendar. Alton High School students sell the chocolate treats for each day of the season as a fundraiser. One is rewarded with a daily treat and then beneath one could reflect on a bible passage or virtue as one counts the days until Christmas. I was reminded just today of the venerable tradition of the Jesse tree that traces the lineage of Jesus and uses it as a way to give narrative to the Bible.

Let me clear. I hope I do not sound like the Christmas Grinch. I have no issues with the spectacle of Christmas. I do ask for respect for religious traditions. I do hope that we prepare our souls with some of the attention we lavish on Martha Stewart decorations and labor-intensive goodies.

In a time of anger being stoked into simmering rage day after day, we can all use a sense of Christmas inner peace. Possessed of the power of inner peace, we can face down our violent impulses. We can find a center to do work of putting Christ back into being Christian, let alone Christmas.

This year the readings from Isaiah have a decided focus on peace. It is always an appropriate focus.  This year I am praying for an element of the advent of peac3e: the reduction in violence. We have enjoyed a long period of a reduction in violent crime and losses in war time in our country. At the same time, its pall casts gloom on those its cold hand touches. The host of heaven turned into a non-violent choir making the fields an arena for worship in the very teeth of power not far away in Jerusalem.