The Rev. Dr. Hilary
B. Smith
Advent
and our Expectations for Christmas
Keep
awake! We are to expect something. What do we expect at this time of year? And
who, or what, sets our expectations for Christmas?
If
you had expected to hear Christmas carols today, if you had expected to join in
a holiday party-like atmosphere by coming to church today, you are most likely
very confused by this point. What is all to talk of the Second coming of
Christ? All this might seem to be out-of-step with the season, and it is.
Advent
is not in step with the message coming to us from the materialistic culture
around us – thank God. Rather than a focus on acquiring, as the holiday seems
to demand, our Advent preparation for the holy day invites us to make room for
the great gift God wants to give us. How do we prepare for that?
What
is Advent all about? Advent is our time to prepare spiritually for Christmas.
There are so many ways that we are encouraged to
prepare for Christmas by our consumer culture—ways that form expectations in
our minds about Christmas that have nothing to do with Christ. Advent helps us with
our holiday expectations.
This
holiday time can be hard for many. The cultural expectations are unrelenting –
expectation that we are supposed to be happy and jolly, much like that fellow
in the red suit and white beard. If this is a great time of year for you,
wonderful – God rejoices with you. But if this time of year is difficult for
whatever reason –God stands with you. For those without money to buy all the
culturally required items to make it a “great Christmas,” this time of year can
be stressful or even disappointing. Advent is here to help us get our
expectations in order.
It
is not that we won’t go to parties or buy presents – all that can be right and
good when done within the context of our faith. Times of celebration and
gift-giving can be great ways to express our joy and our faith. When we buy a
gift for a teen to give to CCAP, which will then go to a young person in need,
we do this because of or faith. We buy the gift because we want these kids to
know that people care – we are instruments of God with we do such things. So
buying gifts is not wrong. Again, it all has to do with expectations.
If
anything, many have very low expectations for Christmas when their greatest
desire is for a particular gift. But do you see the grace here—we can have the
highest expectations for Christmas no matter what our circumstances—we can
expect our lives to be filled with love and grace from the One who came to be with you and me, and
we know we won’t be disappointed.
Advent
is the start of the Church year – this is a time to begin again, to tell the
beginning of our story as the people of God. The word itself means “coming” or
“arrival.” The season of Advent is the time to prepare for our yearly
celebration of the birth of Jesus – the first Advent. But Advent is also that
time to remember that Christ will come again. As Christians, we await the
completion of God’s work on earth. The end explains why the beginning is so
important. Jesus’ birth was seen as important by those who told the stories and
wrote the Bible because of what happened later.
What
are your expectations for this holiday season—are they high or low? If we are
focused on the material, our expectations are low, but ironically we can be
easily disappointed. If we are focused on the spiritual, our expectations are
high and we will not be disappointed.
There
is no other time of year that can help us understand our faith better than this
one—and I say that because Christmas has become so wrapped up with cultural
expectations, we need to unwrap the gift that God is giving us so as to see
what we can expect.
These
four weeks leading to the Christmas season are a gift given to us—time to take
off the wrapping of cultural expectations. These weeks are a time to prepare to
receive once again the greatest gift of all – the gift of our Savior, our
Emmanuel, God with us.
Fleming
Rutledge states in a book of sermons entitled, The Bible and the New York
Times, that
No other denomination does Advent as
conscientiously as we do. It is one of the
most cherished contributions that the Episcopal Church has made to Christian
worship. Advent teaches us to delay Christmas in order to experience it truly
when it finally comes (Fleming
Rutledge, The Bible and The New York Times, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 1998, p. 26).
Advent
is a quiet time of watching and waiting. You may choose to attend our
healing/spiritual retreat next Saturday or come to one of our Advent Wednesday
service that are designed to be contemplative experiences.
Do what helps you connect with God this Advent. It is a time to prepare a place
for Christ to be born in us once again. How
do we do that? This is a question that has led to a discovery of Advent in some
unlikely places.
There
is a movement making its presence known on youtube.com and the internet called
the Advent Conspiracy. Advent has been discovered by non-denominational church leaders.
So many people are tired of the stress associated with the consumer side of
Christmas, and so many have begun to realize they want more of a focus on Jesus
at this time of year. They have always wanted the focus to be on Jesus, and now
they have discovered that Advent can be a way to do so.
In
their well-designed and eye-catching video, they make these statements:
Everyone wants Christmas to be
meaningful.
But instead it becomes Shop, Shop, Shop;
Credit Cards, Traffic Jams, To Do Lists,
Useless Gifts…
How did Jesus celebrate?
He gave Himself,
Relationally,
Incarnation,
Time,
Space,
Presence…” (www.adventconspiracy.org)
The
creators of the concept of the Advent Conspiracy urge us to give our time to
those we love, to give one less gift, and to use that money to help those in
need. They are focused on providing clean water to everyone on earth.
The
bulletin inserts for today, created by the Episcopal Church, show us that in
giving one less gift we can give $12 to provide a mosquito net to protect
people from malaria and that just $15 will provide a fish farm that gives a
family food and income. It doesn’t take much; it really has to do with what our
expectations are for Christmas this year.
With
four catch phrases, the Advent Conspiracy folks have done a good job of
capturing what we in the Episcopal Church have advocated for a long time during
Advent:
Worship Fully,
Spend Less,
Give More,
Love All.
When
we live into Advent in such ways, we learn what we can expect from Christmas
–what we can expect from Christ, whose arrival changed the world and continues
to do so. Amen.