We are approaching Advent...and sooner the encompassing cultural “Christmas” season. It seems that the Christmas season is now starting before Thanksgiving. I saw holiday commercials starting on All Saints Day, Walmart put up their Christmas decorations on that day. Christmas music has been playing and started two weeks ago. I know that the Christmas season has taken on a cultural identity outside of the faith (commercialism, etc) and I’m okay with some of that. But I find myself asking the same question I did last year around this time: How do we balance the tension of the already and the not yet of Advent? I find myself wanting to wait to sing and even hear the carols. I want the Advent hymns and content to be given space and place. But, it’s so hard to hear it in a culture that blares those sacred songs everywhere with no meaning. And, once the clock turns past Dec 25, the larger culture takes down the trees and lights and moves on...and a large chunk of the American church follows with it. How do you foster the Advent season in singing “O come o come Immanuel” when others are singing “Joy to the world the Lord is come?”
Could I be bifurcating something that doesn’t need to be separated? Does the liturgical season of Christmas encompass Advent? The Easter season doesn’t encompass Lent, right? But, I guess in a way Christmas would encompass Advent because of the focus of the first two weeks—the second advent. But, Advent has to do with anticipation, hope, waiting, longing...maybe even silence (ha! Try that one in the culture!) in expectation of redemption and the coming of a savior (Savior) to bring us back to where we belong. And it is journeying through this time of waiting and longing that we can sing boisterously Joy to the world the LORD is come! Let earth receive her King! And, I’ve come full circle because the King has come already.
I some how find myself wanting to call this time from Thanksgiving to Christmas the holiday season, because of the cultural content of Santa, reindeer, sugar plums, and candy canes, Frosty, and all the fun songs that go along with it. But I don't want to call it the Christmas season. And I don't want to sing the carols..."because it's not time for them yet."
I don't want to be legalistic about it--I just want Advent to be given space and place in a very crowded and loud season.
Peace,
Michael
4 comments:
Thanks, Michael.
Do you think that if when we worship & preach, we completely went to the other end of the spectrum (second advent) and ignored the Christ-child for a bit, people would even begin to realize that this is not just a time of remembrance of a starry night two millenia ago (and a wonderful time it was), but also a time of hopeful expectation for the future?
Because last year I tried to cover both, and I'm pretty sure that people still don't grasp the look to the future that Advent is supposed to foster, but if asked what Advent is all about would give responses about God giving to us and us giving to others (however compassionate our giving may be).
Part of me wants this "advent conspiracy" thing where I just completely ignore the cultural adaptations of Christmas.
Yeah, I'm right there with you. I know that it would be hard for a congregation to do--probably harder than to trying to get the whole congregation to give something up for Lent. I just had a friend send me the link to the Advent Conspiracy. While I haven't explored the whole site, I am impressed that somebody stepped up to call us to slow down. And of course, that's the message that we've had to give because Christ is so often times over looked...in the season that bears his name.
I posed this thought to an Episcopal pastor friend of mine. He said that their tradition struggles with it. He said Advent is the hardest season to keep. They do not see Advent and Christmas together. They do not put a Christmas tree up until the season of Christmas (the twelve days). He said the advent wreath is the focal point. And they encourage people to have their Christmas parties in the twelve days of Christmas, not before. I really like that idea. I think it is very practical (at least for those hosting the parties). I wonder what kinds of reactions one would get if during the Advent season the pastor said that there would be no hanging of the greens until Christmas Eve, and just have an advent wreath.
I think part of what gives us "trouble" is that we are not a liturgical tradition. I mean, look at our hymnal. We have really only have one real advent hymn. Of the Father's Love Begotten is really a Christmas hymn, and I'd say that Celebrate Immanuel's name is closer to an Epiphany hymn. Now, I will say that we have several songs on the second coming.
We have to really put ourselves in this story that we retell through the church year. We have to enter in and put ourselves right along side those in exile, those who have nothing and see no hope except in the far off glimmer of the thought that messiah WILL come. We have to put ourselves on the before end of the manger. We have to feel the longing. Then, Christmas takes on real depth and significance..."and we put Christ back in Christmas."
Thanks for the thoughtful conversation on this, I really want to focus on the Advent season and create an environment of anticipation as we approach Christmas together for the first time together in our community as a young church. I am wondering how we might embrace cultural the adaptation of how we approach the Christmas season as a way that embraces the anticipation of Christmas in away that successful acts out the historical anticipation of Christ’s coming into the world and also the promise of his return and future kingdom?
I think for us I want our community to really embrace the incarnation; both by reflecting on the historical anticipation of “God with us” that was ultimately fulfilled in the incarnation of the new born Christ at Christmas but also for us to reflect and anticipate how God might continue his incarnational work in us as his body and community as we press on toward the future.
Peace,
James
By the way I have been really enjoying your site and I added your site as a link to www.nazarenecohorts.com
James,
I'd really be interested in hearing what you come up with that captures both the cultural and the historic anticipation. The romanticism that our culture has with Christmas seems to be so surface level. I don't want to be scrooge and humbug the "season."
I like the thought of the incarnation, especially going through Christmastide into the season after Epiphany where we explore who Jesus really is.
Thanks for adding the link on your site!
Peace,
Michael
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