Faith Works 11-28-20

Faith Works 11-28-20

Jeff Gill

A theme often overlooked

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Lent is a season even non-Christians are familiar with; Advent somewhat less so. It's already news that the pre-Lent celebrations down on the Gulf coast are already in abeyance, the Carnival season of parades and festivities which end in the much better known Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday," the end of revelry before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

In Lent, you are preparing for Easter, and in doing so, there is for many fasting, or at least the giving up of something. You fast to increase your appreciation of the feast, when Easter day comes with joy and celebration.

Less often appreciated, even in highly liturgical churches, is how Advent is meant to be a similar season. A time for prayer and penitence, a sacrificial season which prepares us for the rejoicing and festivity of Christmas. 

Some congregations have Advent wreaths and candles, four with one to each week leading to Christmas Day and a Christ candle in the middle. The traditional themes are of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love, with joy sometimes getting a pink candle contrasting a bit with the frequently purple candles for the other three.

That pause for pink, or joy, or "gaudete" in the Latin formulation, only makes sense if you are looking at the rest of the Advent season as a time for something more restrained, a season for sacrifice, a penitential period. You break out in a bit of anticipatory rejoicing, briefly, on that third Sunday of Advent, but as the rest of the culture is picking up the pace of music and decoration and parties and . . . well. Right. 2020. Let's come back to that.

Anyhow, Gaudete Sunday is either an aberration in pink, or a reminder that the rest of Advent is supposed to be a seasonal reminder to prepare our spirits, our very souls, for the coming of Good News in the flesh, of God's promises yet to be fulfilled but surely coming soon, to be ready to invite the Prince of Peace into our lives, our homes, our hearts. If we just try to celebrate the whole season, the pink candle deal is just one more darn detail to get right in our pursuit of the perfect Christmas season.

This year, I am truly feeling Adventy. That's not a word, but I declare it so. It's an Adventy kind of November and December, don't you think? We have to prepare differently this year, and it's going to be rueful and meditative and reflective if it's going to be anything at all. The parties and decorations and tree lighting ceremonies (my wife always notes that the TV movies always have to have a tree lighting ceremony where various plot developments take place for the budding romances) are all going virtual and careful and cautious. Large group gatherings are clearly unwise and in many circumstances against the best and strongest public health guidelines this year, so it's "the revenge of the introverts" and party planners are crying into their egg nog.

What this does make possible, though, is a renewed exploration and appreciation for Advent as it's actually intended. Not a steady drum beat of expectation growing in intensity and fervent celebration, an escalation that's hard to keep up with, frankly, but a quiet path of meditation and prayer and reflection on why we are glad to celebrate the birth of a baby under odd and awesome circumstances two millennia ago.

Advent, which from the Latin is "to come," is a time of thinking and preparing for what is to come. We are anticipating, adventy-ing if you will, the coming of a vaccine and a restoration of what we've lost this year, but we also expect and anticipate, in a very Advent-ish mode that what is to come will not just be what once was. Things will change, losses have come, and the future, what we anticipate, is going to be different. We have to adjust and adapt and prepare for that.

Which is what Advent has always been about. And something any of us can do with candles at home, and prayers in private, week by week through our adjusted Advent, so we can welcome this Christmas for the blessing that it can indeed still be.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's very much into Advent this year, not just the wreath and candle stuff. Tell him about your seasonal preparations at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.