But It Doesn’t Feel Like “Almost Christmas”

          I’m writing on a mid-November day with temperatures about 60 degrees and a summer-like shower falling. Is it going to be a global warming Advent?

          Weather can shift (famously) in New England, of course. But there are other ways that it just may not feel like a usual time of seasonal anticipation of Christmas. Americans are increasingly facing the long-term effects of war in Iraq and Afghanistan on veterans and their families as well as on those countries. Costs, literal and metaphorical, are just starting to make their impact felt. The economy continues to reel from the impact of the sub-prime mortgage craze, and TV shows us, almost nightly, real people who are finding themselves homeless. Everyone agrees the cost of fuel for our cars and our homes will climb over the coming winter.

          Add to this the conundrum of parents facing greater-than-ever pressures to buy for their children’s Christmases at a time when the safety of toys may be uncertain – and we may find ourselves saying but it doesn’t feel like ‘almost Christmas.’

          Well, that’s pretty much as it should be. Advent, the season the church quietly observes before Christmas, is not simply a time of getting ready, and excited, about the big day. It is a period of four weeks (including the four Sundays before Christmas) for acknowledging our world and our lives as they are this year. As in the centuries before Jesus came, punctuated by the prophets’ visions of judgment and hope, we are in darkness which only the miracle of God’s gift can redeem. Where is the darkness deepest this year? Where is true healing needed? Yes, the Lord has come, but this profoundly saving grace must be reborn in our lives and our world again and again.

          We light candles, one more for each of the four weeks, to remind us of the hope. It is of deep importance for us, and especially for children’s faith development, that there be recognition of Advent’s meaning at home – such as use of an Advent wreath and special prayers at mealtime. Making conscious choices for ourselves and others to resist the pressures and to give time to music, to quiet time, to special services, to helping others, all bring home the real gifts of Advent. These things can help us prepare for a Christmas celebration in which our hearts and our homes truly receive the Light of the World.

          Doesn’t feel like almost Christmas? That’s as it should be. Come, begin this Advent journey.

Peace,

Rod