Recently in Advent Category

As someone who grew up in the Evangelical Free church, I learned about Heaven as a place where everything was good and beautiful. Of course, there were many diverging opinions of that that would be like. Saturday morning cartoons (I grew up in the sixties and seventies) showed heaven as a place where people became winged angels and sat on clouds playing lyres. Some of my friends said "you can eat anything you want and not get fat!" Others suggested that streets paved with gold extended to mansions dripping with precious gems. Everyone who spoke of heaven tended to agree that we would all be happy all the time.

As someone who has struggled with depression, this sounds exhausting.

But even if we get a place where every enjoyable thing is available with no downside, and somehow that's still satisfying, would it be paradise?

What happens when we put people in it?

Surely we know some people whose personalities would make paradise, shall we say, less than perfect. There's that person who whines, and the one who makes those weird noises, and the one who talks endlessly about things no one cares about. There's also the person who doesn't work hard enough, the person who shows everyone up with their over-achieving, and the person who takes credit for other people's work. There's the needy person, and the person who doesn't care about anyone else.

I, at one time or another, have been each of those people.

So my mere presence in paradise would make paradise a little less perfect. Even if God plucks me (and some of my friends) out of an imperfect world and plops me down in paradise, we would turn paradise into Gilligan's Island.

What can we do about this?

Whether we believe in some perfect afterlife, or a better future for society, people have to change. And this change can't just be a change in behavior: we have all met (or been) people who have found ways to address the letter of the rule while violating the spirit. No, we need a change of heart, to become a new person, to be "born again".

Yes, my Evangelical roots are showing.

But for the Cindi I am today, "Born Again" is not about praising Jesus more, or about following some moral code. It's about changing my relationship with others.

It's about hoping that others will experience paradise: not because I'll get rewarded for that hope, but because I genuinely care about others.

It's about caring enough about others that I hope I can do things that will help bring paradise for them.

It's about hoping that I will change to be more in line with a vision of paradise: not for my benefit, but for the benefit of others.

Today, my prayer is that I will wish less to be moved into paradise, but I will be moved to be a part of paradise.

Just before Advent, our church's Adult Christian Education class finished talking about the Eschaton. The Eschaton can refer to the end of the age, end of the Earth, end of the Universe, return of Jesus, hope for humanity, and, well, a lot of things that we await.

And Advent is another waiting - a waiting for the divine to break through into our lives. How does this inform us about our relationship with the transcendent and eternal?

I think the waiting is an important part. Advent lasts only three to four weeks (depending on which day Christmas falls on), but Mary's pregnancy was nine months, and Israel had waited much longer. The presence of God-with-us is not a sudden inbreaking, but a becoming.

I think another important part is that Israel wasn't whisked away to a better future: instead, the divine entered into the lives of humans. It's not about our moving into something better; it's about something better moving into us.

What if Advent informs us about the Eschaton? What if, while some of us wait for a change in the world, what's happening is a change within us? What if the promise of a new heaven and a new earth is more about how God changes us than God changing our world?

Let peace begin on earth, and let it begin with me.

When does the Christmas season begin?

On the "Black Friday" after (American) Thanksgiving?

After Halloween is over?

After Labor Day?

More than a few people are aware of how the Christmas season has been creeping earlier and earlier each year. Even "Black Friday" sales have moved so early in the morning that they now begin on Thanksgiving Day.

A big part of the reason for the ever-earlier season is that retailers are competing for our money. Indeed, Christmas has become intensely commercialized. By making the "shopping season" longer (by beginning earlier) and "taller" (with stores opening earlier in the morning and closing later in the evening), we can shop more hours than ever. At the same time, retail employees are losing opportunities to be with family due to the demands of the marketplace.

Many people wish we could "go back to the old start of the Christmas season. But when is that, exactly?

Clergy and seminarians, you can put your hands down.

A few of you got this right. No doubt, some of you have heard pastors muttering under their breath (or more loudly) about Christmas carols during the season of Advent, and that the Christmas season begins on December 25.

Clergy may be paddling upstream trying to reverse the trend of earlier and earlier Christmas seasons. They're certainly not going to overwhelm the will of the retail outlets.

But we can, at least during worship, try to grasp what the Advent season is about. Just as Lent is about anticipation of the crucifixion of Good Friday and resurrection of Easter, Advent is about the anticipation of Christmas. It's a time to think about the story of a pregnant Mary, a bewildered Joseph, and an excited Elizabeth. It's a time to think about a nation under occupation, hoping for deliverance from Roman rule. It's a time to think about women without husbands surviving through prostitution, men who have colluded with the occupying country to collect taxes from their own people, people struggling with physical and mental diseases and disabilities - all yearning to be a part of society again.

During advent, we're not awaiting Santa, or gifts, or parties. We're awaiting something so much more:

Hope.

That hope comes to us not in a sanitized, baby-doll form, but in the very messy human form. We're talking about a real baby who cries ("Away in a Manger" notwithstanding), born from a real woman, in a real stable with messy animals.

Our hope is not in an overnight miracle; it's in the dirty, messy, noisy reality of this world. And it's something worth waiting for.

It's not just the Advent of Jesus, it's the Adventure of life.

Let's put off the singing of Christmas carols until December 25. In the mean time, let's sing a few Advent hymns. Here's one written by two of my friends: Birth Pangs (Angry Baby Jesus)