Advent 1 Year B 2011

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 17:15:14 -0500

It’s been all over the news the last couple of days, those horrible stories about Black Friday, how young women got into fist-fights over something called yoga pants; how a woman doused a crowd with pepper spray to secure the last discounted X-Box; and the very worst…how a man over in West Virginia died of a heart attack, fell to the floor, and shoppers simply stepped around or over him. There were other stories. I’ve read about several shootings, stampedes, and robberies: it sounds more like a day in the Old West rather than the day after Thanksgiving, in 2011.

Now, I understand why people would want to shop on the day after Thanksgiving; the values that are offered seem unreal. And, in a sense, they are. Only a limited number of items can be sold so cheaply. But the allure of cheap gifts is so strong that people will sacrifice their time and rest to stand in line all night, just to buy a cheap phone, or a game box, or whatever it is that people stand in line all night to buy.

I don’t recall this when I was younger; I don’t know when shopping on the day after Thanksgiving became so urgent. But, over the past few years it’s come to resemble a blood sport. Maybe it’s the times in which we live, but it seems to me that now, more than ever, people want what they want…and usually, they want it right now. And on the day after Thanksgiving, that means Christmas. And that’s a sad commentary, for not only is Black Friday shamefully and culturally embarrassing, it also points out just how little our society understands or appreciates Advent.

Advent is a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the Feast of the Nativity. The word Advent comes from the Latin Adventus, and means - in reference to Jesus - his coming. We keep Advent in order to prepare our hearts and minds for Christmas; it reminds us that God’s people spent centuries anticipating, watching, waiting, hoping, longing for a Messiah. It’s an important thing to actively remember. Two thousand years have passed this side of the cross, and we have always had a messiah, we have always had Jesus. It doesn’t seem like such a big deal. But it is a big deal. And Advent is the season to remember that we still need a messiah, and that we should prepare our hearts for his coming.

As the scriptures have shown us for the past few weeks, we need to live in anticipation, in readiness. We need to be waiting and watching and longing. Advent offers us time to reflect on that: three weeks or so to think on what it means to need a messiah: what it has meant for our souls, and how it will change everything.

The human idea of time is stretched during Advent. For most of the year, time is simply a valuable commodity, a gift to use wisely as moments fall, one after another, along a continuum. As each moment ends, another begins, and that moment is then replaced, as well. And we cannot retrieve those moments. But Advent is a season in which time is fooled: we anticipate an event in the past, even though it already happened, as we equally anticipate an event in the future: Christ’s return. And all we can do is wait for a day and hour which no one knows: not the angels in heaven… not even Jesus himself.

But in the midst of anticipation, we are still called to live in the present, depending now upon the very same Messiah whom we anxiously await in both the future and the past. Can humans live in this wrinkle in time? No, not really. But Christ does: he is eternal, and we celebrate his presence throughout all time in worship as we say these words:

Christ has died - Christ is risen - Christ will come again.

Even if we are trapped in in the space time continuum, Advent invites us to see time differently, to view it not as a commodity, but as a sacred and holy gift. And Advent reminds us that when we come to the communion table, it isn’t just the baby who was born we seek to join, or the king who will return, but the Christ of the present moment.

It’s a shame, then, when we are so easily swayed by a culture that doesn’t understand the possibilities of Advent. We Episcopalians are pretty serious about keeping Advent. It’s our custom to not decorate our parishes until the last Sunday, in order to fully keep Advent as a season. Now, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit it, but I’m secretly alarmed when other Christian traditions insist on keeping Advent by decorating their buildings for Christmas right after thanksgiving. And I shudder when I hear Christmas carols in October. But I’m not immune to culture, and I can easily recall the Advent of 1996.

Star and I had been together for a couple of years, and were living in Connecticut. At my insistence, we didn’t buy a Christmas tree until the fourth Sunday of Advent…it simply wouldn’t do. So when we looked for a tree, we found that there were none. They had all been bought. Finally, after hours of searching, we found a tree at the Home Depot in Bridgeport. It was such a sad, misshapen, beat-up tree that the store actually gave it to us…free of charge.

We took it home and decorated it. And for the next few days, our daughter Ann kept asking when we were going to quit kidding around and put up the real tree. Our tree was like the little train that couldn’t.

After that, we never bought a tree later than the second Sunday of Advent. I suppose that it’s not that different from those who shop on the day after Thanksgiving, although we never have crowded or cursed or fought for a tree. And even if someone will have a happy Christmas morning when they open up the expensive gift bought on Black Friday, what does it profit us to lose our humanity for a gift that will likely be obsolete by next Thanksgiving. The material things we fight for are so limited. But Christ isn’t.

Advent - the anticipation of his coming - invites us into all of salvation‘s time. We hear the words of the prophets from so long ago, their hearts longing for the day that he would come, living by faith that it would be…even if they never would see it. We hear the prophesies of the future that will likely happen long after we have gone. And by faith we anticipate it. And we enter into the present eternity of Jesus, as - by faith - we meet him in the sacrament of communion.

Perhaps it really is a wrinkle in time.

The season of Advent begins today. It is a season of anticipation and hope. We look to the past, and to the future, as we meet with the Son of God, who is with us now and always, until the end of time. I wish you all a holy and blessed Advent season.

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Advent 1 Year B 2011