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"A is for Advent" | Jeremiah 33:14-16 | November 30, 2003 |
This is the first Sunday in Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas.
Christmas was not even celebrated as a Christian festival until about the fourth century of the common era. In the pre-Christian era in Europe people for centuries had noticed what to them seemed a cosmic battle between the forces of darkness and the forces of light. They noticed that the days at this time of the year were getting shorter and shorter. This surely meant that the light, or the sun was getting weaker and the darkness was getting longer and stranger. They were afraid that someday darkness would kill the sun and the light. But around December 21 they noticed that the tables began to turn and the sun was beginning to regain its strength (just like the wounded heroes in those action movies). The sun got a second wind and all of a sudden it was beginning to push the darkness off. So when this happened the ancient people celebrated the return of the light of the sun. They had a sun feast, marking the transition time from darkness to light.
When the Christians came along they took over this pagan notion. They said that there is a real cosmic struggle between the forces of darkness or evil and light, but the real light of the world is Jesus.
So they made this time of year a celebration when we would get ready for the tables to be turned on the forces of darkness by the coming of the light of God. They called this time Advent, the time of waiting for the end of darkness and the looking forward to the coming light, Christmas.
So “A” is not only for advent but also for anticipation. The scripture from Jeremiah is one of anticipation. “The days are coming,” the prophet reports the Lord saying when all shall see justice and the righteousness of God.
In our culture “A” is for the anticipation of children who cannot wait for Christmas to get here. And “A” is for the annunciation stories, and angels, but also for “angst” felt not only by the shepherds but by those of us who fear we cannot get everything done before Christmas and “A” is for Advertisements that drive us crazy and create wants we didn’t know we had. “A” is also for the anger we feel in traffic jams and crowded malls. And the anger of frustrated grandparents looking for the thing on the grandchild’s wish list that no store has anymore. Yes, A is for advent.
And “D” is for decorations that appear in stores before the Halloween pumpkins are cleared from the shelves. And “D” is for the donkey Mary rides on and the drums that go Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, and dolls and Donner in the reindeer lineup and the dummies shopping at Toys R Us at 2 a.m. and the “Damn it. I’ve had it” feeling that wells up in us who are known as the Scrooges in our families. (That last one was suggested to me by a family member when I asked them to participate in this alphabet game using the advent theme.)
But “D” is also for the defeat of evil, hoped for by the ancients. Consequently, many of the scriptures for Advent are drawn from the Biblical literature describing the final defeat of evil and death--the end of time, the apocalypse. We have a part of that in today's scripture reading from Luke.
When it comes to Apocalyptic passages I am like Lucy of the Charlie Brown comic strip. “Lucy”, asks Charlie Brown, “Do you think the world will come to an end in our time?” Lucy responds, “I try not to think about such things.” “Well,” says Charlie, “now that I’ve brought it to your attention, what do you think?”
Lucy says, “When things that I try not to think about are brought to my attention, I try not to think about them.”
I expect many of us are like Lucy. There are a number of things that all of us begin to do to prepare for Christmas, but contemplating the end of time is usually not one of them. Thus it is disconcerting that the lectionary text for the first week in Advent is this passage from Luke’s apocalyptic discourse which seem to do nothing for my Christmas spirit.
In the ancient Church, Advent acquired two functions. In addition to preparing the faithful for Christmas, Advent became the season of preparation for the Second Coming of Christ as well. Both themes remind us that the posture of the people of God is always the same: one of waiting and watching, one of longing and expectation. In Luke’s story, these are some of Jesus’ parting words to his disciples. Like a drumbeat they call all disciples to watchful vigilance. Now whether we, as modern Christians, interpret the Second Coming of Christ as a disruptive event which will take place at the end of history, or, as I would prefer, we interpret Christ’s coming to us again as the ever-present possibility of the coming of God, who is seeking to empower us to embody the radically new vision of God’s future as it is made known to us in the ministry of Christ–we are to be alert and watchful. You never know when you will encounter God–be alert; be ready.
If you have ever watched a Texas A&M football game, you perhaps have noticed in the background a strange phenomenon: the entire A&M student body stands during the whole game. As the apocryphal legend goes, a legend dear to the heart of every Texas Aggie, in a critical game in the far distant past, a rash of injuries devastated the Aggie team, leaving only ten players on the field. In order to keep the Aggies from a decisive defeat, one valiant member of the student body leaped from the stands, dashed onto the field, and subsequently ran for a touchdown, contributing to a stunning victory on that day. Ever since, so the mythology goes, the entire Texas A&M student body remains standing during the entire course of every football game–waiting, vigilant–in readiness to dash from the stands and leap into action on the field. That is the kind of waiting and watching that is commanded in Luke’s gospel for today. Be alert.
So, “”A” is for alert, “D” is for Diligent, “V” is for vigilant.
How are you doing with your alphabet words for advent? You may want to try this for the word “Christmas” if you are stuck in traffic or in a long line somewhere. But back to advent-- “V” is also for visitation and visitors and Vixen the reindeer and visions of sugar plums (or as one of my group of helpers suggested visions of virgins) and voracious vendors hoping that our holiday spending will boost business.
“E” is for expectations and eating and evangel and eating and expensive gifts and Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, and End times and . . eating.
“N” is for Noel and New Church year (the church year starts on the first Sunday in Advent) and naughty and nice and nuts in everything and no room in the iNN, and neighbors who invite us over for a noggen of egg nog.
“T” is for Tannenbaum , and tinsel, and treats and tidings of great joy, and turkey (in fact turkeys are the bookends of the season: turkey for thanksgiving and turkey for Christmas–a five weeks when the U.S. consumes 1/4 of the turkey it eats each year) and “T” is for the Three magi and the travel a lot of people do.
And “T” is for trick or treat–that’s right trick or treat.
You may be like several of us who get annoyed by the hype, the clutter, and the chaos of Christmas and so have difficulty getting into, or staying in, the Christmas spirit. So does one of my favorite authors, Robert Fulghum. He tells the advent trick or treat story. Here it is as a reminder to us to be alert to the surprises of the spirit.
A Sunday afternoon it was, some days before Christmas. With rain, with wind, with cold. Winters gloom. Things-to-do list was long and growing like an unresistant mold. Temper: short. Bio-index: negative. Horoscope reading suggested caution. And the Sunday paper suggested dollars, death, and destruction as the day’s litany. O tidings of comfort and joy, fa la la la la!
This holy hour of Lordsdaybliss was jarred by a pounding at the door. Now what? Deep sigh. Opening it, resigned to accept whatever bad news lies in wait, I am nonplused. A rather small person in a cheap Santa Clause mask, carrying a large brown paper bag outthurst” TRICK OR TREAT!” Santa Mask shouts. What? “TRICK OR TREAT!” Santa Masks hoots again. Tongue-tied, I stare at this apparition. He shakes the bag at me, and dumbly I fish out my wallet and find a dollar to drop into the bag. The mask lifts, and it is an Asian kid with a ten-dollar grin taking up most of his face. “Wanta hear some caroling?” he asks, in singsong English.
I know him now. He belongs to a family settled into the neighborhood by the Quakers last year. Boat people. Vietnamese, I believe. Refugees. He stopped by at Halloween with his sisters and brothers, and I filled their bags. Hong Duc is his name–he’s maybe eight. At Halloween he looked like a Wise Man, with a bathrobe on and a dish towel around his head.
“Wanta hear some caroling?”
I nod, envisioning an octet of urchin refugees hiding in the bushes ready to join their leader in uplifted song. “Sure, where’s the choir?”
“I’m it,” says he. And he launched forth with an up-tempo chorus of “Jingle Bells,” at full lung power. This was followed by an equally enthusiastic rendering of what I swear sounded like “Hark, the Hairy Angels Sing.” And finally, a soft-voiced, reverential singing of “Silent Night.” Head back, eyes closed from the bottom of his heart he poured out the last strains of “Sleep in heavenly peace” into the gathering night.
Wet-eyed, dumbstruck by his performance, I pulled out a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and dropped that into the paper bag. In return he produced half a candy cane from his pocket and passed it solemnly to me. Flashing the ten-dollar grin, he turned and ran from the porch, shouted “GOD BLESS YOU,” and “TRICK OR TREAT” and was gone.
Who was that masked? Hong Duc, the one-man choir, delivering Christmas door to door.
I confess that I’m usually a little confused about Christmas. It never has made a lot of sense to me. It’s unreal. Ever since I got the word about Santa Claus, I’ve been a closet cynic at heart. Singing about riding in a one-horse sleigh is ludicrous. I’ve never seen one. much less ridden in one. Never roasted chestnuts by an open fire. Wouldn’t know how to if I had one, and I hear they’re no big deal anyway. Wandering Wise Men raise my suspicions. And shepherds who spend their lives hanging about with sheep are a little strange. Never seen an angel either, and my experience with virgins is really limited. The appearance of a newborn king doesn’t interest me; I’d just as soon settle for some other president. Babies and reindeer stink. I’ve been around them both, and I know. The little town of Bethlehem is a pit, according to those who have been there.
Singing about things I’ve never seen or done or wanted, dreaming of a white Christmas I’ve never known. Christmas isn’t very real. And yet, and yet . . . I’m too old to believe in it, and too young to give up on it. Too cynical to get into it, and too needy to stay ;out of it.
Trick or treat! After I shut the door came near hysteria–laughter and tears and that funny feeling you get when you know that once again Christmas has come to you. Right down the chimney of my midwinter hovel comes Saint Hong Duc. He is confused about the details, like me, but he is very clear about the spirit of the season. It’s an excuse to let go and celebrate–to throw yourself into Holiday with all you have, wherever your are. “I’m it,” says he. Where’s Christmas? I ask myself. I’m it, come the echo. I’m it. Head back, eyes closed, voice raised in whatever song I can muster the courage to sing.
God, it is said, once sent a child upon a starry night, that the world might know hope and joy. I am not sure that I quite believe that, or that I believe in all the baggage heaped upon that story during two thousand years. But I am sure that I believe in Hong Duc, the one-man Christmas choir, shouting “trick or treat!” door to door. I don’t know who or what sent him. But I know I am tricked through the whimsical mischief of fate into joining the choir that sings of joy and hope. Through a child, I have been treated to Christmas. (Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, New York: Villard Books, 1989, pp 89-95.)
Amen
Joe Dunham
| Copyright © 2003 by Joe Dunham. All rights reserved. |