Distinctively Advent

Late last week, I was in an airport terminal. Not very remarkable overall but this particular airport was open air, no walls or doors between the curb and the ticket counter. Walls and doors are not needed in this airport because in the surrounding country side the tempeture is usually 80 degrees. And, in this open air terminal, the entire place was decorated with evergreen garlands, wreaths with big red bows, glistening poinsettia, and reindeer. I was in my shorts, T shirt and flip flops surrounded by reindeer. The decorations were not local, but they were seasonal, seasonal for Christmas.

We are surrounded by Christmas in the midst of Advent. And, for this I am grateful. There is more than one way to get to Christmas. One way, in which we are all engaged is to put up the seasonal decorations now, buy gifts, make cookies, go to parties, dream about snow, sing those great songs like Jiggle Bell Rock and Here comes Santa Clause. This is all fun, and festive, and keeps our hearts lights as nights are longer and days shorter. These seasonal signs of the coming Christmas are all around us.

For the church, there is a distinctive way to get to Christmas. Our decorations may be winter wonderland like but our season is Advent, a time of preparation. To be part of this season, we need to be in church or bring it into our homes. Macy’s will never have an Advent Season that asks people to reflect on the meaning of the gifts they will purchase and the appropriate amounts. The advertising managers of all those catalogues we receive at home will never let us know that they want us to wait for the shipping deals and to expect a break on certain items in the coming weeks. To be part of Advent we celebrate the season in church and bring Advent preparation into our homes. It’s a distinctive season that unless place ourselves in flow of its power we will miss it. It’s a distinctive season that we find in the Christian faith as part of preparing ourselves, not our homes, tree, or freezer, but ourselves for the coming of Christ.

John the Baptist appears every Advent to focus our inner preparation. John is one in the great line of prophets. Like Malachi, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others, John speaks of the promised coming of the Lord. He has the most the most immediate message. Unlike the others he has the most immediate message, prepare NOW! We are no longer looking for a promise or relying on God’s promise John’s message is urgent and therefore razor sharp, get ready now or you will miss it! Preparation is examining one’s life for your values and your priorities. Preparation is focusing on what is important to a life with God before you focus on the to do list. Preparation is not an activity that you can put off to later or cut corners to get done. Preparation is, as Gregg said last week, what you would do if today were your last day?

It may sound odd in the church to say but Advent is a deeply individualist season. While the people of God in worship hear the challenge of the Advent prophet, each person embraces the challenge in her or his own way. In contrast to Lent that embraces our sin as people, communities, nations and the world leading up to Christ’s redeeming death, Advent is distinctively about preparing our lives for the coming of God among us, within us. Within me. Within you. Individual preparation is deconstruction of what is to high or too low and reassembling of that which will make a life with God.

And, if the demolition required and construction needed to build an entirely new road in your life with God seems overwhelming in Advent, then consider these three building blocks:

• First, What needs to be cleaned out in your heart?

o Perhaps it is an unrealistic expectation of your self, or your spouse, or your boss, or your church

• Second, What bumps smoothed over? What holes you have left gapping open that now can be filled by love?

o Do you need to reconnect with your family, yourself?

o Do you need, as one healer calls it, that “essential vitamin C”, the vitamin of Connection?

• Third, What roadblocks do you constantly put up? And, what do you need to take them down?

o Do you find yourself frustrated by the same thing over and over?

 What does that say about your trust to let God change you from within?

o What does that say about your relationship with those in your life who could be, are trying to be, there on that life- changing journey with you?

These distinctive Advent invitations begin in worship each week.

However, the invitations continue into our homes. I hope your Advent wreath is more than a decoration. The tradition of lighting a candle each night for that week and moving toward a fullness of light is intended to be a symbol of our changing interior lives. It is intended to be a symbol of the ways in the intimate and most powerful community of our household we are ever moving, tearing down and rebuilding, towards one another and toward God.

Advent is a distinctive season of our worship and in our homes. If we don’t place ourselves in its power, we will miss it.

We will miss it because there are so many other seasonal distractions that command our attention. Embracing these Advent invitations to rebuild our life with God is a gift of the church. Accept this gift. I promise it is wonderful when it is opened.