I didn’t grow up in a church that observed Advent. It seemed odd to me to hear lessons about both the birth of the Christ Child in Bethlehem on the one hand, and the second coming on the other. Plus, there was this implicit command to wait for Christmas until Christmas eve. You see, I was around people who began decorating for Christmas the morning after Halloween and suddenly it felt like I had committed a mortal sin if I were to hang tinsel too early. It seemed oddly out of place to have an entire four weeks singing things like “O Come Emmanuel” but God forbid if we were to sing a verse of “Angels we have heard on high.” It seemed to me that Christmas was such a big thing, why wait to celebrate. I mean, if you go to a store, you can hear it all from Frank Sinatra singing about White Christmases, Elvis about making it home for Christmas and even a little monkey clanging away on a pair of cymbals to the tune of “Jingle Bells.” I mean, really, who doesn’t love that?
But back at the Church it seemed like everyone was clueless about this big celebration that was coming on December 24th and 25th. Christmas is coming, why weren’t we talking about it?
I am not sure what happened to convert me, but I fell hard for Advent. I completely changed my mind. To a fault. Angrily I pushed a cart through Wal Mart with “Chestnuts Roasting on an open fire” blaring down each aisle as I tussled with others to buy that hard to find popular present for the year, from Cabbage Patch dolls to pet rocks. Am I dating myself?
It got so bad around our house that we even insisted on putting the correct colored ribbons on the “Advent Wreath” we hung from our front door. Advent’s color is either purple, like we have here, or royal blue. Get rid of all the red and green. As for me and my family we will not get to Christmas until the calendar tells us it has arrived.
Oh, it got worse. Given my vocation, Christmas eve was always a significant deal. There were so many things, liturgically, to get ready. And then the several services that had to be planned, music chosen, sermons written…. It was a big deal. Now, since I had been bitten by the Advent bug, none of the family traditions could get started until it was the right time. There was no fudging allowed, pun intended, because Emily, our daughter, has a birthday on December 11th. So, if we had to, we could reorient ourselves toward Christmas after that. But rarely did we.
We at least gave up on some of the things we tried early in our marriage. I’ll never forget Julie making an executive decision on about our second Christmas together that we would string together cranberries and popcorns to fling (I wanted to fling, but she needed to have everything precisely in the right place). I don’t know if you have ever tried to take a needle and thread and pierce a popcorn kernel. I mean the popcorn had been popped but it’s still not easy. Most of the popcorn I was trying to thread together and a bit of red in them from me sticking my thumb with a needle. Thankfully we let that go after a year or so of trying.
But that didn’t end the hassles of keeping a faithful Advent. You see, we agreed that the Christmas tree needed to remain in the local lot until Christmas Eve. At that point, we would all trapse out to Christmas tree farm and cut down the tree we had picked a week or two prior to that moment. So, we would arrive with a saw, rope and a hope that it would go smoothly. After all my time was limited, I had a couple of Church services to lead.
Thankfully most of the memories have run together in my memory so very few things stick out as issues that I can recall but one Christmas eve still spooks me.
We had chosen the perfect tree. Our house had been built in 1864 and had very high ceilings so we found a tree that would fill the room, from top to bottom. The problem with a tree like that is that it is not only tall but it’s also wide. We untied it from the top of the car and with the help of the entire family, we carried it to the front door. I never thought that it wouldn’t fit but as we were eagerly lugging it toward it’s final resting place, it got stuck in the doorway. I positioned myself at the base, put all three children inside the house with each small hand gripping hard and pulling as I pushed. It may have taken only a few seconds, but in my memory it seems like we were there for hours, straining to get old Tannenbaum through the door and onto the stand. We needed to get it decorated before I headed out to church.
Finally, we succeeded. It was majestic. I don’t know, maybe it was seven or eight foot tall but in my memory it seems to have stretched high toward the heavens. I know Christmas is a time when we celebrate Jesus coming down from heaven and this tree looked like it would be a good ladder to get here, if Jesus needed it.
We, of course, had ornaments that had memories attached to them. Each Christmas Eve, since the children had been born had been a time for a treasure hunt, and the treasure was always a new Christmas ornament for the tree. So with all those memories shining brightly from the tree, and after being scolded that the lights were too close together and being asked to rearrange the tinsel so it wasn’t so clumpy, it was done.
I am not sure what we did afterward, but soon the clock urged me to head over to the Church for our first service. It was no longer Advent, the tree had been decorated and we were ready to celebrate. Or so I thought.
We made it through the early service and the whole family got dressed in our finest and headed out to what we called Midnight Mass, even though it was actually 10 PM. I don’t remember much about the service but I do know we had all the wonderful Christmas music we had been waiting on. It just felt like Christmas. And then, after shutting everything off, wishing everyone who was there a “Merry Christmas,” we headed home like conquering heroes. We had done our best by holding off Christmas as long as we could. Now was my favorite time of the year, sitting in front of a glimmering tree with a sense of satisfaction, that even though the rest of the world had been clanging symbols since Halloween, we were the champions. We had kept a Holy Advent. Yay us.
I can almost see where everyone was standing as we eagerly rushed toward the tree to begin our Christmas. The children giggling loudly, pushing ahead of us toward the living room where our conquered ever green would surely greet us. I first saw a look of anguish on our oldest child and then a scream came from one of them or maybe all of them. The tree, decked out in its finest, with memory-filled ornaments and thankfully no popcorn and cranberries strung around it from top to bottom, had completely tumbled over, resting on top of a coffee table and resting next to a love seat. It was a disaster.
We were able to save everything and reposition the tree on its stand with the help of a brick and some rope. It was the worst thing and the best thing. It started me on a journey that eventually led me to ask the question, “do I really need to pile all this on to an already stressful time?”
Advent is supposed to help us set aside all of the clamor that world is clanging about the Christmas season. It’s supposed to tell us that there is a benefit on focusing on the hope of Advent before we get to the celebration of Christmas. The Advent mantra of “Come Lord Jesus, Come,” is an important cry as it helps us live more fully into the understanding that Jesus has entered the world and set us free but, as the other part of Advent reminds us, one day he will come again to set things right side up. But it has not happened yet. Certainly, he has been born and has walked among us but despite that, our lives can be so filled with impatience and dissatisfaction that we find ourselves overwhelmed with frustration. How is it that we can celebrate Christmas like we need to when we’re overwhelmed with all the extra things, we pile on top of ourselves.
Thankfully we have let go of a lot of the things we thought we had to have for Christmas and Advent. It has become less about making memories and more about preparing our hearts. As in all things, Julie has helped me with all of that.
When we demand that the season affirms what we believe will make for a grand celebration of Christmas, we fall into the trap of demanding that things work out to our satisfaction then we make the season more about us and not about Jesus. Richard Rhor reminds us that “Come, Lord Jesus” is a leap into the kind of freedom and surrender that is rightly called the virtue of hope. The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our Satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves.”
That’s what keeping Advent can help us with. Christmas isn’t about us, our traditions, old movies and beautiful Carols. The readings of Advent remind us that the unlikely has taken place. It smells like hay and animals, its messy and real, God has, as theologians say, “condescended” to become human. We have the opportunity through Advent to prepare our hearts from that. Without it, its easy to fall into making it about a private celebration of happiness that is “too narcissistically and self-consciously” self-pursed.
Again, Richard Rohr reminds us that “the “joy that the world cannot give” (John 14:27) always comes as a gift to those who wait for it, expect it and make room for it inside themselves. That’s my prayer for us. I don’t want any of us to skip forward to Christmas too quickly but I also don’t want to burden any of us with a new list of things to do, to accomplish and to avoid.
Christmas is coming. But wait. Let us spend the next few weeks preparing our hearts for peace, joy, love and hope.
In Jesus Name.