Pastor's Message for December, 2007
Keep Advent Purple!
I was in the local Dunkin Donuts last week purchasing a "Box o' Joe" while a loud pop version of a familiar Christmas carol rang out among the bagels and the coffee beans. As it was yet some days before Thanksgiving, my look of mild disgust must have been evident to the next person in line. "How does that feel to you?" she asked. "Invasive," I replied, realizing once again that the commercial season of Christmas had begun its annual invasion of our sensibilities - seemingly earlier every year. Advent, the season not to celebrate Christmas but to prepare ourselves spiritually for celebrating Christ's birth, was still almost two weeks away.
I know I probably ring this theme every year, and that it is a losing cause given the fact that Christmas observances in our society are driven by powerful materialistic engines and deep melancholic sentiments rather than by the spiritual rhythm of faith. By a spiritual calendar, the four weeks before Christmas, the Season of Advent, are to be spent somewhat like the Season of Lent in preparation for Holy Week and Easter. Advent is often called "a little Lent." Then Christmas begins, not ends as seems to be our cultural practice, on December 25th and is celebrated joyously for twelve days (You've heard of the popular song, but did you know that Bach wrote a beautiful Christmas Oratorio in sections to be performed on certain of the 12 days of Christmas?). However, when Christmas begins on "Black Friday" if not sooner, and consists not of reflective pondering and patient waiting but rather of frantic buying and partying - well...no wonder folks are "Christmas-ed out" by dinnertime of the 25th.
Again, I know I am fighting a losing battle with powerful cultural forces, but how I long for a more measured and meditative December flowing into an extended season of real joy, not the boisterous "Ho-Ho-Ho's" of manufactured merriment ringing through the malls and media.
Purple is the color of Advent, and it is the color of penitence and preparation, as well as of the royalty of Christ the coming King. I think that for Christians, penitence can mean here not excessive remorsefulness, but a serious contemplation of our life's priorities and a commitment to change things that are getting in the way of true abundance, of shalom, of the blessing of serving Christ in the world. But it is hard to do such contemplation when shopping and endless to-do lists direct our agendas and elicit anxiety, when secular Christmas music is blasting and TVs deliver Christmas specials that major in the trivialities of the holiday.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is to try to carve out as much "purple time" as possible and not give in totally to the season's frenetic demands and impossible expectations. Some time to light Advent candles...maybe a ritual of opening a daily Advent calendar...listening to the Advent section of Handel's Messiah...or a concert of sacred music... turning off the TV or CD and reading a book that nurtures one's soul... pondering Christmas gifts of experience or service rather than of '"things"... going for "Advent walks" on brisk mornings and lifting up friends and loved ones in prayer while walking... Perhaps you have some things your family does to keep Advent a season of measured preparation rather than of frenzied activity; I'd love to hear about it. Little things can mean a lot.
One thing we will do in worship to keep Advent purple is hold off Christmas carols in our service until December 23rd, the final Sunday of Advent (well, maybe one on the 16th) and then continue to sing them after December 25th and up to Epiphany (January 6) when we celebrate the arrival of the three kings. It's similar to the way we suppress our "Alleluia's" during Lent so that our Easter celebration may erupt with the exuberant joy of great anticipation.
May this Christmas come to you as a blessing rather than a burden, and may your heart be touched anew by the Love which came to dwell with us,
Pastor Floyd Churn
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