More Cows' thoughts about the ancient "Why can't we sing Christmas carols during Advent" dilemma - which must have started immediately after Paul stopped writing to the early church because frankly, it's a tug-of-war which feels about that old - got me thinking about the reasons why I am an unabashed Advent nazi. I am willing to bend pretty far on a lot of things, but this is not one of them. And, in an attempt to explain 'why' to my congregation, I wrote the following newsletter article a few years ago. It preceded one particular Advent when we didn't (insert horrified gasp here) put up the Christmas tree in the sanctuary until Christmas Eve.
This is not quite as random as you might otherwise think, given that the Worship Committee is starting to plan our Advent season in a few weeks. But I freely admit that it's a topic about which I have some passionate opinions, and I'll take just about any opportunity to spout them off. Thus, the following...
August 11. That’s the first day I noticed Christmas merchandise for sale. Every year it finds its way into stores just a little earlier, pouncing on you when you’ve turned the corner from the toiletries aisle or the pet food. Trees! Elves! Dancing Santas! Icicle lights and neon sleds! And by September, news broadcasts already start to anticipate whether retailers expect a good holiday season. By Christmas itself, the whole thing may start to feel like it’s been dragging on forever.
Make no mistake: Christmas is an economic reality. Christmas is big business in lots of places, and the church is not entirely an exception. Church budgets tend to run in certain patterns: lower giving during January and the summer months, higher giving during Lent, Easter, and Christmas. And yet we know that the truest Word about Christmas has nothing to do with money. How do we reconcile these two realities? How do we manage lives which pressure us to spend a lot, to earn a lot, to be successful, and yet live from a faith which tells us that we are called to be a light to the nations?
“Practice, practice, practice,” parents tell their children. Practice the piano, your spelling list, sports skills, vocabulary flashcards, math problems. Practice makes…if not perfect, at least improvement. Advent is our time to practice waiting. And waiting, for most of us, is a skill which requires some deep and thoughtful practice. The church year follows patterns of all kinds, including patterns of color: Advent submerges us in blues, purples, and pinks, colors which remind us of the night sky over Bethlehem, the richness of royal robes, the hint of sunrise. Advent is a season of waiting, of anticipation, of hope.
For children, the four weeks of Advent may feel like an eternity; when I was a child, time itself seemed to slow down during December, days stretching out like months before us, always leading to the Christmas celebration. But that kind of anticipation can make the celebration itself even more joyful. Our Advent worship needs to create a space, a time, music and word for us to practice that anticipation. We live, after all, in joyful expectation of Jesus’ return, and Advent gives us four weeks to rehearse our skills in patience.
Which brings us to the question you may well have during Advent at Trinity: where’s the tree? As part of our focus on waiting and anticipation, this year the worship committee has decided not to put a Christmas tree in the sanctuary until the Christmas celebration itself. If that seems a bit drastic, consider these words: “would you place a birthday cake on your dining room table weeks before your child’s birthday? Would you expect a new bride to walk around wearing her wedding dress three weeks before the wedding? Out of strong desires for our churches to feel like our homes, and out of convenience, we rob the season of Advent of its purpose when we place the very strong symbol of a Christmas tree in our worship space before the Christmas season begins.” These words come from a worship resource called Sundays and Seasons, used by many Lutheran churches, including our own. And, perhaps, it is right! Perhaps we are not good at waiting because we so seldom practice it. But in our rush to get to the celebration, we miss the joy of anticipating it.
So there will be no Christmas tree in our sanctuary (though there will be one in the narthex) until Christmas Eve. Perhaps this will feel strange, disconcerting, even a bit uncomfortable to you. It probably should. And when it feels odd, remember Mary, a teenage girl pregnant with God’s own Son, waiting for her child’s birth. Remember the words of John the Baptist, announcing Jesus’ ministry: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” Remember Simeon and Anna, two elderly servants of the Lord who had waited all their lives to see and touch the Messiah, and who held the baby Jesus in their arms. Remember those who waited, waited, waited, and us who still wait for Jesus’ return, trusting in God’s promise that one day, the whole world will be made new.
Practice your waiting. Practice, practice, practice. We are a people born of this waiting, and when we lose sight of the One for whom we wait, we lose our hope as well. Most of us will have Christmas trees in our homes sometime before Christmas Eve; there will be Christmas concerts and television specials and carols on the radio. But in the sanctuary, we will practice waiting. We will hear words about hope and expectation. We will sing “O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” And we will pray:
In the mighty name of God,
In the saving name of Jesus,
In the strong name of the Spirit,
we come
we cry
we watch
we wait
we long
for you.
