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Dear Friends,
Each year one of the conversations that I have with those involved in the Confirmation program centers on the difference between Advent and Christmas. In an earlier era, and in some traditions, it is an easy distinction: no ornaments or trees emerge until after sundown on December 24, the mood for the weeks leading up to Christmas is somber and dark, Advent is a “little Lent” of repentance. This tradition is one that speaks, often eloquently, against the commercial excesses of this season and calls us to a stripped down, bare essentials faith. Listen to the music of “O Come, O Come Emanuel” and you get a sense of Advent as an often solitary encounter with ourselves, a lonely season of introspection and preparation before we encounter God.
And there is something to be said for this. There is a joy that can only be born from sorrow, a light that needs an honest appraisal of darkness in order to shine its best, a life that can only emerge from the death of selfishness. This is part of Advent and I hope that you will find times and ways to recognize that, in your life and in our life together. But I also hope that you will not make it your primary Advent mode, for our Reformed tradition is not one of isolation and withdrawal, except as they prepare us for companionship and involvement with others.
And in truth, that companionship and involvement is not limited to the Reformed tradition. This passage from Father Andrew Greeley, who is a Roman Catholic priest, journalist, novelist and a gifted articulator of what it means to be a Christian in America, has been helpful to me in this:
“It might be easy to run away to a monastery, away from the commercialization, the hectic hustle, the demanding family responsibilities of Christmas-time. Then we would have a holy Christmas. But we would forget the lesson of the Incarnation, of the enfleshing of God—the lesson that we who are followers of Jesus do not run from the secular; rather we try to transform it. It is our mission to make holy the secular aspects of Christmas, just as the early Christians baptized the Christmas tree. And we do this by being holy people—kind, patient, generous, loving, laughing people—no matter how maddening is the Christmas rush…”
I wish for you, and for myself, that sort of Advent in 2008, one that sees God in Bethlehem, but also in Whoville, Bedford Falls and Clover Hill.
Peace,
Jack
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