Advent in the Holiday Season - “Are We There Yet?”

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it is officially the “Holiday season.” But we all know what season really presses upon us. If you were in town this weekend – Light Up Louisville is but one harbinger of many. Notice also the mall, the TV commercials, and probably your own sense of mild panic setting in. It’s the Holiday season! Its time to shop and get busy. Much to do. And, of course, it is time to wax nostalgic.


I remember Christmas in SD.
We would all pile into the station wagon, wrap ourselves in warm woolen blankets and make the long trek to Grandma’s house in Culbertson, NE. It was an eight hour drive over the river, and down Interstate 29, and through some woods. Well, actually, I’m making that up. We knew better than to try to travel any real distance in December, unless you wanted to risk getting stranded in a blizzard. So we really took that trip in the summer, before cars had air conditioning. And we certainly did not need those woolen blankets. I do have memories of that. But as for Christmas, for the most part, we stayed home.

In the summer when we did make those long road trips to Grandma’s it was eight hours of road time from Brookings SD to Culbertson NE. Eight ENDLESS hours of boredom and restlessness. It may have seemed endless to my parents as well – but for entirely different reasons. With five kids in the car, it was eight endless hours of fighting, begging and whining. But not boredom. I now realize that a quiet stretch of road time can be a welcome respite and a good time to think.

Advent and the Holiday Season
This morning we are at the beginning of a stretch of road we call Advent. It is a journey to a destination we call the Christmas season (which begins Christmas day). But it is also the holiday season, and even though it may be New Years Day in the church, it is clearly the Holiday season everywhere else. What a contrast in styles, these two seasons, and they don’t travel well together at all.

I know we are pretty much bought into this thing we call the Christmas season. We love the lights, the food, the family and the this “Christmas spirit.” It brings our families together and brings good cheer – for a time anyway. I love it, and I sing along.

The season of Advent, on the other hand, the world has left to the church. Few in the world practice it, and perhaps just a few of us in the pews as well. There are reasons for that, I think. For one, its not as much fun. And it is certainly does not deliver immediate gratification. Advent calls us to wait, and watch, and hope. It calls us to stay awake and be alert. Its more akin to driving the car than riding in it. It requires attention to the road. You can’t just ride along, play games and eats snacks and nap.

For most people, such a nighttime vigil of waiting and watching for a thief in the night is just an awful desert between where we are and where we want to go. We are, like children on a road trip, anxious to get it over with. We ask of God, even as adults, “are we almost there yet?” “How long till we get there?” We can’t stand the long ride, we are not interested in the journey, and we want to arrive yesterday. But Advent is not about getting there. It’s about the long ride. Its not about the destination, its about the journey. The world’s holiday season stuff is for children. Advent is for adults.

Most of us here this morning, I believe, are faced with the task of living with one foot in both of these seasons. One presses on us because we live in a society and are members of families with holiday traditions and expectations. The other presses on us from the traditions of our faith and from the voice inside us that tells us to keep watch and reminds us that, “Jesus is the reason for the Season.” We have a foot in each camp. I don’t think we need any help with how to do the holiday one – you can find that help at the Mall. But we may need some help with the Advent season.


A Very Long Car Ride
It is a beautiful destination we find expressed in our Isaiah text:
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.

That’s a poignant text for our time. But the people of God have never lived at this destination. All these centuries our relationship with God has been forged in waiting, not arriving. The hope expressed in our Isaiah text – swords into plowshares – it was so long ago. When it was uttered, it would be another 600 years before the angels sang on that first Christmas night. And its been 2,000 years since then. And we are still using swords for war, and guns for greed and words for injustice. That’s an awful long car ride. Are we almost there yet?

How do we keep our hearts warm with hope and patient expectation? How do we keep ourselves from falling asleep and veering into either the ditch of cynicism and despair or the ditch of pain numbing consumption and distraction? Is the best we can do is just create a good holiday for our loved ones? The poor will always be with us, as will injustice and war, and another 1,000 years will pass - and I cannot do anything about that. The Advent question is - how do our hearts remain open to hope? How do we continue to believe?


The Thief in the Night
Our Gospel text gives no easy comfort. Jesus is telling us to stay awake, to stay up all night, perhaps for another 2,000 years, keeping our eyes on the road, staying aware of other drivers, watching the weather, alert for deer crossing. That’s lots of coffee to stay awake. And this Advent kind of watching is hard because it is open ended. We may know we are headed to God’s house, but we have never been there before, so we don’t know how long it will take, and we don’t know what the road will be like, and we don’t know what to expect along the way.

This kind of waiting reminds us that we are not really in control. It reminds us of our limits. We can only see so far down the road. We can only move so fast. We can only prepare so much. We don’t know what’s in the mind of the thief. We don’t know where he is or his plans. We do not know when the thief will come.

Such waiting is hard. Ask anyone eight or nine months pregnant. Or waiting the test results. Or waiting for a loved one to return home. It usually means we are hooked into something bigger than ourselves, something that controls the outcome other than us. This other is usually not asking for our advice, and is not acting on our timetable, but theirs. That all certainly applies to God. Waiting is always hard because waiting is not a matter of doing – it is a matter of being. Being patient. Being strong. Being faithful. Being confident. Being hopeful. Frosty the Snowman is much more fun.

Shaped by Waiting
But there is grace and gospel in this. Even in this thief in the night. For that which you watch out for, and wait for, and prepare for, and expect, shapes who you become. There is life in the waiting and watching.

When a couple waits for a baby, there is very little they actually know. There is a great deal for which they hope. But waiting for a baby comes down to making a space and accepting what comes to live there. And it is waiting for something that is life changing beyond all that can planned for or controlled or imagined. And it is the happy acceptance of that arrangement. Its a contract with life where you agree to make space and accept whatever comes. So you buy furniture and pick out names and save money and modify rooms and so on, rearranging your life for this event to come.


Living Into Advent
So, how do we practice Advent? Let yourself be shaped by the hope and expectation of your Christian faith. Awaken to what you are and what you are becoming in Christ. You may need to make some faithful choices between having an Advent or just a holiday season. The holiday season clamors for your attention. Advent sits quietly, inviting you to come and be expectant. The holiday season urges you to get up and get going. Advent calls you to stop and listen. The holiday season tells you to grasp. Advent says give.

Making space for the Christ child in Advent involves making space for the questions of faith: For what do I wait and hope? What do I expect of the life of faith? What do I want for Christmas? What do I want from the Christ child? Advent is the season to reflect upon what it is that we hope for.

Lets keep some room for Advent during this holiday season. May it open our hearts to deeper expectations of joy and peace and justice. May we find that our watching for the coming Christ child shapes us into Christlikeness. May we find Christ truly born in us, and in those we love.

O Come, O Come, Immanuel