Advent--Something Worth Waiting For!

When I was a little girl, my mother decorated an advent wreath with greens and berries. Neighborhood friends and cousins joined us as we sang carols, read passages from the Bible, lit the candles and said prayers each week during the Advent Season. I remember a feeling of anticipation and excitement as we approached the birth of Jesus. I felt tenderness and love in reading about Mary as she pondered the birth of her child. The season of Advent gave me a sense of hope that this world could be filled with peace and good will even when things were chaotic in my life. These early experiences set the stage for my life long love for Advent and the Christmas Season. This morning, I want to focus on some possible meanings behind Advent for religious liberals, this season leading up to Christmas.

I am a firm believer in the Christmas Spirit. I suspect that the real Santa Claus bears more resemblance to the rich man on Frankie's train in our story this morning than a jolly man in a red suit and black boots, but I believe in that Spirit. That Spirit can change our lives if we look for that magic. For me, that transforming magic is even more apparent at Christmas. Every Christmas, my daughter and I watch the movie, Scrooge with Albert Finney. We sing the songs, repeat the words we know by heart and every year, I cry when Isabelle leaves young Ebeneezer because he has found a new love--money. I am a real sentimental fool and I make no apologies for it. Every year, I remember that the Spirit of Christmas is about how we live our life and how we demonstrate our love and compassion, not how many gifts we give or how much money we spend.

Stories can bring the real meaning of Advent home. In the story, Silver Packages, Frankie received some gifts. He never got the gift he wanted from the rich man, but hose material gifts helped him survive so that he could make some choices about how to pursue his goals. He never forgot what was given to him and what he was called to do.

Frankie’s story reminds me of a movie I saw last year called Pay It Forward. Trevor is a seventh grade boy whose new social studies teacher presents the class with a challenge: Think of an idea that can change the world and put it into action. For Trevor, this project quickly becomes more than an assignment. He devises a plan to help three people with something major in their lives that they cannot do for themselves. Then those people are asked to pay it forward—to help three more people and keep the process going. His theory is that Pay it forward can help people transform their lives. This movie is about our higher aspirations to be a part of something larger than ourselves. Trevor loved others so much that he stretched way beyond his comfort zone to help them—he believed in people even when they had given up on themselves. Now, this is a movie—a Hollywood fiction or is it? A professor of mine at Wesley Seminary told us an expression that he believed—all stories are true; some just really happened. I think there is a Frankie and a Trevor in each of us—that is why those stories speak to us. How have you taken in the gifts you were given and passed them on? We each are given a gift—we were born and what matters is what we do with that precious gift of life and how we share it with others.

The same professor who told us that all stories are true, also told us that Advent was not about the birth of a cute little baby in a manger, but about something much greater. From a Christian perspective, he is right. The Advent season begins the first week after Thanksgiving and traditionally, there are weekly readings for each of the four weeks in the season that lead up to the Christmas season, those 12 days of Christmas we sing about in Christmas carols. The reading for this Sunday in Advent proclaims the future kingdom of God. The reading is about beating swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. During this time of war, we know that this reading is not about our present state. It is about a future that most religions hold out to us. As we move closer to the Christmas season, the Advent readings refer to history and to John the Baptist’s predictions about one who is coming who will change the world. The Advent Season moves our attention from the future to the past as we begin to remember the birth and life of Jesus.

Unlike my professor, Advent is about the birth of the baby Jesus for me—it is about the celebration of a person who lived a life of service; who practiced charity and love for all, even the despised, poor and lonely. Many people say what is so wondrous about that—there is no miracle there. But I don’t see it that way.

Last summer I worked as a chaplain in the hospital. One night, I went to the special care nursery and asked if there was anyone I should visit. The unit secretary reassured me that all was quiet, but she paused and said, “Well, you could bless all the babies.” I visited each baby in the special care nursery. Some only weighed a couple of pounds. They were so small but so complete—so beautiful, struggling to live, so whole. I looked at each child and I said my silent blessings and prayers. I thanked God that they were here on this earth and I hoped that they would grow and thrive—that their parents would be able to hold them in their arms and take them home, surround them with all the love that each one deserved. I walked into the regular nursery and saw this beautiful little girl with dark black hair that reminded me of my own newborn daughter so many years ago and I just marveled at that little bit of creation. I saw a young man staring at her and I asked him if that was his daughter. He said “yes, she was born two hours ago.” As I left the floor, I watched as the nurse asked him if he wanted to hold his little girl. I will never forget that experience. That was a miracle—evidence of the mystery of life and God’s love in a world so often laden with pain and suffering.

I celebrate Advent because so many thousands of years ago, a baby was born that did change the world. Yes, there have been wars and crusades in his name, but those were not the ideas of Jesus. That solitary man liberated the poor, blessed the forsaken, comforted the mourning, rebuked the vain and indifferent, asked people to be their best selves. And his example calls us to do the same today. Other great women and men have also changed the world and I celebrate their lives and gifts too. Advent can remind us how to live and give and pay it forward.

To celebrate Advent, we do not have to believe that Jesus was the son of God who saved us all from sin. We do not have to believe he is coming again to fulfill the final reign of God. As the opening words said, we do need to take time to ponder things as did Mary, to cross the dry and parched places in our lives to find new life and wonder, to watch the night sky and discover the glories of nature and to bring to life something that is striving to be born in us. And in that spirit, I ask you what are you giving birth to this year and in this season? Where is your life a little parched? I think of all the passages shared here in this church—empty nesters, people moving or retiring, changing jobs or applying for new ones, suffering illness or pain, fears about war and the world’s crisis, and the people we miss so much because of loss or death. Holidays are not always happy and joyful because of these passages and transitions in our lives. Advent reminds us that there are cycles in our lives that come and go—birth and death, joys and sorrows. These passages often stretch and shape us in ways that we cannot appreciate until much later.

Advent is a time to continue to give thanks after the Thanksgiving leftovers are all gone. It is a time to remember the God of our understanding, the Spirit of Life that has sustained us and challenged us through another year. It is a time to sort out what we have learned this year and to consider how we might put our visions into action.

Let me close with an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ words that speak to the significance of this Season:

We celebrate Christmas once again. God bless it! Let us by one consent open our shut-up hearts and think of people as if they were fellow-passengers to the grave.

It is required of everyone that the spirit within us should walk abroad among our human neighbors and travel far and wide. This is required by our joyful allegiance to the spirit of Jesus, a spirit sustained by the best in humanity ever since his day.

The year is waning fast, and it is precious time to us. We have the power to render others happy or unhappy. We have the power to make their days light or burdensome, and their work a pleasure or a toil. Our power lies in words or looks, in things so small that is impossible to add and count them up.

The happiness we give is no small matter. Let us carry the torch of Goodwill, that the light may banish hate.

Let us honor Christmas in our hearts and keep it all the year. May it be said of you too that you know how to keep Christmas well.

And in the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, everyone!”

This is my Advent prayer for each of you—Keep the Season in your own way! Let it live in your hearts and in your deeds. Keep that light kindled which cannot go out and cherish it when you see it in others. May the Spirit of Peace reign in your heart and be with you always. Amen and Blessed be.

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