The Pre-Christmas Season
FROM THE RECTOR
Do you remember when writing “Xmas” instead of “Christmas” was a controversy people seemed eager to complain about? To some, it felt like secular forces were trying to remove the baby Jesus from the winter holiday season, and they reacted with righteous indignation. That for centuries Christians have used the Greek letter Chi—an “X”—as a substitute for the word “Christ,” which begins with an “X” in Greek, seemed lost on those who were angry.
Every year at this time, a handful of cultural debates arise because of the collision of secular celebration and religious observance. I do not hear as much about “Xmas” as I used to, but various forms of the same controversy bubble up in my social media timelines, and I think it is helpful for me to stop and examine which ones seem to capture my emotional attention this year.
Years ago, I was convinced that decorating early for Christmas was the single greatest threat to a faithful preparation for the Feast of the Nativity. (Ha!) I was part of a congregation that insisted on an austere Advent with absolutely no greenery in the church until Christmas Eve. Every year, about a week before Christmas, the rector drove the youth group through town in the church van to see tacky holiday lights, and he always boasted that his house had not a single celebratory light on display. I fell right in line. What a burden that was for my family, who were eager to get the house ready for Christmas! Although I continue to grumble about decorating the “Advent shrub” too early, I have mostly moved on to other gripes.
For a while, I joined the cause and fought against using blue altar hangings during Advent. I had always used purple, and the blue tradition reflects a particular and fairly narrow understanding of our Anglican heritage. Before the Reformation, Salisbury Cathedral was unique in being given permission to use blue during Advent, and, in part because the Sarum Rite—the particular form of the liturgy used at Salisbury—was found in many parishes in southern England, Thomas Cranmer incorporated some parts of it into first English Book of Common Prayer. Some argue, therefore, that blue is the proper color for Advent in Episcopal churches, but others, including me, prefer to embrace the wider tradition of Advent as a penitential and preparatory season and insist on purple. For my first year or two at St. Paul’s, the blue hangings we use felt strange, but each year their beauty has a way of softening me. My colleagues still hear me wonder aloud about using purple, but I like the stunning blue set we use more and more.
This year, I find it pretty easy to ignore those who want to argue about Christmas music playing on the radio in late November and whether the plastic baby Jesus belongs in the nativity scene as soon as Thanksgiving is over. I have given up caring about whether Santa Claus distracts us from the real meaning of Christmas and whether Helmsley should be the opening or closing hymn on the First Sunday of Advent. But I do find myself getting sucked into the debate over what Advent is all about.
Though it is not an argument I care to make on my own, I am interested in the theological tension between those who approach Advent as a time to get ready for Christmas and those who think it is a time to get ready for Christ’s second coming (as if we cannot do both at the same time). For every person who posts about the weekly themes of Advent being peace, joy, hope, and love, there is another who reminds us that not that long ago we focused instead on death, judgment, heaven, and hell. Which is right? What should we focus on this season?
Before the current prayer book was adopted in 1979, the gospel lessons for the four Sundays of Advent recalled Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21), Jesus’ warnings about the world’s end (Luke 21), Jesus’ description of his messianic identity (Matt. 11), and John the Baptist’s insistence that he was preparing the way for another (John 1). They contained not one mention of the nativity cycle! Our current lectionary maintains that focus for the first three weeks and only brings in passages about preparing for the birth of Jesus in the final week of Advent. The same theological approach is reflected in the collects and proper preface for the season. Thus, if you come to church each week and listen to the lessons and the sermons and prayers, you would have a hard time thinking that Advent is about getting ready for Bethlehem and probably would think that the church focuses a little too much on the end times.
And yet so much of how we get ready for the end of time is based on what God shows us in the birth of God’s Son, Jesus. If God loves the world so much that God would pursue union with humanity in the birth of a vulnerable child, God’s tenderness and care will also be reflected as all of God’s promises come to their completion. As our liturgy in Advent repeatedly reminds us, we can look forward to the day of judgement because we know of God’s mercy and love. Our comfort comes from confronting the reality of death and judgment, of heaven and hell, with faith in the one who was born in Bethlehem and who lived and died and was raised for our sakes. Advent, therefore, must not ignore those last great things but present them with hope, love, peace, and joy.
As you get ready for Christmas this year, think of it as both a way to get ready for the joy of Jesus’ birth and a way to prepare with joy for the second coming of Christ. Because we celebrate Christmas, we also look forward to end of time—to the second advent of Christ, when all that we know about our loving God becomes fully manifest in the new creation.
Yours Faithfully,
Evan