IT’S MID-DECEMBER, BUT I have been thinking about what to write for this column ever since I first heard hints of a Christmas jingle in an advertisement. It was sandwiched between a couple of other ads for trick or treat candy!
Such is what happens in this mashup of festivals and holidays this time of year.
Hidden in this noisy seasonal frenzy is the church season of Advent, a time about as opposite from the commercial purposes of Black Friday and Cyber Monday as you can get.
The word “advent” comes from the Latin for “coming” and the Advent Season is about the “not yet, but be prepared for when it comes” kind of season.
It’s a season of quiet waiting for a promised gift. It’s totally opposite of a day of online purchases promised for arrival tomorrow.
There is more to Advent’s purpose than keeping us from jumping ahead to a birthday party for Jesus. I appreciate what the Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister writes about one of Advent’s central purposes in her book “The Liturgical Year.”
She writes, “The function of Advent is to remind us what we’re waiting for as we go through life too busy with things that do not matter to remember the things that do.
Advent relieves us of our commitment to the frenetic in a fast-paced world. It slows us down. It makes us think. It is while waiting for the coming of the reign of God, Advent after Advent, that we come to realize that its coming depends on us. What we do will either hasten or slow, sharpen or dim our own commitment to do our part to bring it.”
I like her broadened understanding of Advent as a time to sort out the “things that matter” and our partnership with God to bring and build the “reign of God” into our world and communities.
The “reign of God” is a theological term for a world where the “golden rule” reigns. A hoped-for time not yet here, but on the way, God willing.
Since Eden, God has kept asking us to again partner in making the “reign of God” a reality. God gave it another try with the miraculous birth of a very real part of Himself. We know the child as Jesus, but I like his more ancient name, “Emmanuel.” It means “God with us.”
In the days left of Advent, try taking a few moments to let your mortal flesh keep silence, as the old carol says. Ponder nothing earthly minded either, because Christ our God to earth is descending and He wants our full attention.
Isn’t that just like a baby?
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Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Don Corson is an Ordained Deacon in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and the winemaker for a local winery. He is also the minister for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Forks. His email is ccwinemaker@gmail.com
