What To Do with Advent?

Well, we have finally arrived in the season of Advent. You know Advent, the season that arrives just after Black Friday and the day before Cyber-Monday. It's the season that many folks would just as soon skip, as it means a four-week wait until Christmas. So what is one to do in the meantime? Well, that is exactly what Advent is all about: what do we do in the meantime? "What meantime?" you may ask. The meantime between the first coming of God's messiah and the coming of God's ultimate kingdom. "Oh. Can't we just sing Christmas carols and pretend that Advent is already past?" Come on, admit it, you were thinking that, weren't you? The vast majority of Christians whom I have met over the years cannot get excited about Advent. And yet, for me, it is the most promising of the seasons of the Christian year. I was thinking back today, while I was sitting in church listening to a pastor skip right over Advent, to my first year in parish ministry. I recall how excited I was to lead worship during those Sundays in Advent. My congregations were not as excited, as I had replaced the usual four-week festival of carols with Advent hymns. Well, I was twenty-five and I am sure that they assumed that I would grow out of it. I have not grown out of it, though I admit to fudging a bit because we are not in session at the college for the whole season of Advent, so I let a carol or two into the service because our chapel family will not be together to sing them at the proper time.
More than ever before, I have been aware this past year of the creeping agnosticism that has pervaded the lives of many people with whom I work, both students and professionals. I wonder how much of it has to do with our insistence on immediate gratification? Since the Advent season is all about the promise of what is to come, folks cannot wait and so give up. What they forget, however, is that Advent is about one promise fulfilled and one still to come. God came to earth incarnate, and so, the promise of the fulfillment of the Kingdom is valid and worthy of belief. I hear so many people say that God does not exist, or, at least, that God is rather useless. Again, that insistence on immediate gratification is at work, claiming that God has let down humanity because evil still reigns in the world. There is no doubt that evil does reign in many places, and in the hearts of many people. And that is God's fault? The message of Advent promises a new world, where justice and equality are the standard. However, justice and equality are threats to power structures, and will always be so. Just as Advent calls for us to believe in a new way, so does justice insist that things that have always been must change. But folks are loath to accept change unless there is a personal, tangible benefit. This year, during the Black Friday craziness that I think shows America at its worst, people were interviewed by local news stations as to why they put up with the craziness. Some admitted that it's a fun family tradition and not so much about the shopping as about the chance to be together. Others were exalting over the fact that they had purchased really neat gifts for themselves at tremendous savings. So, a large number of people do not believe in the promise of Advent or in a God who is real and relevant, but they are willing to believe the myth that retailers hand them that bargains galore await them if they will simply alter their lifestyles for a day and do the bidding of the big box icons by getting up in the middle of the night. Few people get the actual bargains, and the whole travesty of the shopping addiction having something to do with the Christmas message is allowed to play on, and on. We need Advent's message, if for no other reason than to save us from ourselves.