Everchanging Advent

(Reposted from November 30, 2013)

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Lamentations 3:22-23

The love of God is new every morning. And the way we receive and experience that love is always new. Not just “new” in the sense of freshly offered, but genuinely new, in the sense of “it’s never been quite the same thing before, and never will be again.”

As Saint Andrew’s Day approaches, and the First Sunday of Advent, I find myself reflecting upon our traditions of the Church Year, and the way we remember and celebrate the Story of Christ. One thing that stands out is that even in the dramatic liturgical experience of the High Middle Ages in Europe, they did not celebrate Christmas the way our forebears did in first century Palestine. Of course, that is because Christmas was not celebrated in first century Palestine, nor for the first several generations of the new Church. (It was nearly 400 years after the Birth of Christ that the celebration of that Birth as “Christmas” finally caught on among His followers.)

And we do not celebrate Advent the way it was first invented, either. For Advent came about as a penitential preparation for baptisms at Epiphany, before “Christmas” was even a twinkle in the Church’s eye! When Christmas was finally plunked down into the Church’s liturgical calendar a couple of weeks before Epiphany, it inherited a penitential run-up.

I am now 68 years old. Even in the olden days of my youth we did not celebrate Advent the way they did in Medieval Europe. I grew up in New York, and everyone always knew the Christmas season began when Santa Clause arrived at the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade!

Yes, the medieval Advent still was observed in Church. But even there it was the medieval Roman Catholic Advent — even in our Episcopal Church – with its purple candles and hangings, its penitential lessons, and its denial that you could see Christmas ahead yet. We never even knew – we simple parishioners – that the Sarum Rite in England was using Mary’s blue color for Advent in the 16th century, or that the Mozarabic Rite was using Marian blue in Catholic Europe in the 8th century!

Today there seems to be a movement among Episcopal clergy to try to “reclaim” the “old” celebration of Advent, which we see never really existed in a universally agreed upon way. It seems to be related to the crusade to “Keep (or Put Back) Christ in Christmas.” But God is New Every Morning in the way He comes to us, and in the ways we experience God. “New occasions teach new duties,” the hymn tells us, “time makes ancient good uncouth, They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.” (James R. Lowell, 1845)

While our society today may not be as universally religious as in old times (an assertion which may be debated,) it does seem to have found a new love affair with Christmas. And while that love affair may not be celebrated according to what we traditionally consider proper liturgical observances, it is heartfelt – it is deeply human.

In Perelandra, C.S. Lewis wrote that all meaningful life events have three stages: Anticipation, Experience, and Memory. Forbidding the excitement of the approach of Christmas during the four weeks of Advent is not exactly the best way to enjoy Anticipation! Rather, Advent ought to be a Crescendo of Joy! On its first day, when the first candle is lit on the Advent Wreath, we affirm our faith that Light indeed is about to break into the winter darkness. That the people who live in darkness will indeed see a Great Light. And we celebrate the anticipated arrive of the Divine Child in the same way we celebrate the expectation of the births of our own children: we sing songs, and tell stories, and buy gifts, and we decorate the nursery so all will be in readiness. We rejoice with Mary in the final stages of her pregnancy.

A sure sign of Advent at RavenOak is the lighting of the Christmas tree.

Advent is the time to decorate the nursery of our own hearts in joyous anticipation. The light of that single candle on the First Sunday of Advent grows and brightens, and a little bit of Christmas seeps into our hearts each day!

There is a profoundness of truth in one of the most secular of Christmas songs:

“We need a little Christmas now!”

~ Will, ObJN