Advent Stinks!

I have a problem with the season of Advent. I imagine that you, too, might.

Not a single Advent season passes that I do not get at least a small handful of well-meaning suggestions that we in the Church ought to get with it and begin celebrating Christmas as soon as Thanksgiving is over. What is wrong with celebrating Jesus' birth, after all? What is wrong with Christmas Carols? Who nominated you and the Church as our corporate Scrooges or Grinches? Let's have some fun!

Well, fine; except for this one, small thing. It is not yet Christmas. Liturgically, at least, Jesus has not yet been born. He is still anticipated, hoped for, feared and promised. Therefore, the Church observes Advent. Advent is the season of preparation that precedes the birth of the Christ Child. It is intentional readiness for the policies and practices of Christ Jesus, a time of "making his paths straight." Those paths can look radical and seem dangerous, even unorthodox. They call us beyond some simple assumptions about Jesus' life and death.

My problem with Advent in the Church is that it is so contrary to the practices of the world around the Church. Everywhere we look and hear, there are Christmas sales, Christmas carols, wrapping paper, Christmas lights, Christmas parties, and, God forbid, glitter. So much glitter! The world moves to Christmas in mid-to-late-October, even before Halloween. By the end of November, even on Thanksgiving Day, the stores are open and ready for those Christmas, Black Friday sales. Cyber Monday takes place before we even reach December.

Advent is about the authentic Jesus, not about some characterization of him that traditions have created. The authentic Jesus comes as a corrective to traditional faith, that which falls too simply into categories of black/white, good/bad, in/out. He comes as a sign and symbol of God's inclusive will and tolerant acceptance. He comes with a concentration on those who had been excluded, rejected, despised and feared. He comes for others, not for himself. He does not care about life after death, but about the state of living on earth. He cares less about our sins than he does about our capacity to practice heavenly virtues in relationship with our brothers and sisters, helping those who have been victimized and oppressed.

The Church has a lot of work to do to "make these paths straight." The Church has a great deal to prepare. We have to move the accent of our words about Jesus to a completely other syllable. We have to rewrite sentences where we have been the subject, and see, finally, that others receive Jesus' emphasis. We have to empty ourselves of ourselves. Jesus was not about himself. Neither may we be. To put it bluntly, Advent is a way for us to unlearn many of the traditions that we have blindly accepted and the assumptions that we have been fed. It is a four-week period of re-acquainting ourselves with the real Jesus, who demonstrated the true Christ.

So, we in the Church cling to Advent, a season about the coming apocalyptic that Jesus brings. We remain in a time of serious preparation, even as the world sings of grandmas who are run over by reindeer and hippopotamuses for Christmas. I don't like it, but there you have it. Advent is about the birth of the genuine revelation of God's will, even if that looks nothing like what the world around the Church is celebrating.