What's Tony Thinking

Looking Ahead . . .

I know, in the age of “mindfulness,” we’re not supposed to be looking ahead, right?. “Be here now.” Such is the mantra of the mindful. (I do like this one from Wisdom of Jewish Buddhist, “Be here now — your luggage is another story.”) But some amount of “looking ahead” is unavoidable in life and in pastoral ministry.

So, looking ahead to Advent, the four Sunday season before Christmas. Next Sunday, November 24, is the final Sunday of the present church or liturgical year. The following Sunday, Dec. 1, is the first Sunday of Advent 2024. Thought I’d say something about Advent now before we’re already into it.

Throughout my ministry I’ve waged an at best marginally successful campaign to, “Let Advent Be Advent.” Let Advent be its own distinct season of the spirit and in worship, rather than simply turning it into pre-Christmas, preparing for Christmas or even full-on Christmas.

It’s not that I am up-tight liturgical purist. Though I have known a few. You’ve heard the old joke? “What’s the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist? Answer: you can negotiate with a terrorist.”

No, my reasons for valuing Advent — in addition to loving the Advent hymns — are both pastoral and theological. Advent is a season that tells an important truth, one we need to hear, perhaps especially in the weeks before Christmas when the pressure can be on to be constantly jolly and generally perfect.

Advent positions the church where we do in fact live, between hope and fulfillment, and in contested territory where all that distorts, disfigures and destroys life, is yet real and powerful.

Fleming Rutledge opens this up in her excellent book on Advent, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. She notes that many assume there are but two actors on the biblical stage: God and the human being. When things go awry it’s because we, the h.b.’s, have failed to live up to our full potential. But, writes Fleming, “The New Testament presents us not with two but three agencies: God, the human being, and an Enemy, variously called Satan, the devil, Beelzebul” among others. The point is there’s a struggle, going on, a battle really. Hence, the frequency of Jesus’ encounters with the demonic and his exorcisms.

We live, says Advent, on the battlefield. We live between Christ’s two comings, like the figures in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The first coming was in Bethlehem. The second, not yet, in the promised consummation of all things, when Christ shall come again. Between the times, faith is no slam dunk. We struggle to believe, to trust, to keep faith as days grow short and darkness deepens. In such seasons we may cry out, “Where’s God?” “God, why are you silent?” “Why don’t You do something!”

Maybe you’ve been asking such questions of late? They are Advent questions, questions for those who live between the times, and in the midst of a great struggle in which we each have a part to play.

In the medieval period the four Sundays of Advent were keyed to the so-called “last things,” death, judgment, heaven and hell. Those medieval folks did not, apparently, suffer from an excess of jollity in their Advents!

Nowadays, we name the four Sundays of Advent, hope, peace, joy and love and light a candle on the Advent Wreath for each one in turn. A return to the older themes is, well, let’s just say, “unlikely.” Probably just as well. I’m sure the death, judgment, heaven and hell menu gave rise to plenty of fear-mongering sermons and urgings to “clean up your act or else,” which is by the way not the gospel.

Still, the modern quartet — hope, peace, joy and love — do suggest that we don’t have a lot of room for the darker side, which is often now relegated to a special “Blue Christmas” service for those who can’t quite pull off the bright-side program of “the most wonderful time of the year.”

So once again I urge, “Let Advent be Advent.” Hold off on the Christmas carols until the 12 days of Christmas. Sing the Advent hymns of waiting and watching, those that acknowledge life and faith can be and is hard. Don’t make Advent only about preparing for Christmas as if Christ can only come when we are completely ready and have everything under control. Hah!

God comes, Advent promises, when we least expect him, precisely when we are not ready and don’t have our act together. God comes to those places where we think God cannot possibly be found, a cattle shed, a cross.

This is promise of Advent, that it’s not all up to us, not all on us. However hard it may be to see or discern at this moment, God is faithful and God’s grace is at work. Something is coming. Someone is coming. Ready or not.