Advent Week 2 - Preparation

Growing up Methodist, week two of Advent was traditionally labeled the Sunday of Peace and I thought Catholic tradition was similar. In doing some background reading I learned week 2 is more often referred to as the Sunday of preparation or, in other places, the Sunday of Prophecy. When Preparation/Prophecy stands alone, Peace is combined with the Gaudete Sunday and so Week 3 is the Sunday of Peace and Joy.

I found it very curious to have one Sunday and the following week be set aside for preparation but also so for prophecy. There is, of course, much preparation involved with Christmas. There is the need to hang the Christmas lights and decorations outside so that passersby can be greeted with the beauty of the season. I also love to be welcomed home by a display of red, green, white and blue lights lining the roof line and laid out across the bushes of our house. It makes me feel homey.

Inside there are villages to set out, lights to string, trees (yes trees, one is not enough) to put up and nativities to display. Also, the regular cups, mugs, plates and linens need to be packed away to be replace with Christmas themed ones. Typically by the end of Thanksgiving weekend, our house has been prepared for Christmas. On this weekend, there is a foot of fresh snow on the ground with snow still falling. There is a distinct Currier and Ives vibe going on not just in our home but in the homes of most people we know. Some stalwarts don't put the tree until Christmas, but we can't wait that long.

Christmas cookies and other holiday treats are prepared and consumed with the benign resignation that comes from knowing the fight against sugar consumption and weight gain is simply futile. In the quiet of the evening before bed, I will just sit in the stillness and take in the feeling, sights and sounds of Christmas. I will feel peaceful for a minute, maybe two, then I will start thinking about what gifts that I still need to buy and then starting wondering about what gifts will come my way. When the tea has cooled off and it is time to retire, I will pat myself on the back for being so well prepared for Christmas. There, we are done. Let's bring on the Sunday of Peace and Joy.

As I reflected further, a little tickle started to distract me. Is this what the church means about preparation? Is it about shiny things that shimmer and blink? Is it about overconsumption of foods I should not even taste? Is it about paying attention to the TV and newspaper ads that promise we will have the perfect holiday if we can just buy the right stuff? Of course. Memories of past Christmas's when my children were little include mountains, literal mountains of boxes and wrapping paper that almost eclipsed the tree. Thoughts creep in. What about Mass on Christmas eve? What about singing carols about the Christ and the holy family without a thought the halls being decked or the bells jingling just so.

There are two Christmas's. One for the observant Christian and the other one for every one else. What is Christmas really about? It occurred to me readings of the second Sunday are centered on John the Baptist and his role as the last prophet before the rising of Christ. John's message was not about celebrations, gatherings, gifts and decorations. He wore tattered uncomfortable clothes, ate bugs and called us out of our comfortable little niches.

His message was "Repent!" and his call was to come forward for baptism. His ministry was not about being comfortable and relaxed. It called us to action. Why kind of action? Repentance requires us to do things, uncomfortable things that don't seem to be inline with the usual warm and fuzzy ideas we have about the Christmas season. First we have to pause instead of plunging into the lure of Amazon Prime with the promise that if you order now your purchase will be in the air being ferried by drone to the loading dock and from there into cargo hold of a jet which will be airborne to us inside the hour. Yes, we need to give of ourselves to answer the call but what are asked to give can't be charged to the Cabela's card where points are given for every purchase. We and by we I mean I, have to look at ourselves in the mirror and not just from across the room but right up close where every imperfection of our face is literally thrown back at us. This is not something we are compelled to do only at certain times of the year but everyday, often enough to keep us from straying off the course but the fact that Advent is often referred to as "Little Lent" points us to something more than just the ordinary, something firmly tied to the season.

Christmas is not just a birthday celebration for baby Jesus. It was never meant to be an occasion for a cake, ice cream, balloons and trips to Chucky Cheese to play whack a mole, if that is still a thing. The celebration is for the incarnation of God into man, the biggest act of love that could possibly exist. When we look toward Christmas, we are not just remember the event, we are celebrating the coming of the lord into form we that binds the human into the divine. This is celebration that requires preparation. It requires us to look at the whole idea of prophecy. John quoted Isaiah and in so doing became the link between the past and the present through which the prophecies were fulfilled. There is more to prophecy than just predicting the future based upon the past, it is understanding scripture in a way that it can be fulfilled in our understanding and sharing the understanding with each other. In other words we are called to prepare ourselves through assumption of the role of prophet.

This is a vexing and confusing thought but the calming of the storm of misunderstanding is simple. Repentance at this time opens us up to grasp what came by literally recreating the incarnation in our hearts and souls. Advent becomes like lent because discernment of our spirits is our mission. What about me needs to be examined? How am I relating to my soul and to others that needs to be improved or altered? Am I living out the call to love in the manner and spirit that is expected from the Holy Spirit that runs in and through my life and how I live?

When we read how John preached to those of his time to make way for the coming of the messiah, he was not just sending a message that was intended only for that time and place. It is for those of us living today as well. It is for me, today.

This is not just a heavy time of pious reflection and humble discernment, there is a reward for us. A promise that the incarnation has happened and is happening again and again when we receive the Eucharist. If we are prepared, we recognize the return we can expect as we move through the season. If Christ is in us and we are in him, what else could we expect to come next but the peace that surpasses understanding and joy we gain in holding that awareness. Be thorough as we prepare, we are promised the more completely we relinquish what we mistake as important, the greater our peace and joy will grow.

Peace be with you.

Advent Week 1 Hope in the Waiting

In Catholic tradition there is a different theme for each of the 4 weeks in Advent. Week one the theme is Hope. Week 2 is Preparation, week 3 is Joy and the 4th and last week is Love.  

It is curious to me that Hope is the first week and Preparation is the second. I would think the order would begin with Preparation and then follow up with Hope, Joy and Love. 

On further reflection I realize Hope is what draws us in to the magical season of Advent. The name, Advent, comes from the Latin words “Ad” which means “to” and the word “Venire” which means come. Spliced together, we get the word advent, to come, and we wait for what is to come.

Hope. It is such a common word for us, we use it multiple times a day most days. I hope the Broncos get their act together. I hope the weather is nice this weekend so the roads will be good. I hope to be able to get the gumbo caked on my truck washed off before the storm arrives today. I hope my wife makes chicken fried steak this week. I hope to see Jane this weekend. I hope my close friends at work will continue to buoy me up during the week.  I hope my mother’s health holds through the holidays so she can enjoy the season. 

We don’t just use hope for the incidental things that pop day day to day. Hope is, after all, a theological virtue so it carries significance beyond casual use. Hope is what sustains us through the thumps and bumps that interrupt our passage through life. When I look at my image in the mirror in the morning and I find myself looking through the image of what I see to wonder who or what I am or what I have become, hope is what brings me back to contact with my heart and soul. In the night, when what the great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich calls “thoughts of ultimate concern” flood over me and roll me around like a pebble in a rushing river, Hope is what waits for me as the tumbling ends and I begin to make sense of haunting dreams that don’t just wait for sleep to come but can terrifyingly visit me in wakefulness. Hope is what feeds my faith to the sure and

certain knowledge that when I die, I will not truly die but will live on through the grace and mercy of God. 

When we try to understand how hope works, we learn the answer lies somewhere beyond our capacity to capture. Henry Nouwen says this, 

“Hope is willing to leave unanswered questions unanswered and unknown futures unknown. Hope makes you see God's guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness.”

In his words, we should not be concerned by the mysteries of hope but to turn our attention to seeing God’s hand in our life. As I type this, a convention of Blue Jays and Magpies are hazing the feeders I stuffed with dog food cubes and un-shelled peanuts. It is a pleasing moment and I am comforted by the energy and conversation they bring. Since I have been away for several days, I hoped they would come promptly when I put out the food and whistled for them to come. Their presence connects to nature to me in a very curious way. I had not expected to become so closely bonded to them when I started putting out food last spring. 

What is interesting is I feel as though I am celebrating creation and giving the creator praise by offering nourishment to his creatures. He did not need to create beauty and wonder, nor did he need to create an ability and desire for us to embrace those things and to wander in wonder but he did. As suggested by Nouwen, I see God’s guiding hand in this. Two weeks ago, wracked by fear and anxiety, it was difficult to settle into the moment, watch the birds and find hope when I needed hope to pull myself back to a path forward and to remind me  fear, anxiety and worry are pointless. As Quoheleth noted in Ecclesiastes, I was busying myself about with things of no concern and yet I was wasting a tremendous amount of energy for no good reason. I hoped, falteringly at first, the time of uneasiness and concern would pass as it always and it did. It faded. My hope was fulfilled. 

Hope is not a constant in our lives, it comes from a willingness to trust and most of us begin to trust in little tiny steps. I don’t remember a time when I did not have the capacity to trust, even if only a tiny bit, it was a virtue my family demonstrated for me every day and they have never wavered enough in their faith to lose the trust they all spent a lifetime building. No matter what challenges they faced even when afflicted by terrible illnesses like strokes  and respiratory diseases like COPD, they never lost their ability to trust in God, to have faith that in the end, everything would be alright. Their hopes of delivery into a life beyond anything we can imagine were answered and we had the privilege of being witnesses.

In the last hours before my grandfather literally suffocated from emphysema, I took my grandfather's hand and asked him if he was afraid. Words were hard for him to speak by that time, struggling for breath, he shook his head and grasped my hand a little tighter. I leaned closer in to him told him choirs of angels were waiting for him and he nodded his head in response and squeezed my handed even tighter. Behind me my mother and grandmother listened and watched while I walked as far down the road to light with my grandfather as I was permitted. My cousin got up, rushed for the door left the room. She was not able to accept what was coming and she was destroyed by it. Hope eluded her then and still does often when she needs hope the most.

Two years later, sorrow struck my wife and I when we lost a child in the last trimester on the seventh day of December. The reading that day was this same reading about John the Baptist. In the days to follow, I thought I was holding tightly to the trust I needed to not lose hope, but that is not what happened. I pretended I still had hope but deep down there was only despair and a hurt that would not heal. The damage I caused to myself was nearly enough to destroy me but in time, through prayer offered by my wife and others, I was redeemed and brought home to where hope could rise up again out of the ashes of faith burned away by anger. 12 years ago on this same Sunday I was visited by hope brought on the wings of forgiveness and the ability to look at sorrow and not despair. It has never left me as long as I remember to ask for it and offer gratitude when it rises up to support me. 

I ask you to think. Have there been times in your life when your faith carried you far enough through adversity to where you could find hope? Has the experience strengthened you? Has the power of your hope allowed you to feed the trust and hope of another? Did you recognize that through your actions you willed the good of another?

Next week we will consider the next them, preparation which can also be understood to be prophecy.

Until, then the may this be a season of great hope for us all.