Happy New Year!
I know it seems a little early, but then the church year is always a little out of sync with the secular calendar. Stores have been full of Christmas decorations since at least Halloween (and some places, since August!) and the piped-in music switched over to Christmas tunes no later than Black Friday. Hopefully you enjoyed a feast on Thanksgiving, because at least traditionally, Advent has been considered a fasting time not so different from Lent.
In truth, though, the emphasis in Advent has long been shifting away from treating it as a “Junior Lent” of purple, fasting and repentance, and toward a posture of “hopeful anticipation.” I’m a big fan of differentiating it from Lent by using a liturgical blue. A lighter blue points us toward mother Mary and her own hopeful anticipation, and darker blues remind me of the sky’s color right before dawn. Can’t go wrong either way!
It feels like a bit of a losing battle, to try to keep to Advent while the rest of the culture is embracing Christmas. The phrase “Happy Holidays” has been associated with a culture war over whether or not it’s appropriate to say “Merry Christmas” in a secular context. But in truth “holidays” in short for “holy days” — and I think it’s even more appropriate, because I hope all these holy days are filled with joy: Thanksgiving just past, the four weeks of Advent, the twelve days of Christmas that follow, Epiphany and beyond.
I don’t think we need to avoid a secular Christmas while keeping our Advent vigil. True, the worst of the “Christmas season” is full of things. Advent would lead us away from: gluttony, sloth, anger, mindless consumption, busy-ness and more. But the best of the secular Christmas season is fully compatible with Advent: generosity, joy, hopeful anticipation and much more.
So, I don’t mind that we’ll put off our fullest expression of Christmas at Joy until our Christmas program on December 22 and then Christmas Eve on the 24th. We’ll still have a couple more weeks of Christmas after that to carry us into Epiphany and beyond. But I also don’t mind the secular Christmas season, because at it’s best, it’s really pointing us toward the same things.
May your Christmas be merry, all these holy days be happy, and your new year be filled with joy!
Pastor Jon
