I grew up in a variety of church settings–Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Congregational, non-denominational… We now attend a Vineyard church, and we love the informality of the service, the loving community, the fact that our children can dance in the back of the room where the church meets. I appreciate aspects of all the branches of the Protestant tree, but especially in December, I miss the reminder of the church calendar.
In American culture at large, the Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving (or–as my mother pointed out, the day after Halloween, when the candy in CVS switched from orange to red and green). But for the church, December is a month of waiting, of longing, a month of the anticipation of Jesus’ birth and Jesus’ return. In churches that observe Advent, the hymns take on a mournful quality, a recognition that there is still much work for God to do on this earth to overturn the impact of sin and death and suffering. It isn’t until Christmas Eve that the joyful lines of “Hark the Herald” or “O Come All Ye Faithful” ring out.
I don’t switch churches in December, but I do try to remember the difference between liturgical time and American time. Peter and I use a book, God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas, as a way to reflect upon the spiritual aspects of the season. It is written by Eugene Peterson, Luci Shaw, Kathleen Norris, Richard John Neuhaus, Scott Cairns, and Emilie Griffin, and it includes beautiful works of art as well as lovely reflections on the season of Advent. I highly recommend it. Here are two passages from Eugene Peterson’s Introduction:
“If we want to look at creation full, creation at its highest, we look at a person– a man, a woman, a child. There are those who prefer to gaze on the beauty of a bouquet of flowers rather than care for a squabbling baby, or to spend a day on the beach rather than rub shoulders with uncongenial neighbors in a cold church– creation without the inconvenience of persons. This may be understandable, but it is also decidedly not creation in the terms that have been revealed to us in Genesis and in the person of Jesus.”
“Every year Christmas comes around again and forces us to deal with God in the context of demanding and inconvenient children; gatherings of family members, many of whom we spend the rest of the year avoiding; all the crasser forms of greed and commercialized materiality; garish lights and decorations. Or maybe the other way around: Christmas forces us to deal with all the mess of our humanity in the context of God who has already entered that mess in the glorious birth of Jesus.”
Maybe going to the mall is one way to get ready for Jesus’ birth after all.
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