December 4, 2011
“To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life,
and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
Charity is hard and endures.”
- Flannery O’Connor
It has often seemed to me that the most meaningful part of the Christmas season is not Christmas Day itself, but the days and the weeks leading up to it. It’s the anticipation that I like. But as my late colleague Forrest Church once warned, “Advent is the season of expectation. One thing it teaches, however, is that we don’t always get what we expect.”
Recognizing this reality, the early Christians designated a time of preparation in anticipation of the actual arrival of the holy-day of Christmas.
Advent is the ecclesiastical season immediately before Christmas, consisting of the four Sundays preceding Christmas, and today is the second Sunday of Advent. The word “advent” comes from the Latin word meaning, simply, “to come.”
The first clear references to Advent appear in the latter half of the 6th century—long ago enough to indicate that Advent is very old indeed. Pope Gregory the Great, who was pope from 590 to 640 AD, is said to have introduced the Advent season into the Christian calendar. This Gregory is the same whose name is so closely linked with plainsong that it is commonly known to us as “Gregorian Chant.” He was a prolific writer who produced works on the duties of bishops as well as commentaries on the Bible. One of his most delightful works is his life of St. Benedict, a charming little book full of fact and fiction that still makes good reading.
Advent season is observed as a time of preparation, not only for the great festival of Christmas which follows it, but also for the Second Coming of Christ as Judge at the last day. It is this latter interpretation of Advent which finds expression in a hymn by the Protestant reformer Martin Luther:
Great God, what do I see and hear!
The end of things created!
The Judge of mankind doth appear
On clouds of glory seated!
The trumpet sounds; the graves restore
The dead which they contained before;
Prepare, my soul, to meet Him!
Advent is thus not all happiness and light. It is a serious time, a time of great expectations.
A former ministerial colleague, Elizabeth Alciade, once wrote, “It is no coincidence that the more we can prepare for this festival [of Christmas], the more meaningful and joyful and peaceful it becomes—all the things most of us ‘expect’ from Christmas, but alas, so often do not find.”
Many religious rituals and rites of passage begin with a similar period of special preparation, as a way both of heightening the experience itself and of getting the most out of it in terms of new understanding and knowledge. Time and space must be made in our busy lives if we are to have any chance of realizing our great expectations. As my colleague writes, “Quietness must be made, or should I say discovered, even in the midst of the heightened activity. The more of this side of preparation, the more we allow for noticing an exquisitely wrought snowflake, new fallen on our winter coat, for listening to a child, for holding the hand of one who is afraid, for hearing the sounds of silence, for sharing a simple meal with a lonely neighbor—the more Christmas will ‘come’ for us. The real preparation for Christmas,” she writes, “is largely this making of space, this allowing of quietness, this refusal to be caught up in the tinseled rush. This is the ‘being’ part of preparation, that we, too, may perchance ‘hear the angels sing.’”
I know all too well how difficult it is to find the necessary time for our own quietness and peace of mind, because almost yearly I fail in the effort myself. Even if we do not expect the imminent return of Christ, we still expect a lot from Christmas—perhaps more than it can ever provide or satisfy. One thing is certain, though: it is very difficult to meet our great expectations, or any expectations for that matter, if we are too busy or too hurried to enjoy the moment in which we are living.
The idea of consciously preparing ourselves for the holiday and for the expectations we cherish for it would seem to be transferable to other areas of our lives, as well. For having expectations is important, as long as we heed the warning of author Flannery O’Connor, who wrote in the words I included on your orders of service this morning that “To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life.” We need something to look forward to, something to work toward, something to give us hope for the uncertain future, some vision of how things ought to be. As the prophet Isaiah wrote, “without vision, the people perish.” But we need to keep our expectations realistic, or we are sure to be disappointed.
Just as we need our great expectations for the holiday season, I think we need to have great expectations for our church. These expectations begin with a vision of what our church is and can be, not only for ourselves, for those of us already here, but also for those in our community whose lives we may yet touch. These expectations begin with a vision plenty rather than poverty: the idea that there is still more than enough to go around. It is a vision not only of what we already are, but of what we might become.
We need to remember that at least half the fun in life is, or can be, getting there. John Daniels, in his book The Trail Home, writes that, “A destination sets you in motion, but once you’re moving here, what’s important is where you are.” We need a destination, a common purpose, a shared vision, a dream to set us in motion. But what I think Daniels is saying is that we also need to be fully present in the moment in which we find ourselves. It’s a paradox: where we are now, what we do now, is just as important as anything we may accomplish in the future. Or to return to my original conceit, these Advent days of preparation are just as important in their own way as the Christmas holiday to which they lead. Perhaps, even more so.
A writer in the newsletter of the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship, a church without walls for those who find themselves living in places without a Unitarian Universalist congregation like ours, once wrote, “Advent cannot have for [religious] liberals the meaning the season holds for more traditional Christians, but it can provide families with an opportunity to become aware of the significance of spiritual values inherent in the winter festival season for them. During this season, families can become acquainted with the many Christian legends, customs, and traditions of our heritage and discover those which are particularly meaningful to them. Out of such experiences come the special family observances so dear to each member of the family and yet so unifying in the effect.”
Something analogous can happen to our church family as we unite in the common purpose of expanding our community not only numerically, but spiritually. There are always opportunities for more inclusiveness as we work toward our common goals. The preparations we make are thus important in and of themselves, as well as in what they can lead to in helping us to realize our great expectations for the future of our beloved community.
There are also meanings to be found in this holiday time of preparation, and memories to be recounted. There are moments to share and people to be with, which can enrich and heighten the holiday when it comes.
We must always strive to keep our expectations great, if realistic, because part of the expectation of the Christmas and Hanukkah seasons is that this is a time when we dare to hope for peace and freedom and good will for all. It must be our hope and our commitment as well as our expectation if it is ever to become a reality.
This year as in all the years before there is much to bring despair. The economic uncertainty in which we are living, the environmental challenges, the political intransigence, wars and rumors of wars, not to mention the many causes for despair in our individual circumstances, should caution us not to expect too much. But let Advent, Christmas and Hanukkah be a time for recommitment, for it is commitment which brings hope and makes the present habitable. It is as we work for a better, more expansive and inclusive world that our outlook on the world becomes brighter.
My colleague John Taylor has written, “If there were no Advent, we would need to invent it. We human creatures, in spite of all that has happened to us, and been done by us, are still hopeful. Something new, something vital, something promising is always coming, and we are always expecting. Thus in Advent candles are lighted to mark the time of preparation, and with each new light our anticipation grows—as it should. We are, after all, a hopeful people, and that hopefulness deserves a festival. Advent is a time of anticipation and as long as we expect, as long as we hope, someone will light a candle against the prevailing darkness—and neither the winds of hate not the gales of evil will extinguish it.”
Advent, then, is a time which takes our great expectations seriously, but which also expects something from us. Let it be a time to discover quietness and space, for memory and longing to have their day. But let it also be a time for renewing our vision of hope for our church and our world, and for recommitting ourselves to both, and to the struggle for peace and justice once again.
In closing, a prayer by the late Unitarian minister, A. Powell Davies:
O God, we thank Thee that at the darkest time of the year there comes to us the brightest festival. Let the gladness of its faith and the joy of its promise be warm within us! Let us believe its hope: that sometime there shall be a world in which humanity’s inhumanity is ended; a world of good will from which all cruelty is gone; a world in which the prophecies of old have found fulfillment, in which the nations are at peace and hatred and strife are known no more. A world in which children’s faces are bright like the face of the Christ-child, and all harshness and bitterness are banished, and love and gentleness have everywhere prevailed. Let the darkness of our skies be cloven! Let the angel of hope appear! Let the song be sung to our waiting hearts, the song that is sung by the heavenly host, and let earth join in the chorus!
May it be thus; may this Advent-time be the fulfillment of all our great expectations. Amen.
- The Rev. Harold E. Babcock
Readings: from “The Courage to Hope,” by Peter Gomes; by Roy D. Phillips
from “The Courage to Hope,” by the Rev. Peter Gomes
Advent is the season of hope, and we worship the God of things that are not yet, the God of things that are to be. That is both true and easy to say, and I have just done so; but hope, real hope . . . is not quite so easy to come by. Sometimes our hope fails us for lack of imagination, lack of courage, or for not thinking or hoping ‘big’ enough—cheap and inadequate hope.
. . . Advent hope is not an exercise in nostalgia or seasonal optimism; Advent is not celebration but fortification against the very forces that would drive us to despair and drag us downward; Advent is an exercise in endurance, in preparation for the long journey to a time and a place we have not yet been, and for which all the past and all the present are mere preparation.
from a newsletter column by the Rev. Roy D. Phillips
Spiritually, Advent suggests to us that we have the darkness in our lives right now (not merely ‘had it’ or ‘know others who experience the darkness’). We have a darkness in which we are living. Advent is an opportunity to become more fully aware of our own darkness. What form does it take for us—this year? Failure, guilt, shame, sadness, disappointment, compulsion, puzzlement, loneliness, frenzy, boredom, fear, hopelessness. What form is the darkness taking this year? Get in touch with it. Experience it. Own it.
Let it be there. Meditate upon it. Pray about it. Then—and not too soon—listen for the promise in Advent and Christmas.
The light is coming. ‘Now is our salvation near. The night is far spent; the day is at hand.’
What is the light for your life? Not merely for someone else in another time and place. The darkness and the light and salvation—here and now in your life, our lives:
‘The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light.’
‘The light shines on in the darkness and the darkness has not put it out.’
