Warmth in Winter

Pastor’s Epistle—December, A.D. 2018 C

December is challenging. It really is.

On the one hand there’s all this stress. We feel pressure at this time of year to execute the perfect holiday. We have cards to write, gifts to wrap, bills to pay, and treats to bake. There are people to see, parties to attend, and traditions to uphold. We don’t want to disappoint our friends or our families or least of all our kids. This is the most wonderful time of the year! We don’t want to screw it up.

On the other hand we have the cold and the dark and the emotional difficulties attendant upon winter in northern climes. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is all too real for many of us. We long for sunshine and warmth, yet find only solitude amidst the howling winter winds. Worse yet, we hear the hounds of winter—the pull of depression, of grief—as we most keenly feel the losses of those we’ve loved at the holidays. Our season for joy is our season for sorrow.

These then are the twin burdens of December: holiday sadness and holiday stress. Thankfully we have a tonic ready-made for us in the Church’s observance of Advent.

Advent is a season of stillness, of holy silence. It is the time given us to prepare our hearts for the King. It often feels futile to preach Advent in December, as though one were assigned to hold back the incoming tide with a cup. But this I think is when it is most crucial. We need stillness now more than ever. If we do not seek it out—if we do not take the time to step back, to quiet our souls, to breathe—then our celebration of Christmas becomes an agony to endure rather than a joy to proclaim. And that would be tragic indeed.

What is Advent? It is the spiritual equivalent of lighting a fire in our hearth amidst the winter storms, that the whole family might gather around to enjoy warmth and light within even as darkness and ice lurk without. Advent is a time to slow ourselves, to re-center our souls, to remember what the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge had to learn the hard way: that the coming of Christmas isn’t about packages or boxes or bills or bags, but about simple kindnesses, loving generosity, and valuing people above all else in life. This is how we are to be Christ for each other. This is how Jesus is born amongst us today.

Advent is the perfect time for reading, for prayer, for quiet meditation, for reconnecting with friends in unforced ways, for holding our children close and cherishing simple joys. Gather each night around an Advent devotional, to light a candle on the wreath or open a door on your Advent calendar. Here’s a suggestion: this Advent we begin reading from the Gospel according to St Luke. Luke’s Gospel has 24 chapters. Read a chapter a night as a family, beginning on December 1 right up through Christmas Eve. What could be simpler? What could be holier? What could better prepare us for the birth of our Lord?

Come to Church. Light a candle. Sit quietly for five minutes a day. I know you have a lot to do. I know December can be a challenging time. But it’s okay. Advent is all about finding stillness amidst the craziness, making space for the holy in the middle of the storm. Christmas will come, one way or the other, in its own good time. The Lord is even now on His way. Nothing we could do will speed Him along. And nothing we could do will prevent His arrival.

God be with you. May all of us know a blessed Advent, and a merry Christmas to come.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.