Cold Comfort
A Vespers Reflection for Advent
Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Christmas is our best excuse to be our better selves. It embodies all the wonderful things in which we wish to believe: light in the darkness, warmth in the snows, plenty amidst want, and generosity at the very time of year when nature would have us conserve. It is feasting and joy and love. And it defies our cynicism, defies our irony. Here we celebrate children not as burdens but as blessings. Here we gather with the family who would often drive us mad. Here we profess belief in miracles and magic and wonders and saints.
It pairs nicely with Halloween, for if Halloween allows us to bring into the light all those things we’d typically fear, and to face them, then Christmas allows us to celebrate our secret hopes, our inner child, the bliss that we scarcely admit that we seek. It is a delicate thing, that joy, that wonder. We fear that if we bring it out, if we even admit to believe, then a cold and harsh reality will snatch it from our hearts, like a flower blasted by midwinter winds. Yet love is more resilient than we think, and far more defiant.
The Christmas season keeps inching forward, at least on the shelves in our stores. Thanksgiving couldn’t hold it back, and the Hallowtide is buckling. I start to see Christmas merchandise on the shelves as early as September. And part of me’s duly appalled at the crash commercialization of it. But another part is secretly relieved. Because our world has been so chaotic of late, so angry and lonely and lost, that it’s hard to be optimistic, hard to look at something with hope and say, “Hey, this has gotten better.” Christmas, however, makes everything better.
So we decorate our homes. We bake treats for our family. We buy gifts for the ones whom we love. And we tell stories of magic and wonder, of holy hagiographies, of a saint named Nicholas and of a King who was born in a cave. We are reminded of good in the world, “that the midst of the earth is a raging mirth, and the heart of the earth is a star.” We allow ourselves to believe—and it is bliss.
One of the privileges of the pastorate is to be the one who brings the Word; or more accurately, to be the sinner through whom God proclaims His grace. I help to bring Christmas, my colleagues and I, to tell the tale of the upside-down world into which the Christ is born. A King without a crown. A Mother in mortal peril. A Star that only some can see, calling Magi from the East, whilst angels sing to shepherds, who cower in the night. It is the Story that changes our world, that flips it rightside-up.
God of the lost and the least. The Lamb who stands as though slain. We like to think it’s a children’s story, but only because it is young—eternal, in fact. I get old, but the Word never does. It raises us up from the dead. God is younger than we are.
Of course, it is also my job as your pastor to give us permission to wait. We have entered the season of Advent, and Advent is not Christmas. Not yet. Advent is a season of waiting, of preparing, of hoping, and of stopping. That last bit befuddles us all. Because we want the joy of Christmas, don’t we? We need it now as much as ever. And I don’t mean to be the stick in the mud who tells you to hold off your tree. I get that Christmas carols are a balm to the soul. And I am no Puritan to begrudge us that glee.
Yet I would offer the gifts of Advent: the gifts of stillness and silence, the gifts of respite and rest. We all know how easy it can be to turn our holidays hectic: to stress out, to do too much, to spend too much; the pressure to make Christmas perfect, the pressure to get it all done. Don’t let Christmas expectations strangle Christmas joy. Advent would have us to take a step back, to sit in silence, to read the Scriptures, to wait expectantly, to prepare our hearts and our hearth for the King.
I note with some interest that the spookiness of Advent has really taken off within our cultural imagination of late. It’s nothing new for me: I grew up with a German Advent, full of creepy creatures such as der Belsnickel, Krampus, Frau Perchta. But when I used to speak of these things, 10 or 15 years ago, people thought I must be making them up. What can I say? It’s just not a German holiday until the kids are terrified. Recent years, however, have seen a resurgence of such traditions within American society as a whole. It seems to have struck a chord.
Krampus stars in movies now. Der Belsnickel’s on TV. Creepy Christmas cards are back. It is an admission, I think, on our part, that winter has a dark side, that our holidays can be horrid if we let them get out of hand. Judiciously applying the brakes can be healthful. The spirit of the season is the Spirit, after all, not this mindless performative consumption. It is indeed okay for your Christmas not to be perfect. It’s okay for celebrations to be simple. Take the time to step away, to catch a breath, to say a prayer, to read a devotion.
Christ is coming. He comes to us in Word and in Sacrament. He comes to us in this community of sainted sinners. He comes to us in our children and our loved ones and our neighbors in their need. He comes as the Babe born in Bethlehem. He comes at the End of the Age. Yet, wonder of wonders and miracle of miracles, He is with us even in our waiting, with us even as we prepare for all these ways in which He arrives.
You will find Him in carols and feasting and gifts, absolutely. I know I do. Yet you will also find Him in quiet contemplation, in the conscious cultivation of a calm and inner peace. And that’s something severely lacking in America today. Advent isn’t just about the putting off of Christmas. Rather, it’s the calm before the storm, the rest before the raucousness. It’s exactly what we need to make our Yuletide bright.
And honestly, if we can find calm in the midst of December, when all our world’s gone wild, then we can find it anywhere, all the live-long year. Peace is the gift that keeps on giving. Peace is the gift that everyone everywhere needs. Be present in this waiting, for waiting is hopeful and holy. Waiting can heal the soul.
In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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