Advent has challenges for us, which seem to increase every year. I remember over 40 years ago one of my first “children’s sermons” at the first church I served in Arkansas. I wasn’t too savvy about such things, and began the sermon on 1 Advent with a question: “Who can tell me what season this is?” A young nimrod raised his hand, and offered “It’s duck season, Father!” Well, I couldn’t argue with that, but I never appreciated the practice of getting up before dawn to sit in the cold waiting for a duck to pass within reach of your shotgun. It always seemed just an excuse to try to keep yourself warm by imbibing other “spirits”.
I later realized he had given a spiritual answer after all – Advent really is “duck” season.
It is a season when we have to duck the world which tries to push its commercial version of the secular “Happy Holiday” on us at every turn while we are trying to slow down, be quiet and attentive to the prophecies and accounts of the Nativity of the Incarnate Word of God.
We have to duck the music, the decorations, the parties, and the worldly spirit of what has become the materialist version of Christmas, which starts shortly after Halloween, and goes increasingly full bore until the world is worn out with it all by December 25th, when we have just begun our celebration and feasting. At the bookstore I used to work at, we sold a card which sort of summed it up for me: On the front there was a sort of Nativity scene and it stated “It’s Jesus’ birthday” and inside it read “And once again I bought you a gift and Jesus gets nothing.”
Certainly we do not want this holy season of Advent to issue in a Nativity celebration in which, after four weeks of Advent and two weeks of Christmas, Jesus has gotten nothing from us.
Instead, as St. Paul exhorts, it is high time to wake out of sleep, for what we prepare for and anticipate through Advent, as Bishop JOHN once remarked, is Jesus coming to us not from the past as an infant in Bethlehem, (though we do commemorate that historic event, certainly) but Jesus coming to us from the future in the Holy Eucharist. His eschatological second coming is closer to us that it was last year, last month, yesterday, this morning. Though the season is fraught with sentiment for most of us, there is nothing sentimental about our commemoration of the Nativity.
The night is far spent, the day is at hand, because Today is the Day of Salvation. No matter what our Trinity season has been like, it is time to cast off the works of darkness once again and put on the armor of light.
Time to repent with earnestness, to turn from the paltry distractions and reconnect, recommit our lives to the Lord and Master of the Universe who is ever coming to us in His love and mercy as the Restorer of human nature, the Great Atoning Sacrifice, the Conqueror of Death and the Bestower of all that is Good.
Time to turn again towards what is life-giving and renounce our covenants with death, with all those things which lure us into darkness rather than into the light of the Light of the World. May God in His infinite mercy grant that this Advent will be a time once again to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as the armor of light against the world, the flesh and the devil. A time to sing with all our zeal, Blessed is He that cometh in the Name of the Lord.
All that being said, here are some of the tips I offer regularly to help us keep Advent and Christmas:
1) Postpone your decorating until Christmas really begins. Use an Advent Wreath instead at the family table and read the lections for the day together and pray the Collect for the week before lighting the appropriate candles.
2) Put more focus on the crèche or Nativity scene than on the Christmas tree. Children can move the Mary and Joseph figures closer as Advent progresses, and open the window of an Advent Calendar as the days unfold. Wait until Epiphany to place the Magi figures at the crèche. Let your children move them closer each day of Christmas from somewhere else in the house.
3) If you want St. Nicholas to be part of your tradition, keep his feast on its own day, December 6, and teach your children about this great Saint of the Church, redeeming him from the clutches of the secular ignorance and mythology that surrounds him.
4) A tough one: Politely refuse invitations to parties during Advent (where you will undoubtedly be expected to break your Nativity Fast) by simply saying (without pride!) “thank you, but we are in our time of preparation for the Feast of the Nativity and are observing the Church’s fast. You are welcome to come and celebrate with us during Christmas (Dec 24-Jan 6).”
5) Keep the 12 Days of Christmas as the witness to St. Stephen, St. John, the Holy Innocents, the Feast of the Circumcision & Naming of Christ and the Epiphany of our Lord by coming to the daily services.
6) Made an Advent reminder – print something like “Slow down….Quiet…..It’s Advent…” and put it in a prominent place to remind you of this holy season of preparation. I can almost guarantee you that the better you keep Advent, the better your Christmas will be.