Advent begins on Sunday. The counting up and counting down. It’s a strange season to be a Christian. It’s a time of waiting. In our churches, we read the prophets and tell stories about longing, of people longing for hope and justice, waiting for the light. We focus on God’s promises. We reassess our own expectations, and maybe also our ideas about calling and faithful response. There is a lot of introspection and awareness of just how much we need Love. It’s almost a dark season. And all around us, the parties have started.
A bit unbalancing, don’t you think?
Now, we could humbug the whole thing. We could refuse to step into the festivities, proclaiming that the celebration starts at Christmas itself, for heaven’s sake. (Quite literally, too, I suppose.) But I’m not sure that humbugging is a great witness to the abundant history-changing love that’s the centre of this season.
I think that the whole unbalancing fact of Advent works as an illustration in the life of faith. It’s a vivid example of proleptic living – that there-but-not-there-yet reality of living a life of hopeful faith in a broken world. Because of the great gospel promises – incarnation and resurrection – we are there. The Kingdom is among us. Christ is King. And yet, there is such a long way to go. The world is still full of brokenness. Injustice seems to get the upper hand all too often. Life hurts. We live in the tension of time – between the realized promise and the fulfilment of all things. We wait for God. That’s Advent, isn’t it? We see the brokenness, the need for hope and peace, joy and love, the utter need of all creation for God, and yet, in these dark days before the birth of God among us, we also celebrate. The festivities point towards the coming of the Light.
I’ve been trying to hold these hopeful there-but-not-there-yet thoughts in my mind this week to balance the headlines. I am so sad and disappointed for our sisters in the Church of England that their ministry was undermined by last week’s vote against women bishops. I could rant a length about this, but this might not be the time. It’s just such a frustrating situation – a seemingly democratic situation birthing a seemingly undemocratic result. We’re so not there yet.
Advent seems highly necessary this year. We all need to point to the Light and maybe get our parties shoes on.
So, at our house, we’re painting Advent calendars. We’ll be making another Advent mobile – last year’s string has stayed up all year and has hosted a variety of birthday buntings and seasonal garlands. Beangirl’s told me that she already has plots for a host of angels for this Advent, so the mobile is non-negotiable. I’ll post photos of the mobile as it goes, both here on the Record site and on Twitter, too. Our painting, on the other hand, will result in a slightly more traditional Advent Calendar for the hallway. No chocolate, I’m afraid, but it will count down or count up the days to Christmas. We’ve taken a set of Advent poems by Jan Sutch Pickard called An Infinity of Stars, which we bought through the Iona Books website. I printed the poems on small cards, about a quarter of a page in size. With each poem, there is a short scripture verse, and then we added paint. Some cards are quite representative, others entirely abstract. We had a lot of fun experimenting with water colours. Each card in numbered on the back, and we’re going to tape them to the wall (akin to our Love Wall idea) numbers sides out. Each day in Advent, we will turn the day’s card over so that we can see the readings and the painting. By Christmas, our hallway will be very colourful and full of poetry. But for today with Advent still approaching, I think we need some prophet song around here. Here’s Jeremiah, singing God’s good promises into our Advent hearts.
Jeremiah 33:14-16
14The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.16In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
