It’s Beginning to look a lot like Advent
Because Christmas Day falls on a Monday this year, Advent will begin much later than normal. Most years, we finish our turkey meal on Thanksgiving Day, do necessary (and unnecessary) shopping on Friday, relax on Saturday and then attend church on Sunday to hear the familiar strains of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” on the first Sunday of Advent.
This year however, because Thanksgiving was Nov. 23 and the first Sunday of Advent is December 3, we have been inundated for a week and a half with Christmas advertisements, All-Christmas-All-the-Time radio stations, and the outdoor holiday displays of sleighs, lights and ribbons, etc. at local shopping centers. (A sleigh display was up near my neighborhood before Halloween.)
If you are already feeling overwhelmed — like you’re having to force yourself into good cheer — don’t despair! The answer to your stress is not doubling down on your nightly consumption of eggnog.
Instead, let me do the most predictable thing in the world and invite you to attend a St. Martin’s Church service on Sunday.
This Sunday marks the first Sunday of Advent. It begins the season of anticipation, not just of Christmas, but of Jesus returning to renew all things. Advent is a time when we still our hearts. It is the calm before the celebration — the night before the dawn.
Wake, O wake! with tidings thrilling The watchmen all the air are filling, Arise, Jerusalem, arise! … The Bridegroom comes in sight, Raise high your torches bright! Alleluia!1
Before you attend Church on Sunday, take a deep breath. Look for areas in your life and the world that need God’s intervention. Pray that there will be peace on Earth and in your life.
The Collect for the First Sunday of Advent Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and forever. Amen.
[1] From Wake, O Wake with Tidings Thrilling, a circa 1600 hymn by Philipp Nicolai, translated by F. C. Burkitt
