Advent - An essential journey

'Christmas is almost here,' were the very first words I heard as I was greeted by one of the people I often engage with. Their opening gambit made I countered with: 'Advent is almost here - Christmas is still a way off!' The look on their face told me that I had the upper hand as, once again, I (being the soul representative of the whole Church where I am) had completely flummoxed them!

'Oh yes,' they said, It's December on Sunday. Advent calendars!'

I wasn't expecting such a strong response, for I was now on the back foot and struggling to select the correct response.

Did I begin by explaining that to be a true Advent calendar then, looking at next year, the number one window wouldn't always coincide with the first of December (it would start on Nov 30)?

Perhaps I should do the, 'The advent journeying is the road to the fulfilment and joy of God's plan of salvation,' spiel. Always good to bring in the the themes of Advent: The Patriarchs; The Prophets; John the Baptist and The Virgin Mary - that speak of the situation, solution, preparation and delivery.

Then again there's always the 'It's not Christmas until ......' Tack. The 'keeping Christmas special - Jesus, the reason for the season and all that stuff' - real Advent calendars, the cards that don't have penguins, Santa, snow or polar bears (no, I'm not being Polar Bearist!).

There was the explanation of our purple patches - those penitential preparations whereby the spiritual house of our soul is cleaned in preparation for the coming of a newborn or the joyful acclamation that 'He is risen!'.

So many valid choices - but which one to take?

Well, which one would you have taken?

Five days to Advent and ...

All around me I'm finding people with Christmas trees in their windows, lights flashing as if to say, 'Stuff Advent' it's Argostide already get with it! Further down the road there are people with houses already sparkling with icicle lights and festoons proclaiming something just twenty-nine days too early!

The season of Advent has apparently been gazumped and as children prepare to remove the chocolate from their December Calendars (the calendars formerly known as 'Advent') we know that we've moved straight into the Christmas season. A season which formerly began on Christmas Eve once upon a time.

Now Christmas gets earlier and earlier and no sooner has Boxing day been and gone than the lights vanish and the trees are discarded or consigned back into garage, shed or attic. The twelve days of Christmas have become thirty-one days and people are already moaning about (and I jest not) 'The Church types trying to hijack the season!'

Losing Advent is one of the biggest losses of the Church year for the journey of preparation of the penitential kind and the clearing up the house that is us in readiness for Jesus, the Christ, God's chosen and anointed one is important and necessary. It's taking away the twice yearly spiritual health check and repair sessions and replacing it with a 'gimme, gimme, gimme' mentality that makes us all just a little worse each year.

So whilst this might sound like a 'bah, humbug' session it's not.

What this is is a call for those who lead churches to move away from the popularist 'let's fill the church building for a month with people who won't hear the Christmas message or understand the truth of Jesus as the salvific and atoning act of Grace and celebrate how popular we can be!'

I don't care about being popular - that was never the call upon us (was it?).

I don't care about the fact that one cleric I have met is boasting of thirty-three carol and Christingle services - a new record.

What I care about is that the same people who cram into their church building won't have a clue about Jesus or His divinity or His sacrifice or the journey from Isaiah to Bethlehem's stable and from there to Calvary.

What I care about is being more than a seasonal attraction alongside Santa's Grotty - after all, if there's one thing we need to be making known, it is this:

Advent's Coming

So it's time to get ready!

One of the things I love most, and I hope you'll excuse the pun, is the expectancy that is Advent and the journey we make towards Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus, the Christ, looking to something in the past as if it were not and getting the physical and spiritual houses cleaned in readiness.

People often ask me why I look to something that was as if it is to come and wonder whether we're playing at nativity but this, much like the Jewish observance of Passover is not playing games but engaging in an active remembrance of the act. It's what we call 'anamnesis' - something I explain by relating the tale of one of our children who remembers one of the family events as if they were there because the way the story was repeatedly told and the way that it became part of their shared memory and reality.

What is also important is that we remember that although the act may be past and reside in the 'then' the outworking and reality of it is to be found in the 'now' and the 'now that is to come' (the other 'then) and in the 'then' that is eternity!

In so many of the houses around me, as Christmas begins to appear on the horizon (or is it 'Argostide' I wonder) the homes will be cleared of clutter (with it hidden in that one 'do not enter' room) as we make them ready for those special guests.

We too, as Christians, need to clear the rooms in our spiritual house in readiness for the coming of the baby to be born in Bethlehem and, unlike our physical homes, there's no room we can clear it into - everything has to be dealt with - this is why Advent is a penitential (that's purple for some of us!) season for like Lent, it it a time of 'cleaning house' in preparation for the birth and the resurrection respectively.

So here's a nod to those who run their church Advent courses to make sure they're ready and good to go and a reminder for those who(should) attend them to put the dates in your diary as soon as possible.

After all, there's only 71 Days to Christmas ;-)