Snow Day Sabbath

Here in Dallas, we've been iced-in since Thursday. Say what you will about how silly it is that Texans shut down at the first sign of freezing temps and heavy-looking clouds and how if we were up North we would have to drive to work up-hill both ways in bare feet through a blizzard without complaining, but here in Texas, shutting down during a winter storm is a safety necessity.

Now, everyone loves a snow day, but my favorite thing about it isn't just the chance to wear pajamas all day while snuggling with my cats.

But seriously, don't you want to snuggle up with this fuzzy, adorable creature?

As great as the sleeping-in and cocoa-drinking is, my favorite thing about a snow day is that it somehow imposes Sabbath on me in a way that an ordinary weekend or ordinary free time just doesn't do. Snow days aren't only a much-needed break; they're permission to rest. They're the answer to that wish I've whispered in frustration when I've been overwhelmed by deadlines and responsibilities -- I wish the world could just stop for a day. And on a snow day in Texas, that's exactly what happens. 

Now this particular ice storm (what the locals are affectionately referring to as "Icepocalypse 2013") hasn't been all 'walking in a winter wonderland' and 'chestnuts roasting on an open fire.' Many have lost power and those who have had to brave the icy roads have faced deadly conditions. But for those of us lucky enough to stay warm at home, this weekend spent inside has provided an opportunity for real rest -- for reading a book just for fun, for catching up on that netflix queue, for cooking and eating meals around the family table without the distractions of a loud and crowded restaurant, and for being still and quiet in the midst of a holiday season that is all too busy. In our society, the Christmas season is inaugurated by manic Black Friday sales that begin ever earlier; this year many stores were open on Thanksgiving Day. Instead of Advent being a period of restful waiting, it is more often a season of stressful bustling. But on a Texas snow day some of us are literally stuck at home, leaving nothing to do but rest. 

So laugh at us if you need to, Northerners; I'm thankful for an enforced Sabbath in my life this Advent season.

A Christmas Carol of Mourning

As news of the tragic shooting in Connecticut spread on Friday, my facebook feed started overflowing with expressions of grief and also, in light of the Advent season, expressions of longing for Christ's return. The horrific events highlighting humanity's deep need for Christ were very much on my mind this Sunday as we sang the Chris Rice lyrics, "Tears are falling, hearts are breaking/ how we need to hear from God," and as we reflected on the miracle of the Incarnation in the words of "Hark the Herald Angels:" "Veiled in flesh the God head see; Hail the incarnate Deity; Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel."

Then, a friend of mine posted this:



The song is "Coventry Carol", a traditional Christmas carol from the 16th century that probably doesn't get very heavy rotation in most churches' Christmas music repertoire. Why? Because this is a Christmas Carol of mourning, in which a mother laments the loss of her child as well as the deaths of the many children killed in Herod's Massacre of the Innocents. (Read about it on Wikipedia, here). As the story goes (found in Matthew chapter 2), Herod calls on the three magi to find out where the Christ child is, ostensibly so that he may join in worshiping the infant King. But when the magi are on their way back to report to Herod, an angel warns them that Herod's true intent is to kill the baby. The wise men, of course, do not return to Herod, and, in a rage, Herod attempts to solve the problem of a prophesied King by having all children under the age of two murdered. Here are some of the carol's lyrics:

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

This song is a moving and appropriate response to the tragedies of this weekend, but before seeing my friend's post, I had only a vague inkling that this carol even existed and no idea about its subject matter. As a worship leader, I've found myself wishing for more hymns of longing this Advent, because as much as Advent is a time of hope, it is also a time of deep yearning.  We need songs of mourning and longing, as they provide an avenue for our grief:

That woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

 and context for our hope:

A thrill of hope -- the weary world rejoices!
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!
Fall on your knees; O hear the angel voices!
O night divine; O night when Christ was born.

O Come, O Come: The Meaning of Advent

Image Source

The four Sundays preceding Christmas are what is known on the Christian calendar as Advent. There is still a lot I do not know about Advent. I know that the term derives from the Latin, adventus, which means, coming. It's the time of year that we focus ourselves on various aspects of Christ's comings, both his First Coming, which we celebrate at Christmas, and his Second Coming, which we anticipate and hope for with deep yearning.

(Notice we do this at Easter too. Easter Sunday we celebrate Christ's resurrection, his coming back from the dead, his coming back. And in remembering, we also anticipate. This is the direction in which we point our hope and set our faces. It is the major telos (direction) of the way of a Christian's life: Advent.)

Since I'm still learning myself about the specifics, I wanted to point to a few articles that discuss Advent in more detail. Below I will include excerpts, but I encourage you to read them in entirety (they're not long).

So here are some helpful articles. (I'd be remiss not to point you to the sidebar for a very helpful, though less brief, article right here at TTC posted during this time last year. For whatever reason the images are no longer functioning, so please excuse our technical difficulties.)

1) Advent 2012: A Season of Waiting for the Coming of Christ

I confess I was surprised to find this piece from The Huffington Post. I start with it for the excerpt I include below; however, the piece also includes a spectacular slideshow of Advent's Darkness to Light Procession, a visual discourse on the question, What is Advent? So be sure to check it out.

For now, "just the facts":

In 2012, the Advent season begins on Dec. 2, 2012 and ends on Dec. 24, 2012. The Eastern Churches' equivalent of Advent, Nativity Fast, is 40 days long and began on Nov. 15, 2012. 

The themes of the Advent season are Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. Lighting of candles, especially the circular Advent wreath with five candles is an important tradition of the Advent season. Each Sunday of Advent, one of four candles is lit -- with the final candle, the Christ Candle, being lit on Christmas Eve.

2) Advent – Holy Dissatisfaction and Hopeful Anticipation

Blogger Joel Willitts constructs a helpful metaphor for Advent by recalling the intense dissatisfaction and anticipation that accompanied the waiting period of his 8-month engagement. Willitts's reflections are extremely apt for helping us understand Advent (both the Advent of Christmas and the everyday advent of a believer's hope) as this is essentially the metaphor Scripture uses. Dissatisfaction and anticipation. When we discuss Advent, particularly as Advent is "in vogue" (for all the right reasons) among otherwise non-liturgical Evangelicals, we tend to only regard Advent as a time of anticipation. But as Willitts notes, it is more than that:

Advent’s two heart postures, holy dissatisfaction and hopeful anticipation, also have two corresponding practices repentance and meditation. 

Advent’s Holy Discontent – Repentance of

• Apathy
• Indifference
• Distance
• Sin 

Advent’s Hopeful Anticipation – Meditation on

• Jesus’ Second Coming
• Jesus’ birth
• Jesus in our lives 

3) The Essence of Advent

This piece provides a super-brief historical survey of Advent and then goes on to discuss Advent's significance and place in our (daily) Christian lives. The following resonated with me in particular:

Advent is intended to be a season of fasting and reflection, as well as anticipation. Reflecting on the violence and evil in the world leads us to cry out to God to make things right—to put death’s dark shadows to flight. Our exile in the present makes us look forward to our future Exodus. And our sinfulness and need for grace lead us to pray for the Holy Spirit to renew his work in conforming us into the image of Christ.

Amen.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ADVENT

I know, I know. It's way to early for a Christmas blog entry. BUT this is an entry about the Advent season, which begins less than two weeks from now (Nov 27), making it both a timely and a relevant topic. So there. Loophole. And there's nothing you can do about it.

For those of you who might not know, Advent is a season of reflection that many Christians set aside in order to meditate upon and celebrate the birth (or advent) of Jesus Christ. There are, of course, a great variety of Advent traditions, but most churches that celebrate Advent center the season's events around a special wreath (pictured right) with five candles, each with a special significance. The white candle always represents Christ, while the other four vary. Some churches use the other four to emphasize some of the important themes of the season (e.g. Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love), while others use the four candles to progress through the Christmas story itself (e.g. Prophecy, Bethlehem, Angels, Shepherds).

Now, most people would see the importance of celebrating Christmas for Christians (notice how "Christ" is part of both words ...), but why set aside five weeks to do so? In reality, Advent is only a small part of the larger Christian calendar. Depending on your branch of Christianity, this calendar gets full pretty fast! So why all feasts, events, remembrances, etc?

The early church understood something very important: how we order our time, plays a large part in orienting our identity. I don't know if "we are what we eat," but I can guarantee that, to a large extent, "we are what we do." The earliest Christians wanted to make sure that throughout the year various holidays and celebrations would keep them focused on who they were: the people of God awaiting their risen Lord. To this day, almost all Christian branches continue to employ some sort of church calendar for this very purpose, even if it's nothing more than a special worship service to mark Easter and Christmas.

Extended seasons of Christian reflection are important because there are so many competing systems trying to order the Christian's time, and thus his or her life and our world. Some systems of timekeeping are imposed upon us. Think about school, for example. As a child my entire year and life revolved around whether or not I was in class. Rather than the four seasons of Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall, my life was "Cold School," "Last Part of School," "No School!!!," and finally "Schoool! Noooooo!" I came to see myself primarily as a student, and the school seasons came to dictate my mood, feelings, actions, and even self-perception for any given part of the year.

While you and your pagan friends were trudging around on January 2, 1987 like it was just another day, my fellow devout students and I were celebrating the Holy Feast of SNOW DAY!!!

Other seasons we choose to organize our time around, such as sports seasons for guys. I love football (college and pro), and its shows. I get a little more spring in my step come August (It's almost Football Christmas!), and I come down from my emotional high fairly soon after the Super Bowl. It's a long, cold, bitter sports winter between February and August for me. It's so bad, I tried out the XFL one time when it was still on. "Football Season" is a very real season of life each year for me, one full of celebrations, meaningful rituals (BBQ!), and unfortunately often mourning, given some of the teams I cheer for.

Pictured: "The time of year the Cleveland Browns are effectively eliminated from playoff relevancy." Also known as early September.

One of the best ways to reinforce a Christian identity is to order the calendar year around Christian events, rituals, and remembrances. Some churches will remember and celebrate Jesus' advent on one Sunday they choose in December (though Christmas does actually fall on a Sunday this year). Our church will remember it for five weeks. Thus, while no Christian ever actually forgets Christmas, for our community, the events and significance of Christ's birth will be at the forefront of our minds for an extended period of time, shaping how we see ourselves, our lives, and our world.

Some branches of the Church will immediately transition into the season of Epiphany. Our congregation will rejoin them on the calendar at Lent/Easter. From there some churches will include other important seasons like Kingdomtime as they await the arrival of Advent once again. Though all of these seasons of church life congregations will be remembering and rehearsing what God has done, what He is doing, and what He will do -- and who they are as a result of all this.

Do you have to celebrate Advent to be a good Christian? I'm definitely not saying that. What I am saying is that seasons of the church calendar, such as Advent, are incredibly powerful tools for ordering time -- and thus a sense of identity and purpose -- year round. Why not take advantage of them, especially with so many other systems for ordering time competing for your attention, some imposed and some by your own choice?

Keeping Christ at the forefront of our lives can start with our calendars!