Advent Day 1

Reading Deuteronomy 4:25-31

Advent is tricky for American Protestants like me.  Older Christian denominations like Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, and Lutheran understand liturgical seasons more intuitively.  I know folk who can name the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel reading for next Sunday simply because it's the way they mark time.  Not me.  I pay attention because I went to work for a church that observes the liturgical calendar but like the Baptist church I grew up in, these are additions we've added in the last fifty years. 

For as long as I can remember, my home Church held a mid-night (11:00 pm) service on Christmas Eve.  I don't know how old that tradition is.  I do remember being in elementary school when we added lighting the Advent Candles to our Christmas preparation.  It was new, it went by quickly, and we sang a strange song that I had not heard before and wasn't sure I liked ("O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.").  Shortly thereafter came Advent devotional books.  I was asked to write a devotional when I was in High School.  I remember being embarrassed that I couldn't come up with something more profound to say.  I went to work in a Disciples of Christ church where the ministers put on robes and stoles.  I assumed everyone knew what it all meant and I went through a crash course study to the symbols.  Soon after that, I discovered the people I serve don't move through these seasons intuitively.

I think we like the idea of advent because we think it will help us keep Christ at the center of the season.  But we also struggle with it.  None of us, frankly, are purist enough to refrain from singing true Christmas carols until after Christmas, or abstaining from gluttony the way we might during Lent.  Frankly it's hard to sustain our attention that long. 

In Moses's final sermon to the people of Israel--the book of Deuteronomy--he puts his finger on the difficulty, "When you have had children and children's children, and become complacent . . . ."  The prophecy moves forward from there to predict sin, destruction, repentance and restoration.  The problem begin, according to this text, with complacency.  Through this advent season may God preserve us from complacency.