December 4: Advent Calendar
War on Advent
Welcome to the Cottage Advent Calendar
Every day from December 1 - 24, you’ll receive an email (to “open” like a window on an old-fashioned Advent calendar). Each post will be something - a little spiritual “treat” of words - on a seasonal theme from my writing.
It is a genuine pleasure to share this collection of reflections with you. I pray each post will surprise you and shine light on your path.
Please share these daily posts with your friends.
TODAY’S reflection was originally published by the Huffington Post in 2012 when I took on FOX News’ “War on Christmas.”
Window 4
Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas! Joyful Whatever!
With FOX News seeking to expose those who refuse to say "Merry Christmas" as secular collaborators to the War on Christmas, I confess that I am confused. . .
The mood is somber as December moves toward deeper darkness, and the night lengthens. The world waits, and it is time to prepare for the arrival of God's kingdom. It is not Christmas. It is Advent.
During these weeks, churches are not merry. There is a muted sense of hope and expectation. Christians recollect God's ancient promise to Israel for a kingdom where lion and lamb will lie down together. The ministers preach from stark biblical texts about the poor and oppressed being lifted up while the rich and powerful are cast down, about society being leveled and oppression ceasing. Christians remember the Hebrew prophets and long for a Jewish Messiah to be born. The Sunday readings extol social and economic justice, and sermons are preached about the cruelty of ancient Rome and political repression. Hymns anticipate world peace and universal harmony. Churchgoers listen to the testimony of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who speaks of God:
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
Does FOX News want us all to say "Merry Christmas" so we forget about Advent? These, after all, are the four weeks that the Christian tradition dedicates to God's vision of justice for the outcast and oppressed, not to celebrating the sound of ringing cash registers or Victorian America values. . . Perhaps FOX thinks it might be best if Christians did not spend too much time contemplating a Savior who promised to overthrow the powers-that-be in favor of a kingdom where the poor are blessed and the last shall be first. That's probably bad for business and does not exactly fit with their favored political philosophy.
And maybe, just maybe, the real war of this season is the War on Advent.
From the Huffington Post, 12/11/2012.
God enters into His creation.
Through (Mary’s) wise answer, through her obedient
understanding, through the sweet yielding consent of Sophia, God enters
without publicity into the city of rapacious men.
She crowns Him not with what is glorious, but with
what is greater than glory: the one thing greater than
glory is weakness, nothingness, poverty.
She sends the infinitely Rich and Powerful One forth
as poor and helpless, in His mission of inexpressible
mercy, to die for us on the Cross.
The shadows fall. The stars appear. The birds begin to sleep.
Night embraces the silent half of the earth. A vagrant, a destitute
wanderer with dusty feet, finds his way down a new road. A
homeless God, lost in the night, without papers, without
identifications, without even a number, a frail expendable exile
lies down in desolation under the sweet stars of the world and
entrusts Himself to sleep.
— Thomas Merton
There is a reason Mary is everywhere. I've seen her image all over the world, in cafés in Istanbul, on students' backpacks in Scotland, in a market stall in Jakarta, but I don't think her image is everywhere because she is a reminder to be obedient, and I don't think it has to do with social revolution. Images of Mary remind us of God's favor. Mary is what it looks like to believe that we already are who God says we are.
― Nadia Bolz-Weber
WOW, that surely is a powerful commentary that carries perhaps even more relevance today! The cloud of forgetting how to honor underlying actual sacred meaning is still trying to obscure the truth. Yet to those who are willing to shake off the bonds of oppression, Mary’s words resonate with the deepest knowing we hold with reverence.
Wow, I appreciate the focus you have made regarding the Biblical readings for this time. It reflects back to what we might be waiting for other than a Santa Clause Christmas.