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Prepare the way, O Zion,
your Christ is drawing near!
Almighty God, give us the grace to
cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in
the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ come to
visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come
again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead we
may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with
you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen (Collect for First Sunday in Advent)
Our family likes to joke about how each year
Christmas decorations seem to go up earlier and earlier. Now it seems
that as soon as the pumpkins come out of the fields the red bows and
fake greens go up in the stores. Pre-thanksgiving reference to “you
know what” has been hard to avoid even in our own parish where sales of
Christmas trees and poinsettias in October and November have raised
money for our Hurricane Rita evacuees and our Belize mission project.
But now that it is Advent, it is completely appropriate to reference
Christmas as part, but by no means all of what we are contemplating
this new season.
Part of the reason I don’t want to jump ahead to
Christmas is that I don’t want to miss the gifts of Advent. I want the
great expectations of Advent, the coming of Christ in his glory, to out
shine the anxiety of shopping frenzy. I want these shorter days and
longer nights spent lingering around the dinner table and the advent
wreath, not wandering the mall for a perfect gift that doesn’t exist.
No, I take that back, the perfect gift does
exist. Jesus Christ was, is and shall be that gift. We have
been offered the perfect gift of new and transformed life in baptism
and we live it out in Christian community. Advent is all about
preparing ourselves to receive that gift again, in ways that, well, we
may not even be able to fully anticipate. At the beginning of the new
year in the Church calendar, some self examination is appropriate. As
we do in Lent, we may want to consider some self disciplines that will
help us turn down the distracting noise of the world, turn down the
bright but blinding lights of consumerism. If we give ourselves some
quiet time in the candle light of our December evenings, we may see
more clearly and hear more deeply God’s word of challenge as well as
comfort.
If we only see these seasonal preparations as
burdens and chores, then we miss the blessings of expectation and
anticipation. If we only focus on buying presents for others, then we
miss the quiet presence of God among us right now. If we don’t make
room for Jesus in our daily preparations, then we may find a certain
emptiness under the tree on Christmas Day and, worse, a certain vacancy
in our lives.
Happy New Church Year. And may God stir up his
power and come mightily among us.
Yours in quiet expectation,
Anne Hodges-Copple
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