Some among us who call ourselves “Christian,” are stuck with a goofy, four-Sunday season called Advent. Well, it does give us the opportunity to light extra candles each week! This past Sunday was the Third in Advent: Gaudete, “Rejoicing” Sunday – and even the most Protestant of us have gone to lighting rose-colored (pink) candles.
Our congregations are chomping at the bit to sing Carols. Many of the clergy are trying to push hymns like, “On Jordan’s Banks the Baptist’s Cry” (No, the Baptists typically don’t observe Advent – perhaps that’s why they’re crying; but I doubt it.)
The theme of Advent is how God comes unto us. (Adveniat, “come unto” – like in the Lord’s Prayer “thy Kingdom come [unto us].”)
This is the opposite of religion. Religion is our attempt to re-connect with God. Meanwhile, God is trying to reconnect with us. That’s “faith”. That’s what Christmas, the Feast of the Incarnation, is all about: God’s desperate attempt to reach the creatures He loves so much; to save us from ourselves, and redeem the messes we make.
In a Christmas sermon, Augustine (354-430AD) said the meaning of the holiday was:
“Man’s [sic] maker was made man that he, Ruler of the Milky Way, might nurse at his mother’s breasts; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired in the journey; that Truth might be accused by false witnesses, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might weaken, that the Healer be wounded, that Life might die.”
Little things: A nursing baby, bread, water, words of comfort and hope, self-sacrifice, identification with our plight – God-in-meat (“incarnation”). In the words of the “Appalachian Carol”: “I wonder as I wander out under the sky, How Jesus, the Savior, did come for to die, For poor, orn’ry creatures like you and like I…”
Do have a wondrous and peaceful holiday. Our Savior has come to us; no small thing.
Pastor Doug Campbell is a retired Lutheran pastor and a member of Faith, Wilmington. He currently is supplying pulpits in the Southern Ohio Synod. He was formerly Deputy Wing Chaplain for the Civil Air Patrol in Ohio. Before seminary he worked for the Chillicothe (O) Gazette, and as the editor of the Chanute AFB newspaper in Rantoul, Illinois.
