Channeling the Anticipation of Advent

It’s Advent, otherwise known as the season when retailers you didn’t even know existed are bombing your email inbox with coupons for crap you didn’t even know existed. Buy a dog bed online, and Hammacher Schlemmer will send you an offer on a John Deere Cuckoo clock, complete with a different tractor sound on every hour! Or a remote-controlled dirigible.

Photo Credit: Ken

They can also throw in some Advent-themed crap. Like this Barbie Advent calendar.

I used to love going to the mall during Advent.

For one, the decorations were out for only 30 days. (Today, when they up the Christmas décor, you know Labor Day can’t be far off.) Second, my father’s optometry practice was in the mall. My siblings and I would visit him and look for gift ideas. On Christmas Eve, Dad would close up at noon, so we could help him shop for Mom.

Later, when my brothers were off at college, we’d save the trip to the mall for the day they got home. The trip to the mall was fun; and it was more about being together.

This year, my husband and I visited the mall on Black Friday afternoon.

The vibe was one of voracious acquisition.

The clerk at JC Penny told us they didn’t close on Thanksgiving Day. She worked until 3AM, went home and slept for a couple hours, and then came back. This is Advent according to the Gospel of Greed. And it’s not the real one.

The real Advent begins the Church year, four Sundays before Christmas Day. It is a season of anticipation – not for gifts but for the Big Gift: God with us.

We live in A.D. — Anno Domine, the Year of the Lord. God is available to anyone who asks. Prior to the birth of Christ, people didn’t experience God’s presence first-hand. The high priests who had access to the inner sanctum might feel it. A prophet might be taken up into a fever dream and “prophesy.”

But that was it.

Imagine a life without electricity. Your house goes dark at dusk, and you sleep next to your fireplace to keep warm. Down the street, there’s one house with the lights and heat on 24/7. On special days you get to visit the electric house. You can read all night with the lights on or feel warm in any corner of the house.

Then one day you get a letter that they’re going to wire your home for electricity and central heating. The day is four weeks away. Imagine how you’d wait in breathless anticipation of that day.

That’s what Advent is about:

Waiting for the day God shows up for all of us.

Many liturgical churches publish an Advent devotional. Get your hands on one. Give yourself time to meditate on what is really worth waiting for. That way, you can visit the mall and enjoy it for what it is.

Heck, go buy four scented candles at Bath & Bodyworks and use them in your Advent wreath. Have some fun with Advent. Just please, do not buy the Barbie Advent calendar or a John Deere tractor clock.

Channeling the Anticipation of Advent is a post from: Storyline Blog