For the Time Being: Thoughts on Advent I
I love Advent. Let me be clear, I love the Christmas season with its holiday cheer, gift wrapping, cookie baking, and tree trimming. I would adorn my home in 1960’s Christmas kitsch if everyone else in my household would just get on board. But Advent is not this. Advent entails far more than celebrating the American civil religion version of the birth of Christ, or even the secular Miracle on 34th Street feel good version. Advent starts five weeks before December 25th with a long and hard look at the darkness our world is shrouded in. Before the merriment begins, we spend time contemplating the depths of suffering, despair, and heart ache, crying “How long, O Lord?” just as those before Christ’s first Advent did.
Why all the doom and gloom first? As we look back at the first coming of Christ, we also look forward to the future coming. The world has been set right, the kingdom has indeed come, but we don’t experience the fullness of this reality yet. So we must first reckon with the darkness and sit in solidarity with those who also sit in darkness before we can cue up the holiday cheer. There is a time for celebrating. Christ has come and will come again! But our reality here and now is one of waiting for the fulfillment and consumation of all things. Advent gives us space to consider this.
Advent is honest. It doesn't skip past the suffering and darkness and force us to put on a happy face and ugly Christmas sweater. We behold the darkness and then look to the light. If you have ever faced a holiday season with grief, mourning, or loss, Advent is for you. Every wrong will be made right, but first, we reckon with the darkness together remembering that “Christ was born for this,” as the old carol reminds us. In the coming weeks, I will share some of my favorite Advent quotes and poems. Expect also some Flannery O’Connor (because she is always on my mind, but especially during this season).
W H Auden’s Advent masterwork, “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio” is a great place to start. One of my favorite quotes below:
“He is the Way.
Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;
You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.
He is the Truth.
Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;
You will come to a great city that has expected your return for years.
He is the Life.
Love Him in the World of the Flesh;
And at your marriage all its occasions shall dance for joy.”
― W.H. Auden
