“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.” Those are words of Henry David Thoreau from Walden, his meditation on art, and nature, and being awake and alive to this one life we’re given.
Again: “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake…by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”
Welcome to Advent. Advent begins the church year, and leads us to the first big liturgical feast, which is Christmas. It’s a gift of a season, sometimes lost in the frenzy that December has become. Someone at Bible study this week said there’s a priest in New Jersey who started celebrating Advent in mid-November, so that his congregation could appreciate it without all the distraction December brings. Historically that’s actually how it was celebrated, as a six week fast leading up to Christmas, not unlike how we prepare for Lent.
As we observe it now, though, Advent begins today. When you come here, today and for the next few weeks, you will not hear Christmas music. We will not say Merry Christmas before sundown December 24. There are no Christmas reds and greens, except for the greenery which will soon deck the church. Our nursery school director and I tussle every year over how elaborate the Parish Hall decorations are allowed to get. If I had my way, it’d be sparse and Advent-y, but you’ll soon see I don’t get my way. :)
Every year, I stand up here and rue the neglect of Advent in our culture, but it does offer us themes that we need as we end one year and begin another.
There’s a penitential note to Advent that you notice in the first weeks especially; it’s there in our readings for today, in the Psalmist’s call to “Restore us, O God of hosts, and we shall be saved.” In Southern Europe the traditional color for this season was purple, which is the color of penitence and making amends. It’s what we use also for Lent, when we prepare our hearts for Easter with prayer and self-examination.
I like this theme. It comes to us at a time of year when we naturally turn inward. The encroaching darkness outside, the paring down of nature and what it has to offer, calls us to a quieter, more introspective life. This is a good time to think about who we are, what we’re becoming, what we really need (and don’t), losses we’ve endured and gotten through, things we can do better. Advent can be a mini-Lent, and has sometimes been called that.
Right before Thanksgiving, I got to spend a couple days in the desert of New Mexico at a Benedictine monastery. Benedictines are a contemplative order of monks that have been around since the 5th century. There are Benedictines in the Roman Catholic and our Anglican tradition. I went with a neighbor who invited me, and there in the stillness of the desert, only there did I realize how little silence I’ve had in my life. It was a gift, this pause, reminding me not to just plow into Advent, but to enter it mindfully.
So Advent is penitential and reflective, quite in contrast to everything around us this time of year. We shouldn’t overlook it.
That said, though, in looking around here, you’ll notice our church isn’t decked in purple, but in blue. In northern Europe and especially England the color for Advent was blue, and the theme was less one of penitence, and more of expectation and hope. Advent blue, sometimes called Sarum blue for Salisbury Cathedral where it originated, has been described as the “color of the night sky just before the dawn.” Henry David Thoreau again: “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake … by an infinite expectation of the dawn.”
Christians are people of hope. It’s one of our three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.
When war in the Holy Land broke out, I shared with you via Youtube a letter from Bishop Dietsche about how, over there, the role that Christians play--and I don’t mean all the Christian tourists, but those who quietly continue to worship as they’ve done in that land for 2000 years (and there are all too few of them now, but they’re still there)--the role they play in that complicated land is that of peacemakers, bridge builders, and persistent bearers of hope. Our Christian presence there matters.
And it matters wherever we are. Because the world needs hope just about everywhere you go. Despair is not an option for us. We have a duty, to hope.
It’s no accident this theme begins our liturgical year. Or that the season of Advent culminates in the birth of a child, where even the most tired and cynical are moved to believe. We have a duty to hope. To anticipate the dawn. To pray for it. And so I wish you all a very blessed Advent.
Amen.