DECEMBER 2010 by Rev. Douglas E. Smith
Now that the celebration of Thanksgiving is over our thoughts turn to Christmas. The stores have transformed into extensions of Santa’s workshop, children are excited about the presents they will receive, the airwaves are filled with the familiar sounds of the season, and parents are already beginning to stress out over all they need to accomplish. For most people, this powerful draw of Christmas causes them to utterly miss the important season of Advent. Unfortunately, the same is true for many people of faith. We are heavily influenced by our culture of instant gratification, and the church calls us toa time of anticipatory waiting. The modern expression of Christmas plays into our need for immediate gratification, while Advent hits us in the face with its call to slow down and consider a better future.
This is precisely where the faith community was prior to the sudden incarnation of God in the Christ of Christmas. Even the least educated person in the first century intuitively knew that there was something inherently and terribly wrong with the world. Even though most people could not read or write, they knew enough about their religious tradition that they could look around and know that the world was not the way that God intended it to be.
These people lived in a world that was made even harder by the heavy tax burden of an occupying army, which daily reminded them that God’s promise of the Davidic Kingdom had not been realized. They knew enough about their prophetic tradition to know that God did not intend the wide- spread economic injustices that were so much a part of their everyday lives.
It was from out of that prophetic tradition that they looked for a Deliverer that would tear down the high places and lift up the low places. It was from out of that prophetic tradition that caused Mary, the mother of Jesus, to sing out “the high have been brought down low.” Importantly, they are at the end of a long historical wait for the Deliverer, who comes in the form of a tiny baby.
One wonders if the incredible joy of Mary, Zechariah, Elizabeth and the shepherds is in some measure proportional to the time spent in expectant waiting for the evidence of the present activity of God. If their level of joy had something to do with the amount of time they had spent pondering God’s promised visitation, then it suggests that perhaps we should not look past the season of Advent. Perhaps spending some time reflecting on God’sintention for us would be a helpful spiritual exercise. As a departure point to engage in a more fruitful spiritual journey, I invite you to “Climb God’s Holy Mountain” through the Sundays of Advent. Shawn and I will be considering traditional scriptures from the great prophet Isaiah for Advent. During this period we will invite you to Climb God’s Mountain and take a look at what the world “full of the knowledge of God” would look like. You will also be invited to consider what it means to live on “the Mountain of the Lord.” This is because God invites us not to suspend disbelief, but rather to actively engage the possibility that God’s alternative reality is possible if we reach for it just as Mary reached for the promise that God was going to use her in an unbelievable way.
May you have a Blessed Christmas,
Rev. Douglas E. Smith