Don Friesen
It's time to get ready for Christmas, and the preparations have already begun. Yesterday we sent the Ten Thousand Villages crafts away for another year; we put up our Advent banner; we put a few decorations in the windows; and we replaced Leonard's stock of Christmas creches-for-sale with our own creche. Eleanor created our Advent wreath; Elsa brightened up our worship with poinsettias; in a few weeks we'll add a Christmas tree; and Roma and the Sunday School children began preparation for the Christmas pageant already weeks ago!
No doubt similar preparations are underway in our homes. We're buying gifts, and while some of us prefer to do our shopping on December 24th I spotted some of you doing your Christmas shopping already in October! Some of you may have put up your Christmas tree already. Dorothy put up some exterior lights this week, but she hasn't had time to put up the tree yet.
For most folks the holidays are a busy but enjoyable time. For most folks. I once had the idea that putting up and decorating the Christmas tree would be a great family tradition and so when our children were young I took them along to buy the tree, bring it home, and decorate it. I entertained a romantic, naive notion that this would be a special family time. Well, it was, but never quite like I had pictured it. The kids would get very excited, quickly hang most of our decorations on the lower branches and more than once knocked the tree down! I hope they retain pleasant memories of this ritual because I mostly remember it as a frenzied occasion, inevitably ending in decorative disaster!
Nonetheless, the Advent season is a decorative season, and while it may be a lot of extra work for some and not without its moments of frustration, it's a welcome sight, in the dead of winter, to see the community lit up in bright colours! The Scrooges among us may complain about the waste of hydro and about less than tasteful decorations, but it's a nice change, long after the colourful autumn leaves have left us, to see our houses, our streets, our shops, our trees full of festive, colourful decorations. Sometimes we even decorate ourselves with an unusually upbeat mood.
This is the time of year to mount the best of our exterior decorations, but Advent is also a time to think of our interior decor. At times exterior decorations may be just that, a facade masking a barren interior landscape. Advent invites us to spruce up our inner selves with the spirit of Christmas--a holy and renewed spirit.
In our Gospel reading Jesus points to a fig tree (Luke 21:29), pointing out that a tree's exterior changes reflect its interior life. "Look at the fig tree and all the trees," said Jesus. "As soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near." (21:29-30) Deep in its roots and heart, the rising sap brings forth sprouts and leaves, decorating the tree with the lush greenery of new life. Jeremiah also uses this language of exterior regeneration to symbolize interior changes when he describes the new branch which will "spring up" from David's line--changes that will result in "justice and righteousness in the land". (Jeremiah 33:15)
Just as God decorates a tree on the inside, so a redeemed interior life bears the fruit of God's Spirit--the fruit of "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." (Galatians 5:22-23) The Advent season invites us to consider sprucing up our inner selves with these things of beauty, things that are not merely temporary or seasonal, but that shine throughout the year.
Let me suggest two things of beauty to choose for your inner decor this Advent season. One is a sense of wonder
A second thing of interior beauty to choose for your inner decor is a sense of joy. In a cartoon specific to this season, a husband and wife are sitting in a living room gaily decorated for the Christmas season, but the woman has a deep frown on her face and looks exhausted. In the caption the husband is saying: "Of course you're depressed--‘tis the season to be jolly." There is much in the Christmas season to bring out the cynic within you, but that is not what we find at the heart of the Christmas story. This is not the time to pout and complain. New England Puritans were very devout Christians and it's unfortunate that their severity has eclipsed the positive aspects of the Puritan tradition. However, their determination not to show joy or even to be joyful seems to be the memorable part of their legacy. Puritans were once described as people who are going to have a bad time if there is a bad time to be had!
We sing "Joy to the World" at this time of year because God's incarnation is reason for joy. We sing "Come, thou long-expected Jesus..., joy of every longing heart" because God's presence among us is good news! We sing "Glad tidings of great joy I bring to you..." for the same reason. "This newborn child, of lowly birth, shall be the joy of all the earth," says one of our jubilant carols. We sing "O du fröhliche"--"Oh, how joyfully, oh, how hopefully, waits the earth on Christmas eve!"
We sing with joy because Jesus himself was joyful. In contrast to the Puritans--and the Pharisees--Jesus was perceived as someone who made merry. His meals were a little noisy at times. Being in his presence was a foretaste of the joy of heaven. It has been said that if we deleted all the parties from the Book of Luke, "it would be a paper-thin book." (Ernest T. Campbell) That may be an exaggeration, but joy is at the very heart of our faith. A sense of joy and wonder comes to us each time we hear again of God's love for this quarrelsome planet.
As we prepare to partake of the communion elements, I invite you to do so with a joyful and hopeful heart. Yes, Jesus' birth took place in lowly circumstances. His family was soon on the run from political masters up to no good. His ministry was opposed by some powerful people. And Jesus suffered and died, but his pain became our peace, our joy, and our salvation. Thanks be to God! Joy to the world!