Advent

Today marks the first sunday of Advent. For the first ten years or so of my Christian life I didn't even know what Advent was. It was only after i finished a church history class that i realized that the church has historically used the calendar to remember Christ's arrival, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and future second coming. Thus while the rest of the world marked time by agricultural seasons, national holidays, presidential terms, and professional sports seasons, followers of Jesus have marked time by reflecting on the life of their Lord. How we mark our time shapes what kind of people we become and what how we view our world.

Advent is a time of waiting. A time of recognizing that sometimes God's promises come after what feels like a long delay. It's also a time to recognize that sometimes God's coming into our world doesn't fit our expectations. We expect God to come a certain manner, usually in a manner imprinted with our own agendas and ideals. But as C. S. Lewis observed, God is the "Great Iconoclast," continually breaking out of the conventional boxes we place God into. Perhaps this is also why the desert fathers preferred to speak about what God was not like, the via negativa, since that way resists the temptation to shape God into what we prefer that God be.

The last few years of my life, I've taken comfort in the liturgical calendar. That's an odd shift for a recovering "contemporary church, innovative, entreprenural" sort that tends to sweep traditions away like yesterdays news, in favor of the newest and the next. Maybe it's because i can hide behind the liturgy. When i don't have the faith to believe (which is usually about half the time), the liturgy speaks words of faith that i myself long to have but lack in the moment. Maybe because it's because in the liturgy roots me to a tradition that goes back beyond my lifetime and concerns. It roots me to a history, a story, that goes back thousands of years. Maybe it's just because i'm reacting against the kind of evangelicalism that I lived in for so long.
I'm reading through this Advent devotional guide. It's not your typical gude with pithy sayings and inspirational thoughts that are the equivalent of spiritual junk food. Instead it's filled with authors who have stood the test of time, people like Bernard of Clairvaux, C. S. Lewis, Kathleen Norris, Henri Nouwen, and so forth. So far so good as i prepare my own heart for the celebration of Christmas.