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Advent

A Little Less Pentecost . . A Little More Advent

Creating Some Extraordinary Time
During Ordinary Time

A few years ago, when Redeemer still had a building and a pastor to call our own, I commented at a worship meeting that Pentecost was way too long and Advent was way too short.

Advent, especially among Lutherans, is the sacred cow. Christmas and Easter customs will change with the times more easily than Advent. This is when we pull out all the do’s and don’ts of Christianity.

Knowing that—and being accustomed to being ignored by clergy, the guardians of all things liturgical—I expected absolutely nothing to result from my comment.

I was surprised when our pastor enthusiastically agreed.

Energized, the worship committee added a couple of weeks to Advent. Pentecost didn’t even notice.

This gave us more time to teach the important things that belong only to Advent and get lost in the hustle and bustle of Christmas.

For the first time, we could actually learn some of the beautiful but eerily unique tunes that go with the pre-Christmas season and are never sung during any other season. They get short-changed in modern society when many Christians will only be attending worship once or twice during the four weeks of Advent. They tend to be known only by people who sing in choirs. Now the whole church could be the Advent Choir.

We were also able to add some of the cross-over Christmas hymns (heaven forbid) before Christmas, when all the world (except Christians) are singing our songs.

It gave us an opportunity to delve into the rich and poetic texts of the prophets as opposed to concentrating on the Gospel.

We got to visit with all the personalities of the Advent story, giving more attention to Elizabeth and Zacharias, Joseph, Isaiah, Hosea and all the prophets—some of whom are silent in certain lectionary years. John the Baptist and Mary might feel a little jealous, but they’ll get over it.

This custom, somewhat unique to Redeemer, led us to begin offering our Adult Object Lessons for Advent last week, nearly a month in advance. Two were offered last week. Look for two more this week.

There’s plenty to talk about. Now we have more time!

It doesn’t hurt to be prepared for the season of preparation!

The Advent of Lent

Temptation_of_ChristWe celebrated Epiphany last week. The season of revelation of Christ as Messiah is short this year.

Just four weeks from now we will embark upon the season of Lent.

In our analytics of our website, we noticed that beginning on Christmas Day, our readers were searching for resources for Easter. So we are going to try to provide some resources to help with Easter’s prelude—that mixed-up season of Lent.

Lent is confusing. It is the season of repentance. Didn’t we just go through this a few weeks ago in Advent?

It is also a season of mixed messages. Centuries of tradition have become muddled with modern sensibilities.

Ash Wednesday has always been a puzzle. We routinely read the passage from Matthew which tells us repeatedly to NOT make a show of our repentance and NOT distort our appearance. Then we defy the gospel we have just read and make a show of our repentance and distort our appearance.

Then some well-intentioned theologian came up with the concept of “burying or sealing the Alleluias”—banning the utterance of the traditional word of praise during the season of Lent. This flies in the face of the fact that Lent is structured to observe 40 days of repentance (modeled from Christ’s 40 days in the wilderness) and those 40 days EXCLUDE Sundays. There are NO Sundays in Lent. Every Sunday is reserved for a celebration of Easter. Alleluia!

We never sealed the Alleluias at Redeemer. The custom was unknown to us until we shared a pastor with a neighboring congregation. Their pastor surprised us when he announced during the service that the Alleluias were now sealed.

Our worship service for the next Sunday had already been planned and it was to feature an adaptation of Leonard Cohen’s mournful song Hallelujah—which repeats the Hebrew version of Alleluia countless times in a way entirely appropriate for Lent. (Rules tend to hamper creativity!)

Except for the fact that this was preplanned it would have given the impression that we were defying our pastor, which was in no way our intent. We tabled our plans for a year.

The pastor apologized for making the assumption that this was our custom. No conflict resulted.

But every year since, we have used this song, which retells the story of Christ’s temptation. Here’s a link.

Spend Advent Reaching Your Community

Advent is a big season for Lutherans and several other denominations that follow the liturgical year.

Frankly, for a lot of Christians it can be a big letdown. For years, Advent has been playing second or third fiddle to the big “C” (Christmas).

Advent is important to us. Why isn’t it important to everyone? What’s with the celebration of Christmas for five weeks and the meltdown on December 26? Every church goer knows December 25 is the first of 12 days of Christmas! Why are the Christmas trees out in the trash on Day 2!

What can we do about this?

  1. We can wait every Sunday in Advent for the throngs to walk through our doors. We can be ready to welcome them and share our traditions. What are they again? Why do we light those four candles? Who is this Isaiah guy? And John the Baptist? Really!
  2. We can go to the world.
    Our Advent Tweet A Day is an attempt to share what is important to us with people beyond our membership. We’ll see together how that goes. But one thing we can guess. No one will follow us if all we do is talk about ourselves.

Meanwhile, here’s another idea. Instead of waiting for people to come to our congregations, what if we gathered our members and went to them. Try this! Get a group together and attend the local high school, middle school and elementary “winter” festivals. Maybe you have kids attending these schools. Maybe you don’t. That doesn’t matter.

The young people and their teachers worked hard on their music. These days many school groups are performing pretty professionally. Your group is likely to be noticed. You will have a chance to talk to others in the community.

Remember! It’s not about you. Just go and enjoy yourselves. Then write a blog article or two about it and start tweeting about your experience.

Make a habit of such community involvement. Check their web sites and subscribe if you can so that you know what’s happening.

You will start to notice more things about your community . . . and they might start to notice you, too.

Our community school concerts are next week. We can’t wait!

Adult Object Lesson: Signs of Christmas

Jeremiah 33:14-16  •  Psalm 25:1-10  •
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13  •  Luke 21:25-36

Poinsettias are already for sale. What a perfect object lesson to go with the parable of the fig tree!

You know summer is coming when the fig tree sprouts. You know the celebration of Jesus’ birth is coming when you see poinsettias for sale in the grocery store. Talk about the other signs of Christmas—TV and radio ads using Christmas music to grab your attention, charity solicitations in the mail, and your neighbors Christmas lights brightening your lawn in the evening.

Talk about the prophecies in Jeremiah and the sentiments of the psalmist—how the signs bring both hope and anxiety.

photo credit: RedTail_Panther via photopin cc

Teaching Advent Through Poetry

Two Advent Poems Written by Best Friends

1600 years ago two fellows from different walks of life met in Milan, Italy.

Ambrosius had the odd distinction of being elected bishop before he was baptized. He was awarded the position on the basis of character. He was likable! He was not ordained. He had not studied theology. He underwent an early “on the job” training program! Fortunately, he excelled!

Augustine found his way into the Church through a back door, coming from a life of debauchery. His mother, Monica, was devoted to her wayward son. Her prayers were answered but not before he had fathered a child out of wedlock. He was attracted to the church by Ambrose’s sermons.

Both became great teachers and writers in the Church. Both tried their hand at poetry.

One of the problems with Advent is that the hymn traditions of Advent rely on understanding both poetry and scripture. Rare today.

Poetry doesn’t fit our modern attention spans. Modern hymns rarely have more than one verse. Hymn writers have run out of things to say! Our mind’s eye, bombarded with visual images, is losing its imaginative vision.

Nevertheless, there is a teaching opportunity in the wealth of poetry that has been set to music. Advent is so short that we flit from one great poem/hymn to another. Unless we sing in the choir, we never really learn them. They remain foreign to our ears.

Add to that, they tend to be melodically different, clearly belonging to other centuries. It is easy to put them aside to try to understand them next year.

Advent hymns cover a breadth of scripture — not just a Bible story or two. They span the Old Testament right through to Revelation. So while the purpose of Advent is to slow down and meditate, we end up rushing through it.

In an attempt to introduce the theologically deep hymnody of Advent, concentrate on the poetry of these two old friends — known today as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine.

Ambrose wrote “Come, thou Redeemer of the Earth.”

Augustine wrote “Christmas.”

Ambrose’s poem can be studied verse by verse.

Augustine’s poem breaks nicely into couplets (each of which would make nice “Tweets” to your congregation).

Augustine’s poem evokes imagery which is likely to appeal to the modern reader of poetry. It relies on an understanding of theology and is therefore a good chance to explain the Bible’s many and diverse Advent scriptures.

Start with the simpler poem!

You might repeat this poem together responsively before each Advent service, so that it becomes familiar.

Christmas

Maker of the sun,
He is made under the sun.
In the Father he remains,
From his mother he goes forth.
Creator of heaven and earth,
He was born on earth under heaven.
Unspeakably wise,
He is wisely speechless.
Filling the world,
He lies in a manger.
Ruler of the stars, 
He nurses at his mother’s bosom.
He is both great in the nature of God,
And small in the form of a servant.

Come, Thou Redeemer of the earth

Come, Thou Redeemer of the earth,
And manifest Thy virgin birth:
Let every age adoring fall;
Such birth befits the God of all.

Advent means come. But no one expected the Messiah to come this way!

Begotten of no human will,
But of the Spirit, Thou art still
The Word of God in flesh arrayed,
The promised One to man displayed.

Here we have the imagery of John—The Word became flesh.

The virgin womb that burden gained
With virgin honor all unstained;
The banners there of virtue glow;
God in His temple dwells below.

Forth from His chamber goeth He,
That royal home of purity,
A giant in twofold substance one,
Rejoicing now His course to run.

The verse about the Virgin is often cut from Protestant hymnals but without it we don’t really know from what “chamber” Christ is going. It takes two verses to grapple with the idea that Jesus is both God and Man — the twofold substance.

From God the Father He proceeds,
To God the Father back He speeds;
His course He runs to death and hell,
Returning on God’s throne to dwell.

O equal to the Father, Thou!
Gird on Thy fleshly mantle now;
The weakness of our mortal state
With deathless might invigorate.

And then God/Man goes to work to redeem the world.

Thy cradle here shall glitter bright,
And darkness breathe a newer light,
Where endless faith shall shine serene,
And twilight never intervene.

Light and candles are symbols of Advent. Christ brought new light into the world.

All laud to God the Father be,
All praise, eternal Son, to Thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the Holy Paraclete.

Many hymns end with the invocation of the Trinity. This is no different. Paraclete means advocate. The Holy Paraclete is the Holy Spirit. 

The tune used for this hymn is also an Easter hymn—That Easter Day with joy was bright. It remains an easy tune to the modern ear.

There is a lot of power in these two poems. Take the time with your congregation to dig into their meaning. In other words, use them more than once!

 

Here Comes Advent — Again!

The First in a Series of Posts
about the Least Understood
Season of the Church Year  

The Problem(s) with AdventCome December, we will once again anticipate the joyous birth of our Savior by rolling out the traditions so well-known to Christians.

We’ll get our Advent devotionals and four-session Bible studies in place, we’ll buy the kiddies paper calendars, and our choirs will start practicing Christmas anthems. For worship, we’ll roll out the pre-Civil War classic Advent hymns.

We have to know we are paddling upstream. Just as the rest of the world is anticipating Christmas with happy songs, we feel the need to look ahead to the passion‚ as if we won’t be celebrating this in its own right in just a few weeks.

Those of us raised in the traditions of the Church will protest the critics of these traditions.

The chronic complainers aren’t particularly loud or noticeable. But they are many.

Mostly, they just stay home until Christmas Eve. Now that they understand!

As for us Christians, we’ll stick to our traditions, thank you very much.

Truth be told, the traditions of Advent are beautiful and deeply meaningful to the few of us who understand them. The problem we have is in communicating them to the vast majority of the world that doesn’t understand them or feel a need to bother.

The church is left with three choices.

  1. Keep on keeping on. Proudly defend the heritage of Advent and hope someone is listening while the rest of us are still standing.
  2. Abandon the past and cater to the modern mindset.
  3. Find a way to communicate what is so important to us.

Choices one and two require less work and are the most popular — with predictable results.

Choice three might actually make a difference. But how?

We’ll explore possibilities during this pre-Advent season.

If you have ideas . . . please share them.

photo credit: samu.zamu via photopin cc

Rethinking Advent

It’s not quite November, not too early to think about Advent. About this time a few years ago, a worship committee met with a new pastor to plan the holiday season. A lay member commented without much enthusiasm, “I wish there was a little less Pentecost and we could move Advent up and enjoy Christmas a little longer.”

Surprise! The pastor readily agreed! There was a sudden breakthrough in the rhetoric that insists Advent be kept sacred with nothing of Christmas showing until Christmas Eve. The committee eagerly reviewed the lectionary and made adjustments that moved Advent up two weeks, allowing some Christmas spirit when the rest of the world was enjoying Christmas, yet still giving the Advent season its due. Advent wasn’t abandoned. It was extended with Christmas music introduced slowly in later weeks. The lighting of the candles, etc. adhered to the season. A few readings were moved around. Christmas music was slowly introduced, adding anticipation.

What had happened was not unlike the first Christmas observances — as the church set aside time to celebrate the birth of Christ. The date for Christmas was set to coincide with pagan festivities, catching people as they were ending their celebration of the winter solstice. Most scholars agree that true date for Christ’s birth was probably in the spring. Deciding on December 25 was  opportunistic — and it worked! We can learn from this!

The four weeks of Advent have no real historical connections. It is something the church decided we need to properly prepare for the Savior’s birth.We spend 40 days (the number of days Jesus spent in the wilderness) preparing for Easter with Lent. It didn’t seem right to observe Christmas without a similar period of reflection. Some traditions even call Advent “a little Lent.” There was plenty of Scripture to cover — the hundreds of years of prophecies, John the Baptist, Mary and Elizabeth.

There was a time in Church history when people spent a lot of time in church. Many observers attended mass daily and the traditions/music of Advent had more exposure. Today, the most faithful are in church only four weeks a year for Advent, probably fewer. They don’t have much time to absorb and learn to appreciate the Advent sound, especially when the car radio blasts a different season at them as they drive home.

A typical Sunday morning during the Advent season has the core congregation singing unfamiliar and difficult hymns. Seekers who first enter a church during Advent, perhaps attracted by the more upbeat hymnody they are hearing in the shopping mall, encounter something entirely alien. Visitors are likely to be totally confused. It is difficult to “teach” Advent with Christmas in full swing everywhere else.

We face the same conditions the early Christians faced. How do we get people to pay attention to the coming of Christ when they are otherwise having such fun?

The answer often presented by clergy to their congregations is to keep Advent holy and sing Christmas carols only from Christmas Eve to January 6 — after everyone else has stopped singing carols. Post Christmas Sundays are notoriously low in attendance. The faithful end up singing with lonely joy, and feeling a bit awkward about it! Yet this does not seem a bit odd to many clergy who openly advocate for a rigid interpretation of Advent — no matter how few people get the message!

Advent should be observed. There is a great deal of value in its traditions. But if the traditions are standing in the way of spreading the Good News, allow some room for flexibility. Teach Advent by starting the seasonal music a bit earlier. Some popular Christmas carols are about the prophecies and the joy of receiving (Joy to the World; Lo, How A Rose; Of the Father’s Love Begotten). They lend themselves to the Advent season. Allow the Christmas sound in your worship sooner. Add more hymns to your service if it will help. Allow room for repetition during the season so these often unused hymns become more familiar.

One idea would be to have purely Advent worship, followed each week with a carol sing as a “sending.”

Both seasons may end up meaning more. The rafters will probably not break!