an advent postscript

After waiting the whole year to buy Christmas gifts, the shoppers came out in full force this holiday season, bringing those various retail chains smiles and profits in a much-needed turn upward for the economy.

After waiting through the advent season, the gifts seemed to take their proper place behind the excitement of celebrating Jesus come to earth as a needed Savior of the world.

We read through Isaiah as an abbey this advent. Though the profit is brutally honest about the condition of the world and Israel, twas a good read for the season. Sitting through Isaiah’s surges of passionate fervor and eloquence pulled out many thoughts and emotions on a variety of subjects: my hurting world, Israel’s awaiting a Savior, God’s holiness as a remedy for both, the subversive power of poetry, responsibilities of oaks, and the various forms love becomes to those who are desperately in need of it.

Then there’s the Christmas story which held extra meaning for me this year in the days leading up to Jesus birth. The story of Mary and Joseph, a young couple struggling to move, prepare for a baby, not really wed, and all the hustle and bustle that gets forgotten in “Silent Night.” Their life was noisy. Joseph must have been a bit nervous and flustered and felt like a schmuck for allowing the Son of God to be born in a manger. Mary must have been at least a little frazzled as her screams of child-birth which had the beginning in the Garden were met by the tiny cry of the Savior who came to pave the Way. And it was perfect.

Millions of those same consumers picked out the proper time and place and piled into the church of their favorite style for a single Christmas Eve memorial service, singing songs and lighting candles and leaving feeling good about something (which I suppose is good?). But the season of Advent is much better than a single day or service, it is truly about acting out salvation’s call to wait for the holiness that sets us free, to be still and know that God is God.

A child born unto you. Amen.