The Purpose and Meaning of Advent Liturgy

The Purpose and Meaning of Advent Liturgy  

Annually observing the waiting and anticipation of Advent prior to celebrating Christmas is the burden of doing ministry in a liturgically minded church. The big mega-church down the street doesn’t give a fig about the season of Advent, the twelve days of Christmas – eleven of which follow Christmas day – or any of those things that one is taught and perhaps even believes for oneself are important for the celebration of the incarnation. No purple for them, no hesitation and discernment over whether to sing Christmas songs or to wait, no attempt to find our place alongside of the people of ancient Israel as they live under the spell and promise of the coming one. For the church down the street, it’s all red and green, lights upon lights, jolly now, merry now, Jesus now, Christmas now, with the décor coming down by New Years Day. They don’t need the liturgical calendar because they are following the most obvious calendar of them all – the countdown to Christmas while celebrating Christmas. 

 

This is not going to be a whinefest or a superiority declaration that we have it right and they have it wrong. I think they do have it wrong, but not for reasons that one might expect. Liturgically-minded churches often criticize others for having no respect for church tradition. So, they violate the church calendar or ignore the liturgical seasons. But, that criticism is a bit thin, if we remember how critical the Apostle Paul was about such observances. In truth, we observe seasons, times, and years, not because they have the authority of Scripture, but because we need seasons, times, and years. Paul could have thrown away his calendar because he anticipated the Second Coming to happen immediately. For those of us who exist many generations later – because it was not as immediate as Paul thought – seasons, times, and years resonate with the rhythm of life. At best, at least from a Pauline perspective, our observance of seasons is a concession to human weakness and need, not something inherent to the Christian message itself. (As long as we’re being honest, that seems to be Paul’s perspective toward marriage also.) 

 

In other words, people of faith are free to accept or reject the liturgical calendar as a human creation, in part to meet our rhythmic needs. And that is quite liberating, even for those of us who choose to follow the liturgical calendar. It is no great expose to argue that December 25^th is based less on the actual historical birth of Jesus than on its proximity to the Winter solstice. Nor is it particularly bothersome to argue that celebrations of the Winter solstice are rooted in long pagan traditions. One can grant all that, and grant it happily, because that is simply a way of saying that ancient pagans were as rhythmically human as modern Christians. There is nothing sacred about December 25^th and it is wasted effort to argue that Jesus was born on that exact date. What is sacred is that God was in Christ, really and historically immersing Godself into our story with radical vulnerability and solidarity. And, as people who need seasons, times, and years; as people who live among the rhythmic patterns of the universe; as people who do best with times of intense remembering as well as times of rest; observing the incarnation once a year can be a way of living faithfully. But, again, one can observe the incarnation faithfully apart from the liturgical calendar itself. 

 

My argument with the mega-church down the street that hosts Christmas all December long is not that they need to follow the fullness of the liturgical calendar. It is that the gospel stories themselves – Matthew and Luke, anyway – do not simply jump into the Christmas story with the journey to Bethlehem. They begin with longing, repeatedly citing the prophets from ages past. In doing so, they remember not only the promises under which God’s people live, but also the long periods of non-fulfillment, the in-between ages, when faith is hard to maintain. Those times of waiting are not ancillary, but germane to the story of the birth. Luke describes Zechariah and Elizabeth, an aging, repeatedly disappointed couple, whose frustrations over childbearing seem metaphorically representative of the people of Israel’s frustrations over the years. “We’re doing our part. Why isn’t God doing God’s part?” Likewise, Luke shows how young Mary’s hesitation and disbelief – similar in form but different in kind from Zechariah’s hesitation and disbelief – is transformed into a powerful, defiant song of conviction, even before the child is born. Surely Luke’s comment about how Mary “treasured these things in her heart” after the birth is part of the same thread of experience with Mary’s initial question “How can these things be?” and her defiant song of hope prior to the birth. The question and the Magnificat go together, as unfulfilled anticipation and joyful celebration go together. 

 

Matthew also gives attention to the long history of anticipation, constantly citing Old Testament texts in a way that most New Testament professors would describe as “proof-texting” if he were a first-year seminarian. Those texts are important for Matthew’s story, not because they prove anything but because they situate the reader into this tradition of longing, waiting, questioning, and wondering. And silent Joseph’s dilemma, then consent and obedience throughout Matthew’s story is probably more like the average person of faith than all of the heroic canticles combined. This coming of this Messiah is a happening thing, which fulfills all the longings of the past while it breaks all of the rules of our present order. What else is there to do but to go along and wonder at it all? 

 

Simply put, the Christmas story has a backstory. Without that backstory, it is just an ahistorical myth of God bursting into human life in a weirdly sentimental way. With the backstory, it is the God who – to many folks along the way – shows up quite a bit later than anticipated. With the backstory, the decree that went out from Caesar Augustus is more than just a contextual nuisance that moves the story from wherever to Bethlehem. It is part of the history of imperial aggression to which the people of Israel were subject while striving to believe in the promises. With the backstory, Zechariah’s expression of disbelief is in tension with the larger ongoing act of faith that kept priests like him lighting the candles in the first place. How many wicks must have been burnt in hopes that God would finally redeem God’s people from their captivity! The backstory gives those who “greet the new morn” the salience of having kept watch through the many and long darks nights.  

 

And that is why Advent is important. It is not because the church calendar is sacred, old and wise though it may be. It is not because we Protestants have suffered from liturgy envy and now fully embrace all things Latinate. It is not because we liturgical folk are addicted to suffering so we make sure that Advent is to Christmas what Lent is to Easter. It is because the story of Christmas has context, a backstory of longing, anticipating, being frustrated, and struggling to hold onto a shred of faith. To hear the second chapter of Luke well, one must read the first chapter of Luke and get with the flow. Or, to put it another way, to celebrate the red and green of the season, one must hold the purple for a while. The crèche must have an empty manger for a while. The songs must be anticipatory rather than declaratory for a while. That is how the story is given, so that is how it should be read, told, and lived. Even if the speakers in the malls are singing “Joy to the World” the day after Thanksgiving.