Do you remember ever standing on a curb feeling the strong hand of your mother or father holding your small uplifted hand just before you crossed the street? “Before we cross the street,” mom/dad would say, “we must stop, look, and listen for cars that may be coming on our left or our right.” (I was nearly creamed in London one year, when I only looked to the right…) Our young lives depended on our stopping at the curb, looking both ways, listening carefully, and then crossing the street when no traffic is there. I wonder if those words might be the key to how to live Advent this year as well? “Stop! Look! Listen!”
Those words are all about awareness, aren’t they? About the wakefulness we are invited to be about during this season. It is not a sorrowful wakefulness like Lent, but rather a wakefulness that expects the kingdom of God to break into our world. Luke says it this way: “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy…Be vigilant at all times…ready to stand before the Son of Man.”
Though there are many things we can/should be vigilant about, what if we just focused on three? What if we became aware of three of the ‘myths’/temptations of this season?
1) More is better.
The black Friday ads in the newspaper this year totaled 4lbs. Four pounds of printed glossy gloriousness saying: MORE, MORE MORE. “Stop” invites me to know a different truth. More is not better. Actually, usually, less is. Less alcohol, less food, less schedule, less presents, less running, less TV, less noise… The juggernaut that is Madison Avenue shouts again and again: “It’s that most wonderful time of year. You need more of everything.” And we buy into that – figuratively and literally: “I must do my patriotic duty and spend more money.” Perhaps we would all do well to spend less time buying things for one another, and more time looking at one another, and more time forgiving each other. Some choose to spend less time in front of a TV and more time in front of an Advent wreath. Sitting in some emptiness and silence is one of the most important things we could do to help us wake up to what is most real. “STOP!” the myth that more is better.
2) The concerns of the bigger world are not mine.
We can be tempted to make our Christmas so small; to think only about what affects me. To not really care about the Syrian refugee crisis; reports of violence and starvation; global climate change; racism: as long as it doesn’t affect our plans, our comfort, our schedule. “LOOK!” invites me to realize that every single person in each of those news stories is part of OUR family. The pain of each is our pain, and WE must work to create a more just and loving world. I know we can’t fix it all. But we are ALL in this together. And the only way to see the beauty of this world and the presence of Christ in it is also to be awake to the pain and struggle of a world not yet what it was meant to be, and to the sufferings of those around us. “LOOK” bids us to be awake to how God still wants to be birthed now in the world THROUGH US.
3) If I hurry up and get everything done, THEN I will be able to celebrate Christmas.
Quite honestly, many of us miss the profound gift of Christmas because we rush so trying to get ready … and we miss what is happening in and around us. A preacher once said that his biggest regret in life was “Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I’ve ever gained from being in a hurry. But I can think of a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing. Through all that haste, I thought I was making up time. It turns out, I was throwing it away.” He concludes simply: “Hurry always empties the soul.”
“LISTEN!” is the invitation to enter into the NOW. For if I scurry through these days, trying to get “there”, once “there” arrives, I’ll miss it, because I have never allowed myself to be HERE. How we prepare is how we celebrate. Be awake to love now. “Listen!”
How will you travel through Advent this year? Let those three words you learned at your mom and/or dad’s side so many years ago, guide you.
“STOP!” – more is not better. “LOOK!” – there is a larger world in need of your love. “LISTEN!” – Christ comes, not when I get THERE, but right here. Right now.
“Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy…Be vigilant at all times…ready to stand before the Son of Man.”