Second Sunday of Advent

Today was a hard day for me in worship - only because of the magnitude of the tension between Advent and Christmas.

I try to keep Advent, personally. And I see at as part of my job as a pastor and worship leader to help others keep Advent, too.

The surrounding culture's mad rush to get to Christmas as soon as possible (do-not-pass-John-the-Baptist-or-even-think-about-spending-less-than-$200) makes me nuts. And so we did a weird hybrid thing at Shepherd of the Valley this morning: we lit two candles on the Advent wreath, which was pushed off to the side of the worship space, because the risers for the children took up most of the chancel, and of course the fully decorated Christmas tree is up and lit (and gorgeous, true) and huge, in the chancel as well. As a congregation we sang Advent hymns. But then we also got the very well done Sunday School children's Christmas program, called "The Christmas Present," all about how Jesus is the best Christmas present (which he IS, but it's not Christmas yet!) The children's singing of "Joy to the world" was followed by a reading from Isaiah 11, another from Matthew 3, and a short (!) sermon about those Advent 2 texts - "REPENT!" I cried along with John the Baptizer. "Wait!" "Slow down!" "The wolf and the lamb will live together..." "The point isn't that Christmas is coming - the point is that CHRIST IS COMING!"

Advent is hard in church - after all, there are only so many Sundays between December 1st and Christmas, and there are so many groups who want to perform: the Sunday School kids' program, the Festival Choir Cantata, the Contemporary Worship Team Cantata.

I know I'm in the minority here, but I think this is one place where the church being countercultural is pretty helpful. After all, the first day of Christmas is (surprise!) Christmas! What if we had a cantata on the first Sunday of the Christmas season this year, December 30th? What if the kids' program was on Epiphany (January 6th)?

Is there a way to hold on to the preparation and anticipation of Advent and then really live into 12 whole days of celebration of Christmas? I remain optimistic that such things are possible, not just for individual households, but for whole communities, too.

I welcome your thoughts...