Along with the lights and decorations up around town and the carols being played in malls, grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants and on the radio, the parking lots full at shopping centers, the annual toy and food drives, and news reports keeping us apprised of our national duty to support the economy by going into debt this time of year by reporting on the levels of spending, there is at least one other sign of the season: the Christian fundamentalist right’s reports on how they are battling the “war against Christmas.”

According to their own sources, there are some victories along that front: seems Wal-Mart has decided to return to using ‘Merry Christmas’ in their advertisements and in-store decorations, which they much prefer to the faith-neutral ‘Happy Holidays’ or ‘Season’s Greetings’. They still don’t pay most of their employees a living wage and don’t offer health benefits, but By Golly! we can tell how Christian they are because they are using ‘Merry Christmas!’

(I guess we need as many ‘Merry Christmases’ as we can get to balance out all the ‘Happy Hanukkahs’  Haj Day festivities,  ‘Bohdi Day’  and the constant annual over-the-top Winter Solstice hype we are subjected to this time of year.)

The conservatives fight valiantly for the ‘right’ to have manger scenes in front of city halls all over the country, and the ‘right’ to sing Christian Christmas carols in public schools. Because, it seems, the survival of Christmas is at risk. (I do wonder where these folks live.)

Bless their hearts, no one fights as hard as they do for their God-given ‘right’ to cram their version of the Christian faith down the throats of the rest of the peoples of this world.

Joy to the World!

In the church, too, we are getting ready. But we are intentionally out of sync with the rest of the world. A reminder that as God’s people, set apart, we strive to march to a different drummer.

Our Advent wreath is from last year, a nod to the first wreath,  a wheel removed from a cart as a reminder that this is a season for slowing down, being internal; a time of prayer and waiting. This year, the wheel has been decorated, not in evergreens like the ones used in the malls and everywhere else – but not mentioned in Advent and Christmas texts.  Instead we have taken our cues from the Advent scriptures and our wreath is wrapped in barbed wire and dead broken branches and broken purple glass. The dead branches remind us of our reading from Jeremiah and from the bare fig branches mentioned in Luke. The broken glass reminds us of a people in exile, lives shattered by violence; and the barbed wire reminds us that we live in a country at war, and a time  when immigration is an issue, and the message from many is protecting  our borders.  The starkness of the wreath reminds us that during dark times there are harsh realities, violence, war, pain and sorrow in our world that still block the light of Christ. I invite you to bring symbols of things that keep the light of Christ from shining fully in your life or in the world and tuck them into the branches and barbed wire, as a visual confession of the brokenness and need for healing and reconciliation for which we long this season. What makes you weep? What do you think makes God weep? Let this be our prayer for healing this Advent.

During Advent, we will look forward to the stories of Jesus’ birth and the prophecies that lead up to it and the events surrounding it.  We will wait, and watch and light candles and sing songs and tell stories as we prepare for the birth of Jesus, and the fulfillment of God’s kin-dom on earth.

We will keep Advent until Christmas eve, when we will begin to celebrate the nativity of Jesus Christ in a candle light communion service, and continue to keep Christmas for all twelve days. Someone once said that we can’t really know how to feast unless we have also learned how to fast.

We need this penitential season  of Advent because the world is in need of salvation. That old-timey religious concept which basically means: things are a mess and we need God’s help. Something has to change. Things are bad and they must get better.

The role of the church is not to make people more religious. It is to make people more fully human. The role of holy days is to help make us more conscious of all our days.

One of the ironies is that we are in need of being rescued from ourselves to be free to be more fully ourselves.

These are ancient themes that are sounded in our texts this morning.

Jeremiah wrote a long time ago --  after Jerusalem fell to the Babylonians, the temple was destroyed, the people of Judah were forced into exile, they didn’t have enough to eat, and they were living in a wilderness away from all they knew. Times were bleak. Hope was in short supply.

In the midst of all that, Jeremiah made a startling prophesy.

In that desolate wilderness, in the darkest of times for the people, when things had gone from bad to worse, when the people believed its very existence was not only threatened but already lost: Jeremiah prophesied hope. Like drops of water to a people dying of thirst, he spoke the truth. All was not lost because God was still with the people, and since the future is in God’s hands, they could trust that joy and laughter would come again; singing and thanksgiving would be theirs once more.

From what seemed like a lifeless stump, a shoot would spring forth. From David’s line God would lift up a branch, a helper, a leader, someone who would rescue or restore God’s people. In the words of the ancient text: a savior. And the savior would bring justice and righteousness. Hope is found in God. God does not forget God’s people.

When we hear ‘prophecy’ we tend to think in terms of predictions for the future. But the role of the prophet was not to predict the future. The prophet’s job was to read the signs and speak truth -- God’s truth --to the people. Jeremiah’s prophecy/ Jeremiah’s truth was simply reminding the people that God had made promises to them, and God would keep those promises. No matter how bleak things were, God could be trusted to work good out of it. Nothing has ever been so bad that God could not continue to work, to bring about justice and righteousness. God’s history with the people was evidence enough for Jeremiah. Sign enough.

I have a friend whose life might lead anyone to despair. She was a victim of childhood horrors the likes of which movies have been made. She has spent her life trying to regain her  balance, and has dealt with a failed marriage, the loss of a child, homelessness and addiction, and just as her life was beginning to even out, when she was doing so very well, she was diagnosed with cancer. The amazing thing is that she has been able to claim hope on a daily basis, and it has liberated her from despair. Not that she became an optimist, but according to her, she learned how to see the bigger picture.  “My mind plays tricks on me. My imagination,” she said, “tends to either jump to denial or pessimism. When I was in denial, I was actually closing my eyes to reality. When I was ‘thinking’ dark – I realized that, too, was a form of denial.  I would jump to the worst-case scenario. Just as a detective might quickly determine who the suspect is, then look for evidence to prove the guilt of that suspect, often dismissing  or overlooking any evidence that would contradict the conclusion; I would only see the evidence that proved my point.”  (Her point usually being that everything is going to hell in a hand- basket.)

“I have learned to open my eyes and consciously look at all  I could see and also try to remember as much as I could remember,” she will tell you, “I no longer am a Pollyanna in denial of reality, or trapped in despair when there might be evidence that might disprove my gloomy outlook.

On CSI they like to say, ‘We let the evidence speak.’”

“That’s what I do,” my friend says, “ I look for all the evidence. I look for signs. All the signs. It really isn’t about optimism or pessimism. It is more about consciousness. Reality. Both my rose-colored glasses and my dark predictions of the future were not real. And they weren’t helping me live in the present. I would either be living in La-la land in denial or I imagined myself into a paralyzing despair, while all around me were signs of hope and God’s love in the world in things as simple as a stranger helping a stranded motorist change a tire, or the smiles of volunteers at hospitals and food pantries.”

“I am aware that I don’t have control over many things in my life. But I do have control over how I respond to them. I am responsible for how I live the life I’ve been given. In hope, I try to respond from the depths of my being. How I live does make a difference, however small it may seem.”

Luke had some words for the early church as they struggled to carry on when the return of Jesus hadn’t come as immediately as they had thought it would, and the kin-dom of God on earth was not at all apparent in the world.  There seemed more to be frightened of than to hope for.  Luke placed these   prophetic words in Jesus’ mouth: there will be trouble, and terrible happenings, and fear and foreboding before it’s all through, but you must be careful not to be weighed down by the worries of this life. You must remain alert. Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near!

Remember that these words are not about predicting the future, they are about reading the signs – all the signs – and speaking truth to God’s people. Luke didn’t want the people to forget God’s promises and God’s presence with them in the present.

Neither Jeremiah nor Luke was speaking to a people who placed all their hope in some pie-in-the-sky future well beyond their own lifetime. Their experience was of despair in their present reality, just as ours is. They were not hoping and dreaming and fantasizing of a possible future someday. They were watching and waiting  for the breaking in of hope in their own time and place.

 As are we…

Both Jeremiah and Luke knew that our lives are shaped by what we hope and believe in. Both Jeremiah and Luke knew that how we wait, how we spend our time in preparation, how we watch matters. It makes a difference. We can truly be the change, the new thing we long for.

I have been reading a wonderful little book from the folks at the Iona Community called “Doing December Differently.”

I believe that the way we celebrate Advent and Christmas can actually change the world. I believe that we can ‘do December’ in a more compassionate, just, and inclusive way.

We can become the change we long for. Advent and Christmas can be focused more on peace, justice, and righting the scales.

Marcus Borg reminds us: “The theme of Advent is the two comings of Christ. During Advent, we remember the first coming of Jesus, even as we prepare for his second coming. And the second coming occurs each year at Christmas, with the birth of Christ within us, the coming of Christ into our lives. Christ comes again and again and again, and in many ways. In a symbolic and spiritual sense, the second coming of Christ is about the coming of the Christ who is already here.”

So, while Advent means ‘coming into being,’ the real focus is on living in the now. Birthing God’s kin-dom more fully in our lives, in the church, and in the world.

Fred Craddock said:

"To be Christian is to cease saying,  "Where  the Messiah is there is no misery" and to  begin to say "Where there is misery there is the Messiah." The former statement makes no demands; the latter is an assignment."

Unlike the inn keeper in Bethlehem; we have the luxury of knowing who it is that seeks to find room in our hearts and in our lives and in our world. Which is why we are invited to watch, and wait and prepare room this time of the year in ways that proclaim Christ’s lordship in all things.

We can receive only if we take the time to empty our selves,  clear away the clutter, and make room for the one who is coming, bringing peace, joy, love and hope to our lives and to the world.