Let’s Have Merriment
An eschatological apologetic for fun, parties, and Christmas music in the season of Advent
Early Wednesday morning I composed a quick email that I regularly send out to my congregation and friends of our church who’ve subscribed to our small mailing list. Mostly, my goal was to remind people of our Community Christmas-themed coffeehouse, and our collection for a local hamper program.
It turned out that I also wrote a brief apologetic for actually celebrating during Advent. I’ve read similar sentiments and even said such things myself this year. It goes something like this… That in our world right now, we all need to do whatever we can to have some cheer, to make ourselves feel better.
So, you want to put up your Christmas tree early? Go ahead. You want to blast the new Michael Buble Christmas album on November 19th? Fine. You want to just grab on to any celebration you can to retain even a small sliver of joy? Then go for it.
But my apologetic for Advent merriment is more than this. In fact, the above line of thinking almost assumes that the best we can hope for are these small respites from the sheer overwhelm of what has become modern life. Actually, no.
We can do better, we can hope for better, and maybe celebrating Christmas early, or incorporating some good ol’ fun into our Advent season, can be something bigger than just a break from the chaos.
After all, “a bit of a break” is not what the original Christmas story was about. Nor was it about getting a bunch of presents or feeling nostalgic for a few moments only to drift back into our usual malaise or something worse. It was about the radical in-breaking of God into that very world that we try to escape with parties and concerts and the busy-ness of the “holidays,” and when that doesn’t work there’s always an all-inclusive vacation to a tropical somewhere.
Okay… here’s the email I sent to my congregation on Wednesday morning…
Into the first week of Advent things begin to feel a bit more festive. We have all these small celebrations, work Christmas parties, concerts, family get togethers, and they kind of anticipate the bigger celebration of Christmas itself.
In some ways, this is exactly what Advent is about. Some say Advent should stay without any Christmas music and is supposed to strictly be a time of (solemn) preparation. Christmas after all is the twelve day season that STARTS on Dec 25th, not the twelve days before.
But, our mini celebrations as anticipation of the great celebration mirrors exactly what it means to have hope as a people who follow Christ. We celebrate now, and it is a small glimpse into the grand celebration to come. Of course, we aren’t just talking about Dec 25th, but THE great banquet in the peaceable kingdom where all are welcome to sit at THE Table with God.
So, maybe it’s simply sharing communion, or the opening of our Little community Library, or your small Christmas party at work, or just a few friends gathered, or a school concert or recital. Or maybe, it’s just going to the Christmas Coffeehouse with our little Church…
What if all this festive merriment was a kind of rehearsal for the REAL celebration—The one where in Christ all things have been set right?
That was essentially the end of my reflection in my email, but I want to say a little more.
Something great about thinking about our December celebrations as rehearsal for the REAL celebration is the reality that so many of us feel drained by the holiday busy-ness. Yes, we can do better at relaxing and at being okay with the parties not being as perfect as we’d envisioned, but also, have you ever been through a series of rehearsals or practices? They’re tough. Often tougher than the main event.
So, if you feel spent by the time you get to December 27th, that’s okay. We’re still rehearsing. And lots can go wrong during rehearsal. We live in a broken world.
One option in the face of a broken world is to despair and to show it. To not celebrate at all, to say it isn’t right to celebrate when there are things such as homelessness, war, oppression, exclusion. A second option is to switch off, turn a blind eye to injustice and party, have a drink, eat some dainties. This is really just different kind of despair.
But there are more than two options, friends. I’m not even saying there are only three options. But among the myriad of responses to the lives we face is one where we can embrace celebration as part of our way of engaging in the season of anticipation and waiting. We are preparing, waiting, anticipating, hoping for another in-breaking of God, a setting right of all things. A peace to come.
So, if our celebrations can be more than just an escape and can instead point to the greater joy that is to come, then could we also mirror the tenor of that final banquet? One where there is a single table. One where all are welcome. One where bread and grace and laughter are shared as we marvel at the strange and wonderful mixed-bag of guests (including ourselves!) and how those who used to be last suddenly became first.