God of the dawn break

A varying assortment of thoughts for today's sermon. When I preach without a manuscript this is sometimes the format in which I blog the sermon. While the thoughts are not all connected it hopefully gives some sense of where the Holy Spirit might be speaking through today's scripture.

Luke 1: 5-13, 57-80

*The light shines in the darkness… and the darkness has not overcome it.

*I’m actually going to start by parsing a Greek word that’s not even in our reading today. (Nothing like talking Greek to make everybody sit up straight and listen to the sermon). It’s that word we know as “overcome” which is the Greek word “katalambano,” which is most often translated “catch” but might also be translated “comprehend.” The light shines in the darkness… and the darkness does not comprehend it. I like all these translations, actually, side by side. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it, will not catch it, and cannot comprehend it in all its mystery.

*Even though this scripture is from John 1:5 it has the same themes as our reading from Luke 1. Light and darkness interplay with one another. These are the darkest days of the year. Long days… lots of seasonal affective disorder, depression, anxiety. Lots of drinking. Lots of generally sad things. This is a season of the highest highs and lowest lows.

*Naturally, Jesus comes into the world in the darkest of days. Of course some history-theology geeks—I bet you didn’t know there were such people; they’re the ones in the library with the plaid coats with a clerical underneath—anyway, they’ll tell you that Jesus probably wasn’t actually born in the winter because of the shepherds tending their flocks in that particular way or some nonsense. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what time of the year Jesus was actually born; the point of celebrating Christmas this time of year is to accentuate the darkest darkness (and also to remind ourselves how northern hemisphere-centric we are). In Australia they should probably celebrate Christmas in place of the 4^th of July, which—come to think of it—they don’t celebrate anyway.

*“The night is always darkest just before the dawn.” There’s so much wisdom in that proverb that it’s been quoted in The Alchemist, The Dark Knight, and by theologians for ages. Darkness seems its most complete right about now. Darkness and sin go hand in hand. When we think about sin we tend to think again about darkness… about things done in secret, about parts of ourselves that are hidden away. These are parts of us that we fear coming to light.

*John is coming to prophesy to something world-changing. “To give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of sins.” Sins are actually how we come to know about God, or rather the forgiveness of those sins testifies to something we know in our hearts: that we are not the perfect people we could be, and the only way to be perfect is to not die, and the only way to not die is to have some kind of salvation, and the only salvation that lasts is eternal, and the only one offering such a promise is one who takes on sin in death for us. There is no other way. There are no shortcuts.

*The light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not comprehend it, because we believe that this little baby boy was born to die. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is too busy obsessing over our inward thoughts and all our hang-ups. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is concerned with judging us for what we have done wrong. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness measures us by how we stack up to being “good” people. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is too busy with the law. The darkness does not comprehend it, because the darkness is blind to the Christ-child. And the darkness is blind to a baby because it is too small, too insignificant, and too out-of-the-way to matter.

*Jesus was born insignificant, just like the rest of us. We dress him up, surround him with prophesies and wise men bringing gifts, even as we talk about the manger and no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn, but the real story is darker. The wise men were supposed to report back to King Herod. The gifts were burial spices; seen another way this looks sinister. King Herod meant to kill the baby before any of this got underway. The night is darkest just before the dawn. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot even see it.

*Zechariah’s song, sung for John, his son, who came to testify to Jesus, concludes with this line:

“By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” Peace, I bring you. Peace and light. Jesus came and, like the angels with the shepherds, he might as well begin his life with the words, “Fear not.” Do not be afraid. Yes, you have been living in darkness, but it is that darkness that will testify to me, because now you know why you need me, now you comprehend the light that shines in the darkness.

*Our problem is a lack of awareness that that is where we stand. Our problem is that too many people live in darkness and pretend it is the light. But Zechariah’s song lays the framework for what it means to be people of the dawn-break. It means forgiveness; that we acknowledge the darkness is real, but something more powerful is coming. Not power of our hands, not strength or might, but a baby who receives gifts from wise men of burial spices, anointed for death even from birth.

*The darkness does not comprehend the light because the darkness assumes that death wins. Jesus, becoming love incarnate for the world, comes to bring us a promise that darkness is just fleeting. Dawn breaks. Amen.

God's Word, or why "real" preaching matters

Isaiah 40:1-11

There’s a Lake Wobegon-kind-of-story of a pastor who preached his Sunday morning sermon as he did every week, got down from the pulpit, led the rest of the service, shook hands with his parishioners, and then went home only to discover that over the course of the week, much to his surprise, the members from the congregation started doing the things he preached that they should do. He preached about evangelism, so one of the flock went out and started knocking doors in their town telling people about Jesus. The pastor personally thought this was a little pushy, but it did seem to be the gist of what he was talking about. He preached about helping the poor, so one of the flock bought a meal for a local family, and then charged it to the church. So at least he was in the spirit of what the pastor had said even if the practice was somewhat lacking. The pastor preached about how Jesus comes before family and friends, and several members of the church reported back that they took his advice and had kicked their adult children to the curb, who were really just playing video games in their basement, anyway, most of the time.

            At first the pastor rather liked this new congregation of people who listened to him, but as the week wore on and new report after new report reached his ears of congregation members doing outrageous things in pursuit of the ideal he was preaching, he gradually became overwhelmed. So, he got up in the pulpit the next Sunday and begged the people “Please, go back to not listening to me!” he said. Because everybody had taken his advice and things had gotten very complicated. And nobody was taking his advice in the way he imagined they should be doing it. He had expected things to go one way, and it had gone quite another. In the end, he concluded that it was much better when the pastor’s preaching didn’t change a thing.

Joseph and the importance of just showing up

Scripture: Matthew 1:1-25

Whenever we read about Joseph (the father of Jesus) in the Bible, which admittedly is not often because he only appears in first two chapters of Matthew and even less in Luke, I am reminded of a quote from the 1998 movie, Simon Birch, where one of the boys, Eddie, gloats after being cast as Joseph in the Christmas pageant. He’s pretty full of himself until Simon, the little misfit title character, says, “It's the Virgin Mary, Eddie. What does Joseph have to do with anything?”

Right. What does Joseph have to do with anything?

This really is the question. Joseph is just along for the ride; in fact, it’s his fault they need to make this journey to Bethlehem in the first place. What does Joseph have to do with anything? I mean, how many lines does he get in the Christmas pageant? How many songs are written about him? Nobody cares! And I suppose that’s natural and it’s even kind of funny… until we consider that perhaps Joseph does have a role to play, that, in fact, this story of Jesus’ birth hinges on adoption… and it centers around naming… both of which are incredibly powerful and both of which are Joseph’s job.

I bet most people would say that these verses in Matthew are about the Virgin birth, which is true in part, but I would hazard to guess that we say that primarily because that’s controversial, and our eyes tend to focus on sex if it’s to be found anywhere in the text. If there’s one verse out of one hundred that has to do with sex we’ll pick it out as the most important, because it tends to be one of our big hang-ups. For example, I can all but guarantee that even though this sermon has nothing to do with sex and I’m not going to mention it again after this moment it will show up in a couple of sermon notes. We get so hung up on Virgin birth stuff that we tend to miss the rest of what’s going on altogether. This is a story about Joseph staying in the picture, being the adoptive father of the Son of God, and it’s about the power of naming. It’s Joseph to whom the name of Emmanuel is given, not Mary, though, being the typical guy that he is, he apparently wasn’t listening to the angel very closely because instead of Emmanuel he went with “Jesus.”

Joseph is also important because of his lineage. The first reading today with that overly long list of descendents connects Jesus with the heroes of biblical history. That lineage runs through Joseph. None of those connections exist without Joseph, which is kind of funny if you stop and think about it because it means that Jesus was not actually a flesh and blood descendant of David or Abraham or any of the others. He is only an adoptive descendant of that line. If Joseph goes, so does Jesus’ primary connection with the Old Testament. Jesus’ flesh and blood lineage is through the more-anonymous Mary.

So why does any of this matter?

Know yourself... or else you'll never know why Jesus had to come.

Scripture:Isaiah 42:1-9

I wonder how much we really know ourselves. On the surface that probably seems like a silly thought. Who could you possibly know better than yourself? But we played a little game with our Confirmation students—and I’m going to have you play it wherever you are in a minute. I want you to think about two things--to really think and pore over it--and, if you can, share them with somebody else. The two things are these: #1: What is something you are good at? And #2: What is something you need to work at or improve upon? Take as much time as you need to ponder.

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Was that easy? I think for most of us it’s a challenge, especially when we get to talking about what we need to improve. Most of us have stock answers to those questions: I really need to work on balancing my time better, or I really need to work on getting out more, or I really need to work on having a more positive attitude, but those answers are often only scratching the surface of what’s really going on with us. We have a hard time being introspective enough to know what we need to work on, because it’s scary to look at ourselves in the mirror so closely. In many ways our families and friends can answer those questions about us better than we can answer them ourselves.

Many of our societal problems are rooted in our unrealistic opinion of ourselves. As Bertrand Russell once said, “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.” To use biblical language, there’s a lot of pointing out specks in other peoples’ eyes and not a lot of acknowledging the log in our own. And what ends up happening in a world where we don’t know ourselves very well is that we get awfully defensive. Arguments escalate. Since we are not comfortable in the situation—since we aren’t very sure of ourselves—we overcompensate, and we become louder and brasher. We talk over others. We never listen. Listening is weakness, letting others talk is weakness, admitting there are things we don’t know is weakness.

The general rule of thumb is that the person who is loudest knows him or herself the least.

It's harder to be thankful as the oppressor than the oppressed (thoughts on Thanksgiving, Habakkuk, Ferguson, and whether we should be affected))

Scripture: Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:2-4, 3:17-19

The following is a transcript

 

We’re reading from Habakkuk today, which is one of my favorite books in the Bible—also, coincidentally, impossible to pronounce. Habakkuk’s preaching has a good deal of weight because he is preaching from a place where he has absolutely nothing. It begs the question in this season of Thanksgiving: how can you be thankful when you have nothing? Thankfulness is something we associate with having things. That makes sense. I mean, it’s much easier when you have things, but Habakkuk tells us something different—that he is thankful precisely for having nothing.

He says, “Though the fig tree does not blossom and no fruit is on the vines… though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the God of my salvation” (Hab 3:17-18)

Though I have nothing… I will praise God for everything.

Habbakuk sounds so un-American. We tend to associate good things as things that we thank God for and bad things as things that we pray to God to remove from our lives. When we say we're "thankful in all things" usually it means that we find the positive in the negative--not that the bad things themselves are worthy of being thankful for. But on the other hand this attitude of Habakkuk is really refreshing, because he’s treating God as more than a good luck charm. We need more of that. At certain times in life this philosophy is very useful. This is why this scripture from Habakkuk has been used against regimes in Nazi Germany and apartheid in South Africa. It’s scripture for people who are being murdered and ruthlessly suppressed. People who have nothing but discover that being thankful even then gives them a kind of power.

The Savior we need, not the Savior we want right now

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20

            A survey from the British Medical Journal made news this week, claiming that 1 in 200 American women say they have experienced a virgin birth. Frankly, I don’t know what to do with that, but it just seemed like this might be the time to bring it up. I guess my thoughts on any survey or eyewitness account of the miraculous is that, as much as we are advanced, rational people, our lives remain a mystery even to us. I’m not saying that I believe that anybody has a virgin birth these days—in fact, it would kind of change Christmas a little bit, no?—but what I am saying is that the closer we get to understanding the world around us the more mysterious it seems to become. And that’s part of what Christmas is about. As C.S. Lewis once pointed out, the reason Joseph was worried about Mary’s pregnancy was not because he didn’t understand where babies come from, but because he did!

When we try to describe the miraculous it ends up as a he-said, she-said kind of affair; like a courtroom that will, by the very definition of its rules, find any miracle implausible. I remember watching a Mythbusters episode a while back where they were testing whether plants react to human thoughts. Basically, they were staring at potted shrubs and thinking, “I really hate you, plant. I’m going to light you on fire!”—things of that nature. The astounding part was that the first time the Mythbusters did this test the plant, which they had hooked up to a polygraph, actually reacted. So, they tried it again; this time with a pane of glass between them and the plant; and then nothing happened. Cut to a seemingly relieved Grant Imahara telling the camera, “Since the results cannot be replicated, we cannot confirm this one. That’s science!” This stuck with me because Grant lays out science’s strength and weakness in one sentence—one-time events are out of bounds because the scientific method says they do not exist. I repeat C.S. Lewis: Joseph is not concerned because he doesn’t know where babies come from, but because he does.

Light it up: The light of the world and how we are unified by darkness

Scripture: John 1:1-18

            Yesterday was the shortest day—or, if you prefer, longest night—of the year, so it works out well that today we get to talk about light, because we’re all in need of a little more of it. All this darkness alters our moods, heightens our anxiety, and forces us indoors, making us at once more lethargic and, yet, on higher alert. Without the light, our nights get colder and we become gloomier. Our Confirmation kids’ art for today expresses more about light than anything else. It’s hard not to focus on that aspect of John 1 when Confirmation class ends this time of year in the dark.

            Our traditional scenes of Jesus’ birth are set at night. Our Christmas Eve services are candle-lit. We sing Silent Night. All is dark, and yet, in the words of that hymn, all is also bright. It’s almost as if that first Christmas was pointing toward the first chapter in Genesis. “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep…” Then, out of the darkness God said, “‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.” The story of Jesus is, in a way, a retelling of that Genesis story set in a manger in Bethlehem. Just as light emerged from the darkness on that first day of creation, Jesus Christ was born as the light of the world in the midst of thick darkness, making it especially appropriate that we celebrate this day during the darkest days of our year. Light shines brightest in the darkest night. Christ was born into pure darkness; a light the likes of which the world had never seen.

An Ironic Sermon/Blog Post about the Cheapness of Words

Scripture: Isaiah 55:1-11

            There are many things in life we never fail to undervalue. Among them are natural things—plants and animals; rain and snow—that we take for granted, and then there are personality traits—faithfulness and humility—things that we enjoy in other people but rarely repay in kind—and finally there is something closer to our essence as human beings that we also tend to minimize: our words. One of the great casualties of this busy world with all our talking heads, tomes of print literature, and innumerable websites is the thoughtful word. There are fewer and fewer poets, even as there are more and more bloggers. There are fewer great wordsmiths, even as there are more text messages composed each day than all messages in any format in any year prior to the 20^th century. Anaphorisms like “Talk is cheap” and “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me” are common and accepted.

            In the 21^st century you can say anything and find an audience. The more controversial, the better. The less time you spend considering other opinions, the more response you will get. When it comes to words we have made thoughtfulness and clarity expendable and too often consider the measure of an author her volume and provocativeness. Thoughtfulness doesn’t sell very well anymore, and so all words are cheapened; a casualty of our race to the lowest common denominator.

Who mourns in lowly exile here: Dry bones and resurrection

Scripture: Ezekiel 37:1-14

In the winter of 2006, our Augustana Choir did our Christmas Vespers on the theme of the O Antiphons. An antiphon is a musical response by a choir or congregation, and the “O Antiphons” are the responses attributed to the last seven days before Christmas—called “O” Antiphons because they all begin with the word/letter “O.” Anyway, I think you’ve probably heard of these before even if you’re thinking that you haven’t. In fact, I can almost guarantee you have.

            So, I realize this is a blog, and audience participation is limited, but here's what I want you to do: I want you to think about the Advent season (not Christmas, Advent)—and I want you to think of any piece of music that represents this season to you. Now, I want to be clear again: we’re looking for a piece that represents Advent, not Christmas, so if you’re thinking of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer you might want to think of another one—in fact, if you’re thinking of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer you might want to think of a better Christmas song, too, but that’s another matter.

Preaching on golden idols is hard: A sermon on money, Black Friday, and generosity

Scripture: Daniel 3:1,8-30

           A seminary professor of mine once said, “The church tells us two things about money: 1. Money is evil, and 2. Give us your money.” Which is why it’s tough to talk about money from the pulpit. Honestly, I wrote a sermon this week and I just kept writing and writing hoping I’d get around to the brilliant point that would help make this easier and I just never got there (you’re welcome for not preaching that sermon). It was over two thousand words and went mostly nowhere, so last night I just tossed it in the proverbial trash (with computers that’s a lot less dramatic—it looks more like copy/paste/delete—but you get my drift), and I started over.

You see, this story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is about golden idols, sort of. It’s about wealth and bowing to gods other than the true god, sort of. It’s about faithful Jews in a faithless land, sort of. It’s about a king that comes around, sort of. Basically that’s a lot of sort ofs, and the temptation with all of those “sort ofs” is to make a big elaborate point about them in the context of something we all experience, like—I don’t know—Black Friday. So, that’s what I was trying to do. Black Friday, golden idols, wealth, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—it was coming together and, yet, it wasn’t. I mean, it’s like asking “Would Jesus shop on Black Friday?” If you ask the question you are obviously looking for a certain answer, and the entire sermon felt like a leading question. If I’m just up here to mold the scripture to my ends, then I can do better, and you can do better than me. Instead, I want to talk about money and purchases, but in a way that doesn’t sell out the church as if it were some moral high ground on the issue, and also in a way that honors the guilt we all have in talking about this subject.

This is Your Obligatory (Almost) December Post about Waiting

            It’s got a catchy title and everything. Wait, wait, wait—that’s what it’s all about! Now, if only I could actually follow my own advice...

            I’m writing this on a Tuesday morning when I have a dozen things that need to get done in the next several hours and there’s not enough time for any of it. Waiting is not an issue; actually, I need more time. I expect I'm not the only one feeling this way. This is my least favorite time of the year and it really isn’t close, because as much as people want to talk about the exciting hustle and bustle of the malls and the lights and the Christmas music, I’m mostly overwhelmed and uncomfortable being out in any of it. Oh, how I wish I could just read a book by a fire, but instead every day brings another list of things to do.

            Probably you have some combination of hockey and basketball games, Christmas concerts, shopping and travel in this season; possibly you have all of the above. So much stuff. I don’t mind being busy, but it’s kind of ruining the point of the season. For as much as anti-consumerist-minded Christians have chimed “Jesus is the reason for the season” over and over again, the reality of Advent is that it actually has nothing to do with Jesus—at least not yet. It’s a time of waiting and anticipation; hence the title: “Your obligatory (almost) December post about waiting.”

            But the problem isn’t just that we’re terrible at waiting. The problem is that there is no time to wait, because there is no time to waste—or so it seems... or so we’re told.

            Martin Luther once said, “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”

Why do we want the end of the world?

So, I woke up this morning and the world was still spinning. Funny. I really thought the Mayans had this one, just like Harold Camping last May and every other would-be prophet of doom and destruction. It's the same refrain again and again: "Things are so messed up... we clearly must be nearing the end of the world!" they say. Funny, again, because reality suggests something else. If we're looking for the worst of all possible times, history is unlikely to side with the 21st century. Remember the Inquisition, the Black Death, the European wars of the middle ages, Civil Wars in America, France and other places, World War I, World War II and the Shoah. I mean, if we truly think things are worse now than under Hitler and Stalin then we need to gain some serious perspective.

Anyway, what is much more interesting than calculating how bad things have gotten and picking a date for God to end it all is why we would want the end of the world in the first place. Of course, most would-be prophets won't admit it, but that is really what's at work here: they want the end of the world. I suppose if you were to tease it out, these Christians (and people of other faiths as well, but let's be honest it's mostly Christians) are desperate for the apocalypse because it will usher in the reign of Christ. On the surface that makes sense. The world is a messy place. It would be much easier if we could just skip this business of living down here and fast-forward to the fully realized Kingdom of God. I get that.

The Spirit and the Messiness of Worship

Text: Joel 2:12-13, 28-29

            Last Wednesday the Nativity Scene at Grace blew over. It was so perfectly poetic I had to take a picture of it lying there flat on the ground. Jesus is not in the manger yet; we still have a few weeks of Advent. So I’m OK with subtle divine hints that maybe that nativity scene can wait. And besides, it was particularly appropriate that it was the wind that knocked it over, since the Hebrew word for “wind” (ruach) also means “spirit.” It was as if the Holy Spirit were saying, “No. Not yet. Slow down. Wait.”
             Lo and behold, now we have the prophet Joel this Sunday, again preaching on the Spirit. Joel is probably one of the least familiar books in the Bible, so I’ll forgive you if you aren’t Joel experts. Still, some of what we read today should be familiar. There’s that Lenten refrain: “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” Lent and Advent share some commonalities. They are both about reflection, they both involve turning or returning to God, and they are both times awaiting God’s in-breaking into the world. We understand that this is the season where we are anticipating Jesus, but God's in-breaking into our daily lives requires also the Holy Spirit. We don’t really talk about it much—because honestly we don’t talk about the Spirit much ever—but in this time of the year when we’re completely fine with angels and heavenly choruses it's astounding that we still manage to ignore the Holy Spirit.

Just Hope- King Darius' long night

Text: Daniel 6:6-27

           Some of you might be disappointed with the book of Daniel on the first Sunday in Advent. No hints of a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, nothing about a Messiah, no Mary or Elizabeth or John the Baptist; nothing much in the Christmas spirit at all. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess none of you make little nativity scenes of Daniel in the lions’ den. This has nothing to do with Christmas, which makes it perfectly appropriate for the first Sunday of Advent. You all are getting plenty of Christmas out there; let’s keep Jesus out of the manger until he’s good and ready. However, I am doing the story of Daniel a bit of a disservice if I suggest that any story—so long as it’s not directly about Jesus—is appropriate for the first Sunday of Advent. Some stories are better than others, and Daniel is actually a very appropriate Advent story.

Sit Down, Shut Up, Advent

It's that season again! My favorite time of the year; when advertisers convince us with ever louder and more important-sounding soundbites to spend, spend, spend like the future of our children depends on it; when consumerism runs amok. It's the time of the year for light displays and blaring Christmas music. It's the time of the year for busy malls, busier malls and malls so insanely busy no sane person would ever enter. All in the name of the holidays.

Give me a break.

No, seriously, I need a break. I am desperate for reprieve--a retreat from all that is hectic.

Recently, I've been going up to Winnipeg every Tuesday night to play in a chess tournament. Six Tuesday nights... three hours driving in all. Well worth it. At first I thought I was heading up because I missed the competition. There is some truth in that; I do like challenging myself; but lately I've realized it's more complicated than that. There is something about playing chess--and even the drive--that has centered me during a time in the year when everything else is moving far too fast. I realized, finally, that it's the silence.

There may be no state of being so consistently undervalued as silence. I used to think that there were people who enjoyed moving slow, for whom silence was a virtue, and people who had to be doing things, and I was the latter. However, I now realize that there are people who are able to contemplate in the stillness, and people, like myself, who have to find more innovative ways to exist in silence but who need it just the same. In fact, those of us who are, by our nature, moving from thing to thing as fast as humanly possible seem to need it more.

I never realized before why chess has been so important to me. It's meditative. Now, don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm purging my mind of thoughts while playing chess. Rather, I am concentrating fully on one thing and embracing the silence around me. It's prayer of a rather primitive sort and it satisfies a need. A chess tournament hall is silent. There is a reason that cell phones ringing carry a near death sentence to the serious chess player; silence is a virtue and causing noise is sin.

We have few of these chess tournament halls in our daily lives. Most of what we do is consumed with noise. Today, my office has been more or less obliterated as some dedicated workers put in new windows. I appreciate what they are doing--they are, after all, providing me with a tremendous service--but it means I am stuck out in the open in the midst of chaos and constant, punctuated noise. It's no place to work, and I dare say that if this were the only situation in which I ever worked my stress level would never recede. I miss silence.

My phone rings. Workers talk with me. A face pops in my office. The printers whir. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Advent is rough. It's rough because it is so countercultural. It's rough because it's not very convenient to our busy lives. It's rough because we think we know what to expect so how can we live in a time of waiting?

It's easier to skip it. It's easier to live out loud. That's the credo of my generation. Avoid silence at all costs. Silence is awkward. Sitting should be combined with television or video games. Silence is the enemy.

And so it goes. The stress levels rise. We find ourselves unable to contemplate, unable to relieve the immense burdens in our lives, and we begin to think that the world is going down the tubes. We enter negative feedback cycles. Soon the world out there is evil and out to get us. We are trapped by our own devices. There's never enough stuff or time or noise. The noise just gets louder even as it makes less and less sense.

But...

Maybe Advent isn't really so rough. Maybe it's that we never knew what Advent was in the first place. We gave up silence for noise, fellowship for goods, peace for the next big thing, and along the way we lost everything that made this season good and true. This is the season of quiet and stillness. It is the season to rest in wait. It is the season to turn off the computer and the television, extinguish the bright lights and leave the store-fronts behind. It's the time to sit still and watch the stars.

That's what the shepherds did.