For the past three weeks of Advent, we’ve been looking at the abstract themes each week centers on (Hope Preparation, Joy, Love), but another way churches sometimes celebrate Advent is devoting each week to certain characters in the Christmas story (Magi/Wisemen, Shepherds, Angels, Mary and Joseph). During this last week of Advent, set aside to remember the story of Mary and Joseph, I found myself thinking a lot about Mary—I find her reactions to be beautifully complex in our Gospel reading this week:

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be unable to conceive is in her sixth month. For no word from God will ever fail.”

“I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.” Then the angel left her.

Luke 1: 26-38 (NIV)

The things that strike me about Mary in this passage are: the way she is described, the blessing that is offered to her, the way she responds to it, and what all of these things have to say to us.

While Luke describes Elizabeth (Mary’s cousin, the mother of John the Baptist who is the other miraculous pregnancy in this story) in glowing terms (“righteous…living blamelessly”), Mary is simply “a virgin,” not described as extraordinarily holy, but as an ordinary person: she’s a small-town girl, with her life moving along the quiet, ordinary path of an arranged marriage. Not that being an ordinary girl in a small village makes Mary without spirit or strength; I often find myself thinking of Mary in the way she is traditionally painted—meek, mild, submissive—but maybe that’s not an entirely accurate picture. Maybe Mary’s responses throughout this encounter are more fearless than is sometimes appreciated. Being perplexed at the appearance of an angel seems like a completely legitimate response, even more so when the angel begins the conversation by proclaiming divine presence and assuming that she’s afraid. Give the girl a chance, Gabriel! She seems more confused than afraid, and her question “How will this be?” is not an expression of doubt as much as it is an effort to understand the extraordinary words of the angel.

And Gabriel’s words are indeed extra-ordinary. Mary has just been told that God is going to make her pregnant and that this child will be the Messiah. The blessing that Gabriel offers Mary is a very strange one: having a child out of wedlock which will totally ruin her reputation and disrupt her quiet, ordinary life. The angel did not ask Mary how this sounded to her and whether she would like to try out for the role; he just told her. (I notice that in my Bible, this passage isn’t titled “The Request,” or “The Invitation,” but “The Annunciation”—as in “announcement”). I’ve been wrestling with the question of Mary’s “choice” and her freedom to respond in this most unusual situation. Yes, the angel announced the impending birth and didn’t ask Mary for her assent, but there is a choice for Mary: whether to say yes to it or no, whether to take hold of the unknown life the angel held out to her or whether to hold on to her old life. And Mary is courageous enough to say yes: “May your word to me be fulfilled,” or “Let it be to me as you have said.”

We have a similar choice in our own lives. Like Mary, our choices often boil down to yes or no: yes, I will live this life that is being held out to me or no, I will not; yes, I will explore this unexpected turn of events, or no, I will not. Trusting that all things are possible with God requires a leap of faith, not only for Mary but for us. And our choice here is crucial. We suppose that God could have chosen to save the world, to fulfill God’s promises of old all on God’s own. However, this humble but earth-shaking conversation between Mary and Gabriel tells us that God wants humanity to be part of the effort, even if it makes things much more complicated and even difficult (which it always does): “God intends to draw Mary and all of us into what God is doing and God apparently is not willing to do this behind our backs or without our own participation” (Brian K. Peterson, New Proclamation 2008). And this is what, in some mysterious way, makes Mary’s story our own.

As Advent comes to an end and Christmas approaches, we look at our lives and ask: What is God doing today, here in our midst, too wonderful for our imaginations or our words? What is your hope on this last Sunday in Advent? What extraordinary and grace-filled things have happened in your life, and what extraordinary and grace-filled things may yet happen? Are we willing to say “yes” to what God is doing, even if it means sacrificing our comfort and prosperity? What is our role in the midst of what God is doing? How are we bearing God in this world?

 Author: Alicia McClintic

The third Sunday of Advent marks a shift away from the solemn tone of the previous two Sundays which focus on preparation and hope, to a more joyous atmosphere of anticipation and expectancy. The candle we light on the Advent wreath is pink, reminding us that our waiting is almost over and we can hardly contain our joy. During this week, devoted to the theme of Joy, we are reminded that the Christmas message is one of rejoicing, that the message of the angels to the shepherds was one of “good tidings of great joy.”  In fact, the traditional name for the third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin word for “Rejoice!”, because the command to rejoice appears repeatedly throughout the traditional liturgy.

The theme of rejoicing is overwhelming in the readings for this week. First we read Isaiah’s prophecy of the joys of the coming kingdom and his declaration that “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall exult in my God” (Isaiah 61:10). Again in Luke we read the words of Mary from her joyful song, the Magnificat: “My soul rejoices in my God, my spirit finds joy in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47). The passage we read from Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians begins with the words “Rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16), reminding us that we rejoice not only at this time, but at all times because Christ has come and is coming again.

But of all these passages and songs from the third Sunday of Advent that remind me of the joy of Christmas and the joyful message of Christ, I find this week’s Psalm (Psalm 126) particularly interesting:

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed.Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.” The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.

Psalm 126:1-6 (ESV)

I like this psalm because it expresses profound joy at the great things God has done, but it also recognizes—just like the rest of Advent—that the joy of the Kingdom has not yet fully come, but we live with the promise that our joy will be restored. The psalm has two stanzas (verses 1-3; 4-6): the first stanza recalls God’s past acts of restoration and the emotions of joy and celebration that accompanied those saving acts, and the second stanza rephrases these themes in the form of renewed appeals for restoration.

In the beginning of the psalm, the people remember what God had done for them in the past and rejoice; not only has the Lord done “great things,” recognized by the other nations, but “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”  But the psalm moves from remembering God’s work in the past to asking God to restore them once again. Mourning has given way to laughter and joy, but that laughter and joy is now in the past, and the community is left hoping that once again the Lord will do a “great thing for us.” The psalmist shifts from remembering the past and instead longs for a similar work of God in the world now, praying that what began in tears and weeping will end with songs of joy and arms filled with proof of God’s great work in their midst.

Psalm 126 is one of the Songs of Ascent—one of the songs sung by travelers as they made their way to the newly rebuilt temple after their return from exile. The Songs of Ascent would be sung as pilgrims made their way “up” to Jerusalem to worship and/or celebrate a special holy day; the themes of these Songs of Ascent are very similar: “God delivered us in the past, and we know God will continue to deliver us now and in the future.” Their deliverance or restoration may not be immediate (suggested by the period of waiting implied by the images of sowing and harvesting), but it is promised, and they live hopefully waiting for its fulfillment.

Just as generations in Israel looked back at the great things God had done for them and at the same time looked toward restoration and a time of joyful harvest in the future, Advent is also a time for us to look back as well as ahead. We remember the joy of the first coming of Christ and all the great things God has done for us, but we also look forward to the second coming of Christ and the time when our joy will be complete. Many in this Advent season are longing for the restoration and reversal expressed in Psalm 126. They are waiting with expectation for tears to be changed into songs of joy—and Advent reminds us that our waiting is not in vain. During Advent we remember God’s restorative acts in the past, our own joy, and the testimony of the nations to God’s deliverance. And we know that until the Son of God comes again, we will be in constant and everlasting need of God’s continued restoration. Psalm 126 reminds us that “the Lord has done great things for us,” and we are called to live expectantly, fully convinced that the tears and weeping of our day will be changed into songs of joy because the God we serve is a God of restoration and reversal. During Advent we recognize that because God has already come to us, we can trust that God will fulfill promises to bring restoration, deliverance, healing, and joy.

Author: Alicia McClintic

On the Second Sunday of Advent we lit the second candle on the Advent Wreath, the candle of Preparation, and read these verses from the first chapter of the Gospel of Mark:

The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God,as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:

“I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way”—
“a voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.’”

And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

I love the way Mark starts his Gospel, basically saying: “Here’s the beginning of the good news about Jesus. It starts with this guy named John (well, really with Isaiah, but let’s start with John).” If John the Baptist (as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy) is the beginning of the good news, what he is doing—preparing the way—must be essential to the story. Last week we learned that Advent is literally about arrival—recognizing the coming of Christ into our lives, celebrating that God is with us, God’s kingdom is breaking in, and everything has changed. This week we recognize that Advent is also a time of preparation: Isaiah says, “Make straight paths for him,” but I love the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases John the Baptist’s words in The Message:

“Change your life. God’s kingdom is here. The real action comes next: The star in this drama, to whom I’m a mere stagehand, will change your life. I’m baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. His baptism—a holy baptism by the Holy Spirit—will change you from the inside out.”

Advent is intended to be a season of preparation for Christ to come into our lives. But how do we prepare the way of the Lord? For me, it starts with preparing my own heart to receive the incredible gift of God’s presence.

For me, Advent is a time to pause, a time to rest and breathe, as I prepare for the possibility for God to do something new in my life. I think breathe is a perfect word to describe Advent, a perfect answer to how we prepare the way of the Lord. Breathing is a two-part process: we exhale (get rid of carbon dioxide) and we inhale (take in fresh oxygen). Advent is also a time to exhale and inhale—a time to set aside and to pick up. Set aside that which drags you out of the present (the life you are living right now in this moment), and get rid of what is hindering you and what is no good to you. Pick up that which has been rich and good and hope-filled in your life, and figure out how you are going to live out that goodness in today’s world, in your life right now, and as you go into the future.

In preparing to receive Christ anew in my life at Christmastime, here are some of the questions I have been asking myself: What do we need to cast aside and what do we need to hold onto? What should we be “exhaling” during this time of breathing in the season of Advent? What do we need to set aside? We don’t need to keep this baggage—let’s leave it and never look back. Who would you be without that old stuff? … And also what should we be “inhaling” in this season? What needs picking up? What surprise awaits our recognition? What do we need to change as we head into the future?

We are getting ready to give witness to the birth of Love in the world. The One who has come to us, God-With-Us in our daily lives, has something so much greater than anything we could put on our Amazon Wishlist. Christ has come to surprise us with his love for us—his redeeming, ever-present, never-broken love for us, a love that changes everything… What a surprise that would be to recognize it in our daily lives. What a loss that would be to miss it.

Author: Alicia McClintic

If Advent is a season characterized by waiting, for what and for whom are we waiting? Whose arrival are we anticipating? What is it that we wish for and yearn for? What is our hope pinned on? The first Sunday of Advent focuses us on prophesies of God’s coming kingdom as well as our hope and longing for Jesus to establish it. The passages that we read this week center on our longing for God’s kingdom, what the kingdom and Messiah will be like, and how Jesus is the very one we have been hoping, longing, and waiting for. The Old Testament passages remind us of the centuries-old hope for the Messiah, and the New Testament passages remind us of our hope and longing for Christ to come again.

Both the psalmist and the prophet Isaiah are writing in the midst of, and out of, the suffering of their people. The questions they ask—Where are you, God? Why don’t you do something to fix this awful situation? Why don’t you “come down” and make things right?—are the same that we ask today. How often do we wonder “Where is God now?” Just listen to the news; we hear of so much violence, both in foreign lands and in our own city streets. We hear of dissatisfaction with the economy and politics. We hear of poverty and hunger. We know people who are sick, people who are dying, people who have recently died. Even our days are getting darker, colder, rainier.

During Advent, we sing this song, so full of longing for Emmanuel, “God With Us”:

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Thou Day-Spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here.
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel.

In the middle of our “lonely exile,” “gloomy clouds of night,” and “death’s dark shadows” along comes Advent, with its message of hope and joy and its promise of peace and healing. The scriptures teach us that Christ is coming into the world—and is in fact already present among us—and on the first Sunday of Advent, this is our hope. No matter how bad things are, there is this gift: God entering into the world in the form of a child.

The object of Christian hope is the kingdom of God, and we continue to hope for it because we know God is faithful and God can be trusted. God knows our anxieties, God knows that we pass through hard places, God knows that we wonder about our destinies, where and how life is going to end for us. Christians believe that the fulfillment of this hope has been made possible through the first coming of Christ. We believe that God has indeed come down to us. And we hope for even more. The best is yet to come: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Right now, we live in the in-between times. So what do we do now? We go about our lives, we live and work and rest and love and pray. On our better days, we live in faith and confidence, trusting all that we are, all that we have, and all that we hope to be to the Lord. On our not-so-good days, we ask God to carry us through. We remember that the holy breaks into the daily, the extraordinary interrupts the ordinary, and we long for it and look for it expectantly.

Advent is a time for honoring longing—a longing which has already been answered by Jesus. Emmanuel means precisely “God-With-Us.” God is already with us, loving us, teaching us—so although our hope is not yet fully fulfilled, in some ways it is already fulfilled. We are reminded that we belong to God, and that all the earth belongs to God, and we believe that God breaks into this reality regularly. He has already been born, he is already in our midst offering his healing presence and exhilarating love. We may have stumbled over this gift of God’s presence a thousand times, not recognizing it for what it truly is. During Advent, then, our first step is to open up our planned out lives so that a little surprise can sneak into our day. Loosen up, look beyond the lists, be attentive beyond our own planning and hope for something new. God is always showing up where least expected, if only we would stop and notice.

Author: Alicia McClintic

Advent is a season of the Christian liturgical year, which means that there are specific scripture readings and themes taught on each of the four Sundays of Advent (mostly in the more liturgical Christian traditions, i.e.: Catholic, Anglican, Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, and others who use the Common Lectionary, a collection of scripture readings appointed for each day of the year). If you are interested, you can find the list of this year’s weekly scripture readings for Advent from the Common Lectionary here: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/lections.php?year=A&season=Advent . Each week’s reading includes a passage from the Old Testament, from a Gospel, from a New Testament epistle, and from a Psalm.

While some may think liturgy is old-fashioned or too tied to legalism, I have come to appreciate the value of traditional liturgy in giving me words to express the deepest spiritual realities of my life. When we light a candle on the Advent wreath, or read the prophecies of the coming kingdom, or sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” we are given words to express our deepest desires for a complete wholeness that nothing around us can provide.

In addition to giving me words to express things that are in some ways beyond my capacity for words, the liturgy also focuses me (let’s be honest, I could use the help). The responsive readings force me to slow down and provide a space for me to recognize how much I long for Jesus’ coming. I think sometimes we’ve often forgotten what we are longing for, and Advent lets us speak our longing openly and plainly by helping us fix it on Christ. Advent is not simply a longer span of time to enjoy peppermint mochas, caroling, and Christmas trees (although I do enjoy those things a lot); it’s also a time for us to fix our hope and longing on Christ’s return and on the day when all things will be put right.

Finally, liturgy connects me to the other members of the body of Christ—across time and across language barriers. Christians have been praying this way and practicing these traditions for centuries around the world (which is one of the reasons I think these traditions are important and am hesitant to disregard them), and joining in that tradition reminds me that I am not alone (which is always a good thing to know… and maybe you need to hear that too).

Author: Alicia McClintic

Did any of you grow up with “Advent calendars”—you know, where every day you open a pop-out door to get a nugget of candy—to count down the days until Christmas? Our Advent calendars were definitely one of my favorite parts of the holiday season when I was growing up. As a kid, I was just excited to eat chocolate and to see December 25 getting closer every day, but as an adult the season of Advent (the four weeks before Christmas Day) has come to mean so much more to me.

From the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming,” the season of Advent is a time of expectant waiting, joyful anticipation, and reflective preparation for celebrating the coming of Jesus at Christmas. The season of Advent serves as a reminder both of the original waiting for the coming of the Messiah as well as our continued waiting for his second coming. It is a season of expectant longing for the Messiah—the one who will come to set the world right. Advent, then, is a season characterized primarily by waiting (something many of us may have forgotten how to do at all, much less do well).

Implicit in this period of waiting is the acknowledgement that our world is broken and that we desperately need the Messiah to bring healing and salvation. One of the paradoxes of the season is that we recognize that with the birth of Christ the Messiah has already come, yet we cannot help recognizing that God’s kingdom of peace and justice has not yet fully come. That is, we have healing and salvation for our souls through Jesus, but we still live in a world that is fundamentally broken, unjust, and deeply in need of healing. We see the poor, the hungry, and the hurting, and we long for those promises to be fulfilled. For me, part of the wisdom of Advent is its open acknowledgement of human longing—and its magnetic pull back toward Christ, the Expected One. Advent gives a clear answer to our disappointment with the brokenness of the world: of course all is not well right now—we are waiting for the one who will make all things well.

Remember those childhood Advent calendars I mentioned earlier? Well, there is an adult version: the Advent wreath. The Advent wreath is a circle (symbolic of eternity and a reminder that God has no beginning or end and God’s kingdom is eternal) made of evergreen branches (symbolic of eternal life and a reminder that God is unchangeable). There are five candles on the wreath, which are lit on each of the four Sundays of Advent and on Christmas Day. The first candle (purple) is the Prophecy candle, or candle of Hope; the second (also purple) is the Bethlehem candle, or the candle of Preparation; the third (pink) is the Shepherds’ candle, or the candle of Joy; the fourth (purple again) is the Angels’ candle, or the candle of Love; the fifth candle (white) in the center is the Christ candle. Three of the candles are purple, reminding us of the penitential and reflective nature of the season—it is a time to prepare our hearts to meet Immanuel, God-With-Us, and a time to remember that our God came (and comes) to meet with us. A pink candle is lit on the third Sunday, reminding us that our waiting is almost over and we can hardly contain our joy. The Christ candle, lit on Christmas Day, is white, reminding us of his purity and his sacrifice. Each Sunday, a candle is lit and a particular passage of scripture or responsive reading from the liturgy is read that corresponds to that week’s theme.

During the next few weeks, I will be writing some reflections about the season of Advent and its themes, and I want to invite you to join me in celebrating Advent this year. One of the ways Westgate is celebrating Advent is participating in a movement called the Advent Conspiracy—a movement that suggests that if Christians are celebrating the coming of Christ during Advent, they ought to be intentionally practicing the message of Christ during Advent (and always for that matter). Here’s a blurb from the Advent Conspiracy website about the movement:

“The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love.  So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a Savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists. And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas? What if Christmas became a world-changing event again? That’s what Advent Conspiracy is all about: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All. Christmas can [still] change the world.”

Check out the rest of their website (http://www.AdventConspiracy.org), and consider taking the challenge. We believe that the coming of Christ changed the world and that the message of Christ is revolutionary. How would our Christmas season and—much more importantly—our lives and our world change if we acted like it?

Author: Alicia McClintic