Archives: Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway? #11Reflections for Christmas and Advent |
Table of Contents
Reflections for Advent and the Christmas Season
- First Sunday of Advent
- Second Sunday of Advent
- Third Sunday of Advent
- Fourth Sunday of Advent
- Christmas Eve
- Christmas I
- Epiphany
Reflections for Advent and the Christmas Season
Introduction
As we make ourselves ready for Christmas, do we find times to make ourselves ready for the coming of Jesus? Every Christmas, we, as Christians, are called to remember the roots of our faith.
While finding meaning and joy in the midst of Christmas commercialism is sometimes difficult, there are things we can do. By setting aside time to reflect and worship together, we can prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus.
Using These Reflections & Worshipful Ceremonies
The resources provided here are meant to offer individuals, families and other small groups a way to remember the reason we celebrate this holy season. The reflections begin the first week of Advent and follow through the Feast of Epiphany.
Before Advent begins, you will need to make an Advent wreath. Find a book with instructions for making an Advent wreath. Or follow these simple directions. Take a large, flat shallow bowl (at least 9 inches in diameter) and fill it with sand or coarse salt. Place four purple candles around the edge of the bowl. Place a large white candle in the center. Stick the candles down into the sand or salt so that they stand securely in place. Make a circle of evergreens and place them around the bowl.
You will also need a manger scene, a Bible and matches. Light one purple candle the week of Advent I; two the week of Advent II, etc. Light all five beginning on Christmas Eve.
Set aside time each week to worship, perhaps before or after a meal on Sundays or another day of the week. Invite those who may be alone to join in your worship.
Look ahead at the family calendar. Decide on the dates to use each ceremony. The hymn could be read or sung several times.
The reflections may be used as part of the ceremony or separately. Depending on the ages of those in your group, adults may want to read the biblical reflections beforehand. You may want to preview the ceremonies to adapt the content as needed for your group.
Incorporate parts or all of the Advent-Christmas calendar into worship time, especially as a discussion starter.
Gather around the Advent wreath. Take turns reading, lighting the candles, praying, singing and sharing feelings and ideas.
Reflections
by Megan McKenna
First Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 2:1-5
Matthew 24:36-44
O nation of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord! The ancient prophet Isaiah sounds the trumpet blast and summons all the world to a new vision of life so full of hope and peace that it could only be dreamed of by God, who will make it come true. It is Advent. It is homecoming, both ours and our God's, being welcomed back after long absence. It is the memory of the coming of the child that was the peace of God so long ago in history and the return of the child into our world in our hearts this year: 1998. And it reminds us of the last reunion, when God comes again finally to reclaim all the world. So we begin this season with three homecomings -- our past, our present and our end... all that was meant to come true.
And it begins with righting great wrongs: the wrongs of war, of destruction, of peoples divided and separated, calling one another enemy instead of friend and the toll this hate takes on the earth itself. We begin with the first lesson to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. How not to raise our swords against others, and how to stop training for war ever again. It is a lesson that alters and repairs broken covenants and restores the possibility of life truly lived in freedom and hope for all peoples.
And this homecoming is a repeat performance. God tried it before in Noah's time, though others didn't heed God's warnings. Will it be the same this year for us? Or have we learned some things from the past? God is coming! The Son of Man is coming! The reign of Peace is coming! The moment is going to be quick and decisive and it will come for everyone. So what are we to do?
Stay awake! This is the moment when it begins, when the world begins to turn towards home and everything we know will change. God is coming. God's creeping up on us like a thief breaking into our house and our world. The Holy One is coming to visit. Are we ready?
Advent is like a guard dog barking loudly and trying to wake us up from a sound sleep because there is an intruder in our house, in our world! Are we awake? Today we are warned, shaken up! Throw open the door. Rouse everyone in the house. Roll out the red carpet. Get busy with preparations. Sweep the house and be on your toes. God is so close.
Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 11:1-10
Matthew 3:1-12
Now two prophets are shouting at us: Isaiah and John the Baptist! And the vision grows from a shoot into a branch and then into fruit, into a person who judges all the world with justice, especially the poor and the non-violent. And everything shifts towards the fruit of justice, which is peace. All adversaries and enemies are friends: the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the calf and the lion cub, the cow and the bear, the cobra and the child and there is no harm, no violence... only peace!
This will take work, change and repentance, a restoring of order and a healing of wounds. This is the work of John the Baptist, of the Holy Spirit and of fire and it begins with confession, with acknowledgment of our sin and destruction of one another, followed by a wholehearted turning into the way of the Lord who is coming. It is a straightening out of knots and mazes and deadends in the world and in our hearts.
There is an ancient story told of the Buddha who was threatened by a bandit on a mountain road. He had no money to give him and Buddha asked at least for his dying wish to be granted. Please, cut off the branch of that tree. The bandit slashed away. Now, he said, put it back together again. The bandit laughed and then when he saw that the Buddha was seriously, he mocked him and said he was insane and stupid because that was impossible. But the Buddha looked at him and said that he was the one who was stupid and insane because it is easy and stupid to destroy, to kill and cut off and stop growth. What is truly hard work that needs imagination, skill, and grace is to heal, to create and restore to life.
This is the work of this week, alongside Isaiah and John the Baptist. We are to shout in the desert, to prepare a way for the Lord, to straighten out the world and stop the destruction, to make friends out of old enemies, to sit side by side sharing food and life, to make peace on earth. It is time to get serious about our intent and work of converting the world through justice.
Third Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 35:1-10
Matthew 11:2-11
Have courage, do not fear. See, your God comes, demanding justice. God comes to save us! God's getting closer and the effects are beginning to show. And what effects! The blind see. The deaf hear. The lame leap up. The dumb shout and sing. The lepers are clean and whole. The dead come to life and the poor have good news given to them! Can we believe that? The desert becomes a garden and the way is now a highway of holiness.
Such gifts: strength, comfort, healing, restoration, justice, revelation, forgiveness and best of all, the possibility that this is life and will be the future for all peoples. John the Baptist is now in jail for telling the truth and saying that everything will change drastically, that God is about making something new and that justice is coming. And he's asking the question we all ask: are you the one or should be expect someone else? John is suffering unjustly and the times are dark and cruel and he wonders.
The vision is a bit blurred and indistinct. Our world is marked by such cruelties and injustice still and it's hard to see in the dark of hate, amid so much inequality and suffering. Are you the one? How can we tell? Easy, really. Everywhere the world leans towards justice, towards compassion, towards freedom, towards hope. We know that our God is present, near and turning the hearts of people towards one another and towards home. This day is for rejoicing, for summoning our courage and singing out together for the earth is being remade and refashioned into a place of springs and flowing waters and a garden again.
Marty Haugen has written a song whose refrain puts it powerfully: Let justice roll like a river, and wash all oppression away; Come, O God and take us, move and shake us, Come now, and make us anew, that we might live justly like you. ("Let Justice Roll Like a River," 1991 GIA Publications, Inc.) Come sing together to the glory of the Lord. Our God is close enough to hear! This kind of music is a message for all the world to hear and take heart from. Sing out!
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 7:1-16
Matthew 1:18-25
Ah, here it is -- the birth announcement. The child's name shall be Emmanuel, which means God is with us, dwelling with us, sojourning with us, coming home and staying with us, until forever. Can you believe it? In the midst of evil and in a land fraught with division and hypocrisy -- among kings who do not want God interfering with their policies -- is coming one who will interrupt us and alter the outcome of all history. But it's not happening as you might think: with fanfare, public accolates and in places of power.
No, it's coming in dreams, in words of vision, among the poor and those who can hardly believe the good news sprung upon them. A sign: a child who will choose good and refuse evil and cherish virtue. A child, born under threat, in secret, amid ponderings and anguish, who triggers hard decisions for those associated with him, but a child who dispels fears and is born of the Spirit of God and whose very presence brings holiness and hope to those who have been waiting so long for his coming. Now we meet Joseph, a dreamer who stakes his life on what he is told by a messenger of God, and Mary who is entrusted to him by the Spirit. And he is told another name for his child: Jesus, which means the one who will save his people from their sins. But Joseph the just man has been living on dreams and the visions of the prophets all his life and so this dream is the culmination of the pattern. He AWAKES and obeys the angel's words and takes into his heart and his home, both Mary as his wife and the child to be born, Jesus the Christ.
The time is so close. Now is the time for hard decisions, life-giving and sustaining decisions in the face of death and darkness, even despair. What are we waiting for? What are we living for?
Once there was a young woman who was stricken with pneumonia and slowly dying. She would look out the window at a great tree, as the leaves fell torn by the wind and the cold. She was resigned to dying and told her friends, that with the last leaf that fell from the tree, she would depart as well. But that last leaf... it refused to fall. It held on for dear life. It clung to that branch. And the woman lived. It was only then that she learned that that last leaf had been painting on the window by a friend, as she slept.
Our story is even better than that one. God has made, is making the dreams and the visions come true. Justice, peace and hope is now a person, a child to be born in our midst -- in incarnation... God made flesh among us and in our hearts and history again, by belief and obedience, as once it came through Joseph and Mary. Now it is our turn, our time to live, to hang on for dear life, for a dearer life and to let God dwell with us. It is almost time. God is coming home to us. Open the door and let God in.
Christmas Eve
Isaiah 9:2-7
Luke 2:1-20
Here it is: the night of nights! Light comes to shatter the darkness. Despair and oppression is dispelled and dawn heralds life and freedom. Joy is let loose upon the earth and it is time to share in the goodness of the Lord. War is outlawed and violence exiled, pushed to the borders of life. This child opens a space in the world that can only expand into a refuge, a sanctuary, holy ground, a place of grace and security, built on justice and righteousness, for all peoples. Some day, one day his dominion will be vast and it will have no end: the place is earth, home. Its new name is Peace.
The crack in the universe begins to be noticed in Nazareth, with a trail that grows brighter in Bethlehem, outside the halls of power, in fields afar off from the rooms of this world's might and ruling power. The Holy breaks in, in light of angels and in song, songs of freedom and joy. More signs: there will be a child, an unknown and unnoticed child of the poor, a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. This child is the Messiah, the Lord, the Glory of God breathing and sleeping among us, the Savior.
The first to know are shepherds tending their flocks on the outskirts of town. It seems that fringes, margins, edges and boundaries are where our God gets in first, among those who are easily caught off guard and who are awake! This night especially we are to stay alert: to stay up all night if necessary and to listen for the echo of the song that was sung into the universe so long ago. Some say it is the first song, first hummed into existence when God the Maker of all things sighed and breathed over the empty dark at the dawn of time and light came forth and the song has been growing stronger as God breathes in us through all of time. The words become more distinct and clear this night: "Glory to God in the highest; peace on earth for God is blessing humankind. Glory to God in the highest; peace on earth to all of good will. God's favor rests on us. Glory to God in the highest."
That dear night God was born of a woman, Mary and was tended by a dreamer, Joseph. This dear night our God wants to be born of us, all men and women who believe in the Word that has been given to us in dreams and visions of faith and wants to be tended by all men and women of goodwill, of justice and peace. This dear night may God find us awake, our heart open so that this space inside us might become a haven of peace for all our weary waiting world. Amen.
Christmas 1
Isaiah 63:7-9
Matthew 2:13-23
Who is this child? What shall he grow up to be? What will he do? We are told comforting words from the past: "He has granted us mercy in the abundance of his steadfast love... Out of his love and mercy, he redeemed them, lifting them up and carrying them as in the days of old." Another name for this child, it seems, could be Mercy, graciousness, tender regard, compassionate care, balm for wounds and solace for weary souls and broken hearts. Mercy has come, uninvited but welcome into our world.
But mercy disturbs power and brings forth rage from those whose lives are based on evil and violence, like Herod, and so the child and his mother and father must run, run for their lives. This time the dreams come as warning, as directions to safety, for now. And they go into exile and stay long years hiding from those who would kill the child, kill hope, kill dreams and possibilities. And others do not escape the wrath. Just being associated with this presence of peace, with mercy among us is cause enough for slaughter and murder of the innocent born and living in the neighborhood of Bethlehem. So close to Christmas, such destruction. It is the shadow of the cross. It is the intimation of the struggle that lies ahead. It begins here, now.
Mary and Joseph will eventually return to their home in Nazareth to raise the child but they will carry with them the memory of the horror and loss that accompanied the birth of their beloved child. Christmas may stop the horror momentarily in this world but oftentimes the death and suffering caused by others and sin can seem worse in relation to the respite of peace and the fleeting experience of harmony and hope. But we are told that the family 'settles' down and the child grows and matures. It is a silent and hidden growing, in an out of the way place, but quiet and sure and ever stronger and truer.
Earth knows. A few folks know. Something has been set in motion. T.S. Eliot says it this way:
With the drawing of this
Love and the voice of this calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all of our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
We start here, quietly saving what we can in the face of violence and suffering, believing in mercy, in salvation and redeeming among us, growing up in our midst.
Epiphany
Isaiah 60:1-6
Matthew 2:1-12
The light has come to us, though it is still dark in the world, though evil and death still has its time. But the light cannot be contained and it will burst forth like the sun breaking over the mountains and glory will stream across the earth. It is the time of the manifestation, the showing forth of the glory of God. It is time for us to stand and lift our faces to the light, to the Sun of Justice and let the face of God make our faces radiant and set our hearts throbbing with life and hope. One day all the world will see and know what has entered the world and human history in the presence of this child born of Mary.
For now there are strangers, wise ones from the east who have seen the signs and caught sight of a star, a portent of another power now on earth. They come searching, wanting to offer gifts and homage and to align themselves with the future and what is aborning on the earth. They stumble into Herod's palace, into the domain of those who care only for their own life and place in the world, and their good news disturbs those who make the world secure only for those who hate and destroy.
But as soon as they leave, the star finds them again and leads them home. It stays where the child sleeps with Mary its mother. They kneel and worship and give over their hearts. And as soon as they do, they too begin to have dreams and to recognize evil and know wisdom. They are given gifts and they learn to go home by another way.
Another way -- that's what Advent and Christmas are all about -- another way to live, another way to love, another way to belong.
A twelve year old girl from Beersheva wrote a poem that was set to music and performed at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honoring Yitzak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. It is called "I Had a Box of Paints."
I had a box of paints
Each color glowing with delight:
I had a box of paints with colors
Warm and cool and bright.
I had no red for wounds and blood.
I had no black for an orphaned blind.
I had no white for the face of the dead.
I had no yellow for burning sand.
I had orange for joy and life.
I had green for buds and blooms.
I had blue for clear bright skies.
I had pink for dreams and rest.
I sat down
And painted
Peace.
For the rest of the year we are summoned to honor this child, born Peace who will grow up to bring mercy and save us all. Peace dwells among us, hidden and growing stronger. Keep your eyes open and you will catch a glimpse of the glory of God who stays at home with us now, until forever.
About the Reflections'Author
Megan McKenna, popular storyteller and author, well-known for her workshops and retreats, received her doctorate from the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. She has taught in Chicago, San Francisco, Dublin and Albuquerque. Her books include Lent: Reflections and Stories, Not Counting Women and Children, Parables, Mary: Shadow of Grace, and Angels Unawares.
This page last updated 20 October 2012
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