Daily Advent Reflections

Daily Advent Reflection: December 5

First Saturday of Advent

Psalms 20, 21:1-7(8-14) · 110:1-5(6-7), 116, 117
Isa. 4:2-6
1 Thess. 4:13-18
Luke 21:5-19

In this first week of Advent – the beginning of a new Christian year – we look to the first Christian writing, Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians, for the culmination of that which we prepare to celebrate in the reality of God’s incarnation. For the second time in that writing, Paul proclaims to us the foundation of our faith and the source which is our hope: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose (4:14).” Only verses before is the earliest reference in the New Testament to the resurrection: “and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath (1:10).” It is the bookends of those points – our foundational Easter faith and a new Advent – that create an upward spiral of orientation and journey that guide our hope and that which Paul exhorted his first Christian community to live in.

Christian hope is not for that which we already know or possess. It differs radically from optimism which seeks to create the same – to return to a known place of safety. Rather, hope seeks to change the underlying structures and realities that held the past, however pleasing, in search for a more just and righteous experience of the fullness God offers all. RORÁTE CAÉLI DÉSUPER, ET NÚBES PLÚANT JÚSTUM. (Drop down ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.) This chant gives expression to the longings of Patriarchs and Prophets, and symbolically, of the Church for the coming of the Messiah which we await during Advent. Each time I have heard it sung in one of its many settings, it always produces in me a physical longing – a very deep experience of waiting and almost tasting the desire that saturates my spiritual being. And it awakens me to my restless nature and the paradox of my human activity which I feel must always be directed at a definite goal and product. It is during Advent when I become most keenly aware of my deepest longing for calm and rest and yet am caught-up in the culture that says I cannot wait or I’ll miss it.

As I write this, we are living in a western culture where Advent has not begun, but “Christmas” is already weeks old as artificial decorations have been dusted off and rehung (some only in hibernation since July). I am deeply aware of how much people, even and especially the non-religious, love and need Christmas. In our Christian tradition, we “need and love” Christmas by our very identity, yet we hold that we will not fully enter into that Incarnational moment unless we have waited in our own incarnation and experienced the deepest sense of longing that there must be more than this. To live apart from the anxiety of the world and know that there will be enough and more than the present moment offers is the core of our Judeo- Christian experience. It is the deepest experience of what sabbath means and the Incarnation expresses. The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand, satisfying the desire of every living thing. (Ps. 145:15-16) Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann explains “the world is an anxiety-free one of well-being because the creator is anxiety-free and publicly exhibits that freedom from anxiety by not checking things out. God is not a workaholic. God is not a Pharaoh. God does not keep jacking up production schedules. To the contrary, God rests, confident, serene, at peace. God’s rest, moreover, bestows on creatureliness a restfulness that contradicts the “driveness” of the system of Pharaoh.” (Sabbath as Resistance, pp. 29-30)

As you wait through this coming month, I hope that you will entertain the possibility of saying “wait, wait, don’t tell me” and practice a sort of spiritual hibernation that those Christmas decorations were not afforded. It may be as simple as lighting a candle to dine by rather than illuminating a chandelier decked with holly and garland; it might be as intentional as not lighting the house until the twelve days of Christmas; it might be as dangerous as waiting until next week to buy your wreath and greens and risking that they may be sold out. I trust they will still be out there, though it may take a journey through deep woods to find them. I hope you will.

The Rev. Brad Toebben
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Milwaukee

Daily Advent Reflection: December 4

First Friday of Advent

Friday Psalms 16, 17 · 22
Isa. 3:8-15
1 Thess. 4:1-12
Luke 20:41--21:4

‘How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?’  Luke 20:41

The Steward of Gondor, Denethor, is a hopeless figure in J.R. Tolkien’s classic The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Denethor’s job was to defend the kingdom as steward until the king returned. Through the use of a seeing stone called a palantir, Denethor became depressed at the strength of the evil Sauron’s forces. All he could see was death and destruction all around him when war came and his first-born son, Boromir, was killed. He then ordered his only living son, Faramir, on a doomed mission to defend the White City’s outer defenses. After Faramir returned mortally wounded, Denethor tried to burn both his half-dead son and himself on a funeral pyre, like the kings of old. Denethor lost all hope in the return of the king, so he disregarded the king’s instruction, and did not live as a steward of the king.

This is how we, as Christians, may sometimes feel when awaiting the return of our King. Advent rolls into Christmas, Christmas to Epiphany, Epiphany to Lent, Lent to Easter, Easter to Pentecost, and Pentecost to Advent again. Still, the King has not returned. We run the risk of the ruin of despair too, if we are not careful.

Despair in Latin—acedia—means sloth or discouragement. It is a deadly sin because it lacks the hope that faith provides. Yet hope is not had by having faith in faith. There is a sham version of hope, a hope in hope—hope in a brighter future, hope in more money, hope in a better you. Christian hope is different. Christian hope is found in seeking the King and doing His will in the midst of the joys and sorrows, trials and triumphs of this life. We are told in Scripture that ‘hope does not disappoint’ (Rom 5:5), because of who it is, in whom we believe.

Jesus turns to the crowds, and asks about the Sadducees who were questioning him, ‘How can they say that the Christ is David’s son?’ He then cites Psalm 110:1 where King David wrote:

‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, till I make your enemies your footstool.”’

The promise from old was that the Messiah would come from David’s line. He would be David’s ‘Lord’ because he would be greater than King David himself. How these words of Jesus must have burned in the ears of the Sadducees who did not believe in the coming of the Messiah.

Yet, if we are not careful, we can fall into a similar hopelessness by despairing about the return of Jesus Christ our King. As Christ came once, he will come again ‘to judge the living and the dead’ as 1 Pet 4:5 and the Creed remind us. When Jesus comes again, he will come as the long-awaited King: ‘On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords”’ (Rev 19:16).

Let us not be like the Steward of Gondor, who despaired and lost faith in the return of the King. The King is coming. Are you, steward of the Lord, prepared for the Advent our King?

The Rev. T.L. Holtzen, Ph.D.
St Paul’s Church Ashippun, WI
Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Nashotah House

Daily Advent Reflection: December 3

First Thursday of Advent

Psalms 18:1-20 · 18:21-50
Isa. 2:12-22
1 Thess. 3:1-13
Luke 20:27-40

Most of the time, I see the structure of the liturgical year and its various observances as a wonderful gift of our tradition. Waiting. Expectation. Preparation. Hope. These words are closely tied to our understanding of Advent, and they point to the joy, gratitude, and excitement that we feel during the Christmas season. The seasonal bustle of gifts, decorations, and gatherings, along with our anticipation of celebrating the birth of Jesus in community—we anticipate these things, and hold them in memory; they reflect the richness and love in our lives. But this year, familiar customs and simple nostalgia just won’t do.

I am writing this before the results of the 2020 election, and before the availability of a Covid-19 vaccine. In a few days Americans will know what the voters’ decisions have been, and start to discern a probable trajectory forward in our national life. I know what I’m hoping to see, and the suspense is killing me. And in the next several months, hopefully I’ll be rolling up my sleeve and getting a shot that will enable me to break my isolation and engage more fully with others, in person. But for the moment, I am stuck in worry, and located in Ordinary time, in a bad, sad, strange and difficult Ordinary time. How do we step across this threshold of the liturgical year into the beauty of Advent, when it might feel like we are standing in glue? 

What has been some kind of a saving grace is the commitment of groups of people to continue to connect—online, by phone, or email, or card. At St. Dunstan’s All Saints service this year, I got choked up seeing the faces on Zoom, including visual tributes to those who are now in the communion of saints. I wasn’t alone in that—many messages were exchanged that weekend expressing how grateful we are for one another, and how much we care and are cared for.

Today’s passage from 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13 touches us with the emotions that are so similar to what many of us feel—especially Paul’s words in verses 9-12.

"How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith. Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you."

Paul has been worried. He has decided to stay in Athens—this letter, among his others, reflects a time when he has left the fledgling communities to undergo his own challenges and persecutions, and leaving them to undergo theirs. He has built close relationships with them, he has taught and supported and delighted in what they have been able to build together. It is not an easy or secure time for any of them. What is touching is the affection and yearning Paul expresses. We can relate to Paul, our honored ancestor in faith—even though sometimes he’s curmudgeonly, judgy and harsh--because he cares so deeply about the community of faith moving forward, about who they were and what they would become. What a beautiful and hopeful thing to see such an outpouring of love from Paul! And in our times, we know that our emotions are very similar, and that we light up inside with happiness and gratitude to God when a well-loved face and voice we’re seeing and hearing at a distance assures us cheerfully, “I’m doing fine!” 

The spiritual meaning of Advent includes anticipation, hope, gratitude, and a feeling of being open to blessing. This year will feel very different. We will see and hear one another over phones and screens. There will be illness, financial stress, frustrations and disappointments of all kinds. We will need to make an extra effort to be kind, to reach out, to find those in need of generosity. Maybe we will set ourselves, alone or with others, to consciously “vigil”, an ancient practice of reflective waiting that has much to offer us. We will step into the hopeful time, embracing this space in our liturgical year knowing that it has always been there to offer us a chance for deeper communion, and also knowing that the One for whom we wait is the inspiration and model for our real-time, real-life love and care for one another.

Gloria Alt
St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church, Madison