November 28, 2004
By Jack Price

            Are you ready for Christmas?  What do you need to be ready to celebrate Christmas as you want?

            Today is the beginning of the season of Advent, a time marked in the Christian church’s calendar for preparing ourselves to celebrate Jesus’ birth at Christmas.  Like Christmas, Advent is a late addition to the church’s festivals – more than 400 years after the actual birth of Jesus of Nazareth. 

            No one really knows just when Jesus was born and so the celebration of Christ’s birth was assigned to the date of an immensely popular holiday celebrating the reemergence of the sun after the winter solstice.  That’s how we got the date December 25^th for Christmas and, consequently, how the season of Advent came into being.

            Christmas had very little to do with the actual birth of Jesus.  His birth was an event completely ignored by history.  Only two of the four biblical gospels even include birth narratives and the two have very little in common.  But we do know that Jesus was born.  We know it because he lived and because he died, but Christmas does not have much to do with the man Jesus.

Christmas has everything to do with the Christ whose resurrection and ascension has brought reconciliation between heaven and earth.  Christmas celebrates the birth of Emmanuel – God with us.  That is why there are angels and miraculous events.  Christmas connects directly to Easter and resurrection and the living presence of the Christ Spirit today.  This is why we still celebrate the holy birth today.  This is why, even above the clamoring of commercials, silver bells, and shopping mall spells, we still seek the good news of Christmas:  God with us; “peace on earth to people of good will”.

            Advent is not quite Christmas, but its theme of preparing the way for Christmas is often sounded by the Old Testament prophet Isaiah.  The theme of this Advent season is “Isaiah’s Desert Highway,” inspired by the prophet’s famous words:  “make straight in the desert a highway for our God”.  The season of Advent is itself a journey, pathway to travel so that we arrive at Christmas ready and able to worship Emmanuel -- God with us.

            There is a plaque at the entrance to the United Nations building in New York City containing words of the prophet Isaiah:  “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”  The UN has known many successes in working for peace among nations.  There have been failures as well.  We still live   in a world that cries out “Peace, peace, [and] there is no peace”.  This world we live in does lack for peace.  The promises of shalom seem distant and faded.  The love of God feels more like a dream than a reality.  In such a world, we are preparing for Christmas.

            The promise of this season is shalom – God’s peace on earth.  Shalom is God’s plan for the whole creation, God’s goal for all of us according to the Bible.  This is peace not tranquility – not just feeling good, as though all is right with the world.  Shalom is peace as a positive force, as connectedness between people.  Shalom is clarity when there is confusion and courage in the midst of conflict.

            We need peace in this season.  There are so many voices telling us who we are, what we want, and what we need.  There is a very possibility that this Advent season will be our journey to find our way to Christmas, to Easter, to the living Christ, to the loving God, and to discovering ourselves.

In a world of darkness and despair, Isaiah of Jerusalem casts a vision of hope,  encouraging his people to recover their ancient calling to become a reconciler of people to God, a channel for peace, a manifestation of God’s love, and a people to show the world God’s true nature.  What is our calling, people of Crossroads Church?  Where are you going?  Where are we going?

            What do you need to get ready for Christmas?  As we begin the journey through Advent, let me suggest three things to keep in mind.  First, we journey through wilderness.  Roads and signs are not always easy to follow.  Faith tells us there’s a highway through the desert to the Promised Land called Shalom, God’s peace.  In that land, love will be the very air we will breathe, but for now, we journey through wilderness.

            Second, the desert highway goes right through Bethlehem.  It is the path of love that leads to Shalom, to peace.  At Bethlehem, there is a thin place where heaven draws very close to earth.  This is Emmanuel.  The paradox of Christmas challenges us not to choose between Jesus the man and Christ the Son of God, but to find ways in our mind to embrace the truth that each embodies.  To literalize the Christmas story is often to diminish it because the birth narratives are a gateway not to the life of Jesus, but to the incarnation of God in  us.  Jesus showed us and taught us.  Jesus modeled and lived out the life of God in his very human life.

            Christ the Son of God shows us, teaches us, models in us, and lives through us the life of God.  You and I, in many ways, also exhibit the paradox of humanity and divinity.  In our fully human lives, there is a divine spark.  Therefore, the glorious miracle begun with Christmas and fulfilled with Easter frees us from the constraining power of fear and death, so that we can walk in the light of God”.

            The third thing to keep in mind is that we’re called to "walk in the light of God".  What does that mean?  It means to walk with decision and direction through the wilderness of life, knowing we are bound for the promised land of God’s Shalom.  To walk in the light is to recognize the path in front of us by the compass within us.  It is to “to live and serve in the Spirit,” stepping up to the challenges of being church in this community, knowing that to be church means never taking the easy path.  It means, quite often, to move into areas of real anxiety concerning money, the desire for success, the desire for tranquility, and the continual temptation of voices suggesting there is an easier way.

My vision of Crossroads Church is that we are a Christian congregation willing to question and also willing to live into the answers we discover – that we are willing to trust the Spirit.  Having begun in that Spirit, how can we expect to glide smoothly to the promised land?  Let this Advent season be for us a time of renewal, of new birth, of renewed commitment to faith in the One who gives us birth and who calls us to that promised land.  Let us reclaim the ancient call by living into the high purpose of our creation by living the love of God in no less a way than did Jesus.

The poet Ann Weems (Kneeling in Bethlehem) consistently renews my appreciation and love for this season in her poetry:

In each heart lies a Bethlehem,

an inn where we must ultimately answer whether

there is room or not.

When we are Bethlehem-bound,

we experience our own advent in his.

When we are Bethlehem-bound, we can no longer

look the other way conveniently not seeing stars

not hearing angel voices.

We can no longer excuse ourselves

by busily tending our sheep

or our kingdoms.

only we have the ability to make room

for the living Christ in our “Bethlehem.”

Advent means preparing our lives

to hear angels’ song, tuning our souls

to sing “Peace on earth, goodwill to all” …

hurled through the earth’s darkness,

lighting the Bethlehem sky

This Advent, let’s go to Bethlehem and

see this thing that the Lord has made known to us.

In the midst of shopping sprees,

let’s ponder in our hearts the Gift of Gifts.

Through the tinsel, let’s look for the gold

of the Christmas Star.

In the excitement and confusion,

 in the merry chaos,

let’s listen for the brush of angels’ wings.