“Bah humbug!” I’m sure most of you are familiar with Charles Dickens’ beautiful story of redemption, second chances, and the spirit of Christmas. A Christmas Carol, with the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, is a true classic, and there’s something about it that still captures our attention, even today. But we’re not to Christmas yet. Turkey leftovers still stuff the fridge. Black Friday thundered in with a shocking display that upheld bargain hunting over human decency. And though the first real snow has fallen...and melted, a White Christmas is still a long way off. For us Episcopalians, we are celebrating today, but we aren’t celebrating Christmas, not yet. So, “Bah humbug.”
Today is the First Sunday of Advent. And Advent is the first season of the year for the church, so, happy new year! The word advent means “a beginning.” It’s an introduction of sorts, an introduction to a new year, to a new way of life. There are four Sundays in Advent, kind of a countdown to Christmas, but maybe it’s more appropriate to say Advent is a lead-up to Christmas, not a countdown, because Advent doesn’t get all its weight from pointing to Christmas alone.
In Advent, when we celebrate the beginning of a new liturgical year, we are claiming the beginning of a new life. Christmas will be when we welcome Christ into our world, remember his arrival as a child among us, but in Advent, we look forward to reveling in that memory while also looking forward to the NEXT time Christ will come, whenever that may be, at an unknown hour in an unknown year.
So, Advent, this new beginning, is a time to remember—AND a time to anticipate--Christ in our world. We’re all about that anticipation, ‘cause Advent is a season of preparation, a season pretty darn close to joy but not quite there yet.
In the South, there’s a great phrase: I’m fixin’ to. Normally, this phrase is deployed to indicate that you’re preparing to do something, but you haven’t gotten around to it just yet. “I’m fixin’ to shovel the driveway” means you’re strongly considering braving the elements to clear a path, but you haven’t mustered up the motivation to set aside your hot chocolate just yet.
Advent is “We’re fixin’ to celebrate Christmas, but we’ve got some other things to do first.” What could possibly be so important that we’d merely be “fixin’ to” celebrate Christmas rather than getting right to it as soon as our Thanksgiving guests head on home? That’s a fine question. And it’s one of those things not all Christians agree on.
But here’s where the Episcopal Church is coming from: Advent does a few things for us. First, by having a full season, an entire month’s worth of anticipation pointing towards the day Christ comes, Advent underscores the importance of Christmas. Christmas is significant enough to get a lead up.
Second, Advent, with all the parallels between the birth of Christ and these intense end of the world readings like in the Gospel of Matthew, we start to draw connections in our brains between the precious Christ-child and the awesome Kingdom of God. It preserves the sweetness of things to come while taking out some of the more saccharine elements.
And, third, Advent gives us a chance to clear out some of the clutter. Think of it this way. When my mother’s fixin’ to have company, she gets to work. She’ll sweep, vacuum, and scrub ‘til kingdom come. Scuffed up baseboards, unsightly toilet bowls, and even greasy dust bunnies on top of the refrigerator -- none of ‘em stand a chance. When mom’s got company on the way, she gets to cleaning.
Of course, when her long-awaited guests arrive, nothing she’s done makes the guests love her more. That gleaming baseboard is a nice touch, it’s her love language, but it doesn’t earn her anything with us. We would’ve loved her just the same, but she feels a little better welcoming us into her life knowing that the house is as near to spotless as it’s going to get.
Now, my mother’s neurosis aside, I think that’s something Advent does for us. It gives us the chance to do some soul cleaning; there’s something in the preparation on our own end that gets us that much more ready for the arrival. The doorbell ring of an arriving Christmas is somehow sweeter when the work leading up to that moment is done. Advent invites us into that work.
Now, I started off this sermon with a “bah humbug” straight from Scrooge’s mouth. “Humbug” is an interesting word, because we’ve lost its meaning. Today, I think most of us associate humbug with Scrooge and, along with that association, we assume it carries a meaning of general distaste, but “humbug” is more than that. “Humbug” is an old-timey way of calling something out for being false or even deceptive. Like malarkey or hogwash or other, more colorful words I ought not say from the pulpit.
I think Dickens chooses this word to put in Scrooge’s mouth on purpose, because Scrooge deploys his humbugs whenever someone mentions something about the Christmas spirit without taking into account Advent. “Merry Christmas” a day early is met with an especially fervent “humbug,” and he keeps on humbugging until the various Christmas Spirits break through to him on that holy night.
In a way, Scrooge is why we need Advent.
So Scrooge starts out carting around all this baggage, refuses to acknowledge the weight of past mistakes and loss, lashes out at anyone that gets too close or pushes him, even in the slightest. He’s fearful and looks beyond people’s humanity and only onto their utility. It’s not a great starting point, but it isn’t far from where many of us find ourselves, probably more often than we’d care to admit.
As the story unfolds, Scrooge gets an otherworldly gift. He’s confronted with a series of ghosts that point to painful moments in the past, sad vignettes happening here and now, even a jarring glimpse into what the future may hold. He’s guided along a deeply powerful and spiritual journey, uncovering old hurts buried deep in his heart, catching glimpses of what life is like for those around him, and his night culminates with an honest, hard look at his dismal future. And Scrooge, after this dark night of the soul, comes to on Christmas Day.
He releases the past that’s held him back and embraces the life he’s gifted with today. He’s really changed. The sun rises, and with it, the freshly re-minted Scrooge hits the town with bells on. The waiting and purgation of his one-night Advent behind him, the now jovial Scrooge dives into the Christmas Spirit. It’s a sweet story, but I think we gloss over that difficult work he did that night to get to that sweetness.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly want to spend the next month haunted by ghosts of any Christmases, but I kind of envy Scrooge that experience. Because Scrooge is transformed by what happens that night, just as all of us, all of creation is transformed by the Advent of Christ in the world. And we celebrate that entry year after year, recalling Christmases Past, reveling in Christmases Present, and longing for Christmases Yet to Come.
But it’s not Christmas yet, not for us. It’s Advent, thanks be to God, the season of preparation. It’s a season of baseboard scrubbing in our souls, a season of taking a step back and looking at how we have moved in the world, how we do move in the world, how we’re fixin’ to move. It’s a season of giving ourselves the permission to make changes, to get ourselves ready, to show off a bright and shining hope of who we can be.
So that’s Advent. That’s the business we’re about over the course of the next month. We’ll get to Christmas, don’t worry, but we’re not going there yet. The church is asking us not to jump ahead, inviting us to get ready, not celebrating too early, but working in that place of “fixin’ to.”
We’ve got this time to prepare. Go ahead put up the tree, wrap presents, string lights, look up recipes for Christmas hams, but try waiting for the real celebration. Try waiting, do the prep work, but don’t open the doors just yet. Try waiting, give yourself a silent night to reflect while the world buzzes on its frantic seasonal way. Try waiting for Christmas. We can’t make it get here any sooner, and thank God for that.
So try waiting. Try waiting.