Let us lay aside the darkness and put on the armor of light.
So, I'd like to compliment my neighbor down in Chattanooga. As many of you know, I own my grandparents' house in Chattanooga, in a little town called Red Bank. And my neighbor is one of a kind. Her nickname is “Squatty,” because she's always outside squatting. Pulling weeds or planting flowers or getting things ready for yet another garage sale, she's always squatting while she works. I don't really know how tall she is, because I don't believe I've ever seen her standing.
But when she is in her squatting position, she is the most industrious person I've ever known. Especially right after Thanksgiving. Because she's one of those people. The yard decorator. As in the kind of yard that you pack up the kids and grandkids and go visit when the sun goes down.
Big, giant red candles and candy canes line the walk way. Those blue lights hanging off of the gutter. Snowmen and angels, nodding deer and dancing skaters. Snoopy in a snowglobe. Snoopy in his Sopwith Camel. Santa on the roof, Santa in the yard, Santa in a helicopter, and Santa kneeling before the main attraction: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
It is amazing and kind of beautiful in its own way. When I first moved into the house, I was afraid that it would drive me nuts, all those lights. But in a way, from where my bedroom sits, I can look out my window and just catch the warm glow of her yard. It's actually sort of nice and reassuring, reminding me of my own childhood when my grandfather would announce, “Let's go for a drive and look at the lights.”
And Squatty works so hard at it. All by herself. Day after day, little by little, this Winter Wonderland arises. I've never known her to actually get finished before Christmas, and generally, there's a lot of her Christmas Cast still hanging out in her driveway that never make it to the stage by Christmas Eve. And by New Year's Day, she begins the month long process of taking it all down again. In a way, that's her liturgical year. And it's a lot of work.
It's the same with us Episcopalians, too. Living liturgically is hard work, especially during Advent. When the night starts coming early, and the wind starts blowing cold, there are lots of things we start to put on: wool socks and long johns, hats and gloves, fleecy blankets and heavy sweaters. We put on the heat and put another log on the fire and put some extra lights on outside -- because they look lovely, but also because they seem to hold the night back just a bit.
With the holidays upon us, a lot of us put on a few pounds, and some of us put more debt than we should on our credit cards. We put on our fancy clothes to go to parties, and put our best dishes on for our guests. But as Paul points out in Romans, and Jesus warns in the Gospel, all the things we put on this time of year can make it hard to clothe ourselves with Christ.
And his warnings of the dangers of drunkenness and debauchery, the other reminding us that we never know when the end is near, seem to be a bit of a bummer as we start seriously gearing up for holiday festivities. We want to put on the mantle of joy in this season, not the sackcloth and ashes of the penitent. We want no guilt with the glitter of windows and wrappings, trimmings and trees.
And this is surely why Advent is the hardest of times for faithful Christians, as we feel put upon to hold off on the celebrating for four more weeks, to embrace the darkness and the silence and the cold before we can put on the carols and presents and golden glow of the one Christian holiday that is most firmly embraced by our go-go consumerist world.
But Advent urges us to step back and not put all that on just yet. It asks us to consider the ordinary in this glittery time. The mundane-ness of a baby being born. Babies are born all the time, right? But our faith is about how Jesus Christ, born into this world as a small mundane spot of light in the darkness, helps us to believe, and to live like we believe, that love and forgiveness and redemption and hope have a part in every choice that we make, in every regular day on our calendar.
And this sense of preparation that Advent brings, of not knowing when it is that we will most need to be ready, is not meant to scare us; it is meant to remind us that the kingdom of heaven is everywhere, even when we least expect it. Not in presents, not with Santa...but love. Love of God, love of our neighbor. And we need this reminder, because we all know that our regular life often feels like it forces us to put on all kinds of other things: deadlines and debts and distractions and all sorts of dire circumstances that can lead us to live like the darkness is catching up to us.
And to just hang some lights on all the ways that the pressures and pains are getting to us is no way to prepare to put on the kind of party that is a truly joyful, truly meaningful celebration of the light of Christ in our lives. That's what it's all about.
So let's take off the fears and the pains that weigh us down, that we carry around like heavy wool coats, that we try to wrap up in festive themes for the occasion. Let's take off our feelings of isolation, whether from habit or self-protection. Even while we are enjoying the comforts of this time of year, this is the time to take off the blinders that keep us from realizing that every day there are those who have nothing to put on for the holidays: no parties, no warm clothes, no reason for joy.
It is about taking off the burden of too much and letting it become the source of plenty for others. Because the true light, the true joy that we are getting ready for, is not something that we create or that we find; it is what comes to us when we are ready and waiting for it, like grace. True light, calling us to rejoice that we have marched right into this darkness and found that we are not alone.
We will not be left in our suffering; we will be met with hope and peace and love in the moments that we dare to take off the kinds of armor that the rest of the world seems to demand that we wear -- cynicism and defensiveness and isolation and fear. The moment that we bare our true hearts and true souls is the moment that we find we are suddenly clothed with the kind of joy that all the other sparkle of this season can’t even begin to imitate.
That’s when we put on the party that is Christmas – and not one moment before we are truly prepared. So for these four weeks, we put on the light, one small candle at a time. We remind ourselves to take off those things that we do not need and wrap ourselves in the warmth of what is coming -- the light of the world, slowly, appearing when we most need it. Put on the blanket of truth. Put on the mantle of hope. Put on the armor of light.