Advent Reflection - week 1

This is the first of four reflections for Advent. 

It was with some disbelief that Sue and I spotted our first Christmas tree in a shop at the beginning of October. It was then that it really came home that the Christmas season as I used to know it had almost completely disappeared and the secular commercial season which has adopted the name Christmas as a mere word has taken over from it.

Yes, the word "Christmas" still survives but for the vast majority of folk it is now devoid of any religious significance, that is unless one counts the combination of atheism and materialism as a sort of secular religion. It is against that somewhat bleak and soulless backdrop that those who still call themselves Christians in England, have to ponder how to reconcile their beliefs with those of the world in which they now live.

What that means in practice is "how do I prepare to celebrate this time at which I commemorate the birth of Jesus and simultaneously enjoy time with my family and friends for whom this time of the year may merely represent a break from work plus some time spent enjoying food, drink and presents"?

Now it seems to me that when Thomas Cranmer, the author/Archbishop, composed his Collects for Advent he would have spent time pondering on a very similar sort of problem. Why else would we find him saying that we need grace to put away the works of darkness and put on the armour of light?

In other words our dilemma is nothing new, it is just that we cannot still remain only dimly aware of the problem of secular materialism. That is because it is all pervading or to use an unattractive modernism "in your face". One also wonders how much difficulty Paul would have in recognising in our present day the "rioting and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, strife and envy" against which he warned the Romans. It was them he was telling to put these works of darkness away! As an antidote all this we have to re-double our efforts to see Advent as a time of preparation. The questions posed are who is preparing and what are they preparing for? For we call ourselves Christians the answers are that firstly the preparation is personal and secondly that it is to be collectively ready to meet again the child born in Bethlehem. But for those who are not of this mind, the answer will be as far removed from those answers as they can get.

Thus the instructions that St Paul gave the Romans are very relevant. Take off the works of darkness and replace them with the armour of light. In his Collect Cranmer added a request for grace in assisting us to do so. Why? Because he knew we would need all the help we can get. By ourselves the pull of family and friends and the desire to be part of the crowd, would be very hard to resist.

I read an article recently about something called emoji. These are pictures used on computers and other communication devices to display emotions, like smiley faces for example. The lady writing the article suggested that since human beings are tribal by nature they needed symbols like this to relate to and what we now needed was an emoji to represent our nation. Why? Because other nations are developing theirs!

This is an example of the herd instinct writ large. It is very difficult to stay out of the crowd but it is what the collect asks us in effect is whether we will stay within the tribe even when it is devoted to a path we do not wish to follow.

It comes down to this doesn't it. We know we are in the tribe but do we have to be of the tribe? This is what putting on the armour of light is all about. It will not make us popular but it will keep us safe. St Paul describes this armour in Ephesians Chapter 6 vv 10 - 18 and he calls it lawful armour of God. I can think of no better way to end this reflection than to suggest that this is what we read.