Anne's Message: Door Close / A Balanced Life

Advent – When I was younger I remember looking forward to the end of November. My mother would find her big wicker basket and take us for a walk in the woods where we would gather cones and branches with red berries and interesting looking grasses and mosses. Then we would carefully snip off branches from spruce trees without disturbing the symmetry of the tree. When we were back home my mom would get some straw in the barn and make a wreath, which we would cover with the spruce and decorate with cones, berries and grasses. Then the candles were placed on the wreath and the whole thing placed in a pretty, shallow bowl – and then we had to wait for the FIRST Sunday! The first Sunday in Advent!

On Sunday afternoon after it grew dark (Denmark is so far north that in December the days are dark already at 3 o’clock in the afternoon), my mother would light the candle (or the candles) and we would sit quietly for a few minutes just watching the light of the flame – and then my mother would read a story from the Bible. Sometimes my father and my grandmother would be there too – watching and listening. After we would drink hot chocolate and sample some of the first Christmas baking. Not too much – mind you – it had to last until Christmas.

In those days I did not think much about what Advent was or meant - I knew it was the anticipation of Jesus being born, but mostly thought that it would soon be Christmas. Now that I am an adult what do or did I know about Advent? Truthfully not much!

So I went and did some research:
The word advent, from Latin, means " coming" or “arrival”. For centuries, Advent has been a time of spiritual reflection as well as cheer and anticipation. Even as the Christmas season has become more secular—with advertisers urging holiday gift-givers to buy and buy some more—Advent still brings joy and the observance of ancient customs. Christian families find quiet moments lighting candles in the Advent wreath, and children use Advent calendars to count the days until Christmas.

Advent marks the start of the Christmas season. It begins on the Sunday nearest November 30, and covers four Sundays. Because the day it begins changes from year to year, so does the length of each Advent season. This year, Advent began on November 28 and lasts 27 days.

Advent has probably been observed since the fourth century. Originally, it was a time when converts to Christianity prepared themselves for baptism.

During the Middle Ages, Advent became associated with preparation for the Second Coming. In early days Advent lasted from November 11, the feast of St. Martin, until Christmas Day. Advent was considered a pre-Christmas season of Lent when Christians devoted themselves to prayer and fasting. The Orthodox Eastern Church observes a similar Lenten season, from November 15 until Christmas, rather than Advent.

Many Christians still view Advent as a season to prepare for the Second Coming of Jesus. In the last fifty years, however, it has also come to be thought of as a time of celebrating Jesus the Christ in his first Advent leading up to Christmas Day.

Advent wreaths have their origins in the folk traditions of northern Europe, where in the deep of winter people lit candles on wheel-shaped bundles of evergreen. Both the evergreen and the circular shape symbolized ongoing life. The candlelight gave comfort at this darkest time of the year, as people looked forward to the longer days of spring. Later, Eastern European Christians adopted this practice. By the sixteenth century, they were making Advent wreaths much as we know them today.

An advent wreath traditionally contains four candles—three purple or blue and one rose.
The three purple or blue candles in the Advent wreath symbolize hope, peace, and love. These candles are lit on the first, second, and fourth Sundays of Advent. The rose candle, which symbolizes joy, is usually lit today, the third Sunday in Advent.

Sometimes a fifth candle is placed inside the Advent wreath just like in ours. This candle is lit on Christmas Day. It is white, the color associated with angels and the birth of Jesus.

An advent calendar is a card or poster with twenty-four small doors, one to be opened each day from December 1 until Christmas Eve. Each door conceals a picture. This popular tradition arose in Germany in the late 1800s and soon spread throughout Europe and North America. Originally, the images in Advent calendars were taken from the Hebrew Bible.

Considered a fun way of counting down the days until Christmas, many Advent calendars today sadly have no religious content. Now, alongside traditional Advent calendars depicting angels and biblical figures are those whose doors open to display teddy bears, pieces of chocolate, or photos of pop stars. So, now you have some facts about the Advent season.

Today we light the Advent Candle of Joy.

Smack dab in the middle of the pain and penitence represented by the first two purple Candles on our Advent Wreath, we light a rose-colored Candle. And we call this rose-colored Candle Joy!

Now we Canadians are not all that good at metaphors and symbolic things. We like the hard-cold facts, and our tastes run more toward technology than to art. So lets be sure we all understand what’s going on here with the Advent Wreath today.

You could say that this Wreath is like your life! And your life is crammed with of all sorts of experiences. Joys and sorrows. Gains and losses. Hopes and fears. And the Wreath is a complete circle because, you see, life is never lived in part, but always in whole. Once, we were little children, and we could not grasp the end of life. But once you hit forty…. or fifty…or sixty…or more…

Once, we lived almost completely in our dreams of what we would one day be and do. But as life goes on and some dreams pass away and others become realities, we often find ourselves with less and less to dream about, and more and more simply to remember.

You know what I’m saying?

Lately, I’ve been experiencing a strange thing. I’ll be driving along in the car, listening to Oldies on the radio, and a song will be played that almost immediately transports me back to a particular moment earlier in my life.

Hearing the music again somehow stirs up in me the very feelings and sights and sounds of those long-ago moments, and its almost as if I’m there again. But of course, I’m not. And when the song ends, I have this kind of heavy-hearted feeling because I know I’ll never get that moment back again. It’s gone forever.

Do you see life differently today than when you were a kid? Life is not any individual isolated moment, but a whole series of moments that stretch across the width and breadth and height of our lives. Life is like the circle of the wreath. And the more you move around it, the more you become aware of the vulnerability of your human nature.

But we have been given a gift, and that is the gift of Jesus. And even though the circle of life may expose the full extent of our weakness, our sin, and our sorrow, God has promised us a Savior!

So in the face of what we know about ourselves, we light candles.

One of the girls I work with describes how important candles are as she tells about her childhood journeys with her family to her grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve every year. The family would always attend the Christmas Eve service at their own church at 7 o’clock, and then pile into the family station wagon with the wood-grained sides to make the trip to grandmother’s. Grandmother lived in another town quite a distance away, and if the weather was bad, the family would not arrive until well after midnight. But, my colleague says, no matter how stormy or late it was, when they came around the last curve in the road, they would see the candle – just one old electric candle glowing in the frost covered living room window – a sign that Grandmother was waiting for them to arrive.

So in the midst of the cold night of our diseases and divorces and distressing events, we light a candle of Hope. In the face of war and conflict and estranged relationships, we light a candle of Peace. And these two candles burn brightly before us today in this Advent wreath that represents the circle of our life. They are signs that we - like that Grandmother - are waiting for Jesus to come and transform our pain and sin into Hope and Peace.

And today, we light the Candle of Joy!

It takes great faith, you know, to light this Joy Candle.

Isaiah had that kind of faith when he wrote the words we heard earlier today. The nation was defeated. The people were in slavery. Israel was in exile in Babylon. And Isaiah describes the state of his and Israel’s life by painting a word picture of a burning, colorless, life-less desert. And I think Isaiah was very perceptive in using this description because, for many of us, life often becomes like a desert - dried out, and parched, and wilting away under the scorching sun. I know my life has gone through some pretty desert-like times. How about yours? Isaiah was describing the human condition, not just Israel’s condition.

But how does Isaiah respond to this desert time of life? By complaining? No. By becoming bitter? No. By giving in to despair? No.

Isaiah responds to his desert by lighting a candle – by creating a dream – about Joy! Listen:

“The wilderness and dry land shall be GLAD, the desert shall REJOICE and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and REJOICE with JOY and singing.”

“Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for JOY.”

“For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water…”

When life was at its lowest possible point, Isaiah lit a candle – he dreamed a dream - of Joy! But it was not a joy based on wishful thinking, or positive thinking, or delusional thinking. It was not a dream about Israel becoming strong again, or about him becoming wise enough to turn the situation around. No, there was nothing anyone could do to make life better for either Israel or Isaiah. This dream was about something else.

SomeONE else! This was a candle glowing in a window in expectation of a Savior’s arrival. Isaiah created a picture in his heart and mind about the JOY that will dawn when the Savior comes.

Years later, when John the Baptist was in prison, he sent messengers to Jesus. Are you the One Isaiah was talking about? Are you the fulfillment of Isaiah 35?

And Jesus answered, “Go tell John this: the blind are seeing, the lame are walking, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

In other words, Jesus told them to go tell John that JOY is breaking out all over!

I am confident that you will light a Candle of Joy in your life today. I am sure that some of you are going through hard times right now. Even with the brightness of the holiday season upon us, some of us are facing dark times, lonely times, fearful times, tearful times. And many of us have in our lives people we love very much whose joy has been taken away in one way or another.

I am confident that you will light a Candle of Joy today – for yourself and for those you love.

It’s not all that difficult to do, but it does require great faith. You see, lighting this candle of Joy in your life means to begin the discipline of painting a new picture of life – in all its dimensions – through the filter of Joy.

A couple of weeks ago someone e-mailed me a story about a man who learned that his younger sister had terminal cancer. He, like all the other members of the family, was absolutely devastated. There would be chemotherapy and radiation – not for a cure, but for time and for quality of life. And as his sister and the rest of the family engaged in that long trying process, he says they became a family preoccupied by the cancer, and the treatment, and most especially by the prognosis. There was a sort of collective depression that settled upon the whole family.

But one holiday weekend when they were all together, someone brought up an old memory. It was nothing special, just a remembrance of some silly thing that happened years ago, and when it was told, everyone laughed. Moments later, someone else told another story. And then another. And another. And before long, the house was full of laughter.

As the family parted that evening, the sister hugged her brother and all the others and said, “This has been such a wonderful day!! Thank you so much!”

And on the long drive home, this brother thought about his sister’s words. He held in his mind the picture of her smile, the sound of her laughter, the brightness of her eyes as they’d shared all those stories. And he thought to himself, “I wish there was some way to give her that gift every day.” Then he remembered how almost every day was full of the treatment regimen, which exhausted her and laid her low. And then he came up with an idea.

When he got home, he sat down at his computer and began to write. He reached back into his memory and pulled out moments he and his sister had shared when they were kids. And he wrote about them, with as much detail as he could, but every once in awhile inserting the question, “What can you add to this?” Every day he sat and wrote. Every day he mailed another letter. Every day she took them with her to the oncology clinic. Every day she wrote back. And every time they got together, they talked about all they’d written. And they laughed for hours at a time.

A few months later, the end of his sister’s life drew near. As he sat by her bedside, she tenderly took his hand. She said, “You know, these last eighteen months have been some of the best months of my life. We found so much joy in our lives once we took the time to look for it. And you know, I’m sort of looking forward to hearing more of these stories from mom and dad when I get to heaven.”

This man says that the most beautiful miracle he has ever witnessed was the miracle of the joy his sister found in the very face of illness and death. And that joy, he insists, gave her strength and resolve to squeeze every drop of goodness out of the days she had, and to look to the future with confidence and hope!

Will you light the Candle of Joy today? Will you light it for yourself? Will you light it for someone you love?

It’s sort of like a grandmother, lighting a candle in the living room window, looking forward to the Joy of when her family arrives. And the promise we are given is this: we have a Savior seeking to come into our lives with Joy!

What is the Joy you’re looking for today? Can you visualize it? Can you imagine what it will be like on the day your lost son comes home? Can you fathom the joy of the day you see your deceased mother, or father again – when you discover that even that person who seemed completely lost has been truly found by the grace of God? Can you feel the wonder of the moment when Israelis and Palestinians sit at table together? Can you perceive the day when your old, worn out body is renewed by the power of the Spirit and you are stronger and more vital and more alive than you’ve ever been before?

Jesus comes to bring you Joy!

So light the Candle. Place it in the window of your life.

And look for Joy! Work for Joy! Dream about Joy! Share your Joy!

Joy to the world! The Lord is come!

Prayer:
O Lord God, heavenly Father, who through Your Son has revealed to us that heaven and earth shall pass away: We ask that You keep us steadfast in Your unchangeable Word and in true faith; graciously preserve us amid all temptations, so that our hearts may not be overcharged with the cares of this life, but at all times in watchfulness and prayer we may await the return of Your Son and joyfully cherish the expectation of our eternal salvation; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.