What's the Rush?

Well, here I am back in the game after a long hiatus. As I shared with a priest friend recently, I either find that I spend too much time blogging (when I should be working) or no time at all (such as lately). I shall try from now on to find a judicious balance between the two (Oh how very Anglican of me...)


One of the most profound quotes from a movie that I have ever heard comes from Shawshank Redemption. Brooks is an elderly convict who has spent the majority of his life behind bars. His sentence is served and he is released. In a letter from the outside to his former prison mates, he shares how different the world is from before he went to prison. "The world went and got itself in a big damned hurry," he writes.

A big damned hurry indeed.

As the secular juggernaut presses on, we find the practice of beginning Christmas right after thanks giving or even before has crept into the Church. I don't simply mean Protestant churches with no liturgical year. Even churches that foll0w a liturgical calendar with Advent included have been sucked in. Of course, many Protestant churches are at the head of the Christian capitulation to the world's impatient hastening of the Christmas season. I can't find a Christian radio station that isn't playing Christmas music much of the time.

My question is, "what's the big damned hurry?"

Advent is quite frankly a treasure, particulary in these high-pressured and frantic days where the month of Decemeber is primarily a time to get stuck in holiday traffic, wait in line at retail stores, worry about not having enough money to get everyone presents, and any number of situations that create disquietude in the life of the soul.

In Advent, we are given a precious season of four Sundays and the weeks between to hunker down with ourselves and with God and quietly prepare ourselves for the coming of the King of Kings, both in rememberance of the Child and in anticipation of the Risen and Glorified Judge of all men. We are given an opportunity not to be sucked into the secular vortex of panic and frenzy and it is an opportunity unique to Christians. The Orthodox, hardcore as they are, have a forty-day season of preparation that parallels Lent in both duration and rigor. But even with our Lent-lite here in the West, there is an opportunity to raise our level of communion with God, and not just our blood pressure.

But still the rush toward Christmas rolls on, even among those of us in catholic communions that observe this season. I guess it's just part of being American. And yet, the irony of it all is that we rush and hurry toward Christmas and the observance of Christ's first coming, but we seem to be convinced that we have all the time in the world before his second coming. Shouldn't it be the other way around...patiently preparing during Advent for Christmas but eagerly anticipating the coming of our King in glory?

A story is told of Satan sending three young devils to earth to finish their apprentice training. Satan asked them what their strategy would be. The first said "I'll tell men there is no God." Satan replied, "That's no use. Men generally realize that there is a God." The second devil said, "I'll tell men there is no hell." Satan replied, "That's no use either, men generally believe there is a hell for sin and punishment." The third young devil said, "I'll tell men there is no hurry." Satan said, "Go and tell them, and you will ruin them by the thousands."

It's the nature of fallen humanity to completely miss the boat, or to use another expression, to put the emPHAsis on the wrong syLLAble. We hurry toward a largely secularized observance of a holy day for which we are given 3 or 4 weeks to prepare. But we poke along on the path of readiness for the coming of our King and Judge. "He hasn't come back in 2,000 years," we say, "surely he won't be back in my lifetime!"

But he will. Even if he doesn't come to meet us in this life, we will go to meet him at the end of it.

Let's get it right this Advent. Let's use this season to quietly, humbly, and with penitence avoid as best as we can the hurry and rush of the secular juggernaut. But let us use the time also to increase our sense of urgency and haste to prepare in our hearts a mansion for our coming Savior. For all the we don't know about Christ's second coming, we know one thing...he's coming, and we'd better be as ready as we can possibly be.

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and

dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

-The Book of Common Prayer

Peace to you all this Advent season,

RED+

P.S.- For an interesting bit about the history of Advent, go see this. (At least until next week)