Advent 1 – Land of Shadows and Light

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light …

I haven’t been to the Mall in quite a while. I haven’t been to the one in Burlington, or the one in Bellingham, or the one in Everett. I’m not against going to the mall. I just haven’t bothered turning in to shop, walk, or rub elbows with anyone.

I’ve been to other stores, of course, and there’s no doubt the Christmas season is in full swing – and has been since before Halloween.

There’s a word for this: INSANE. The world is absolutely crazy.

I’m reminded of the scene in HOME ALONE where the young boy is accidentally left behind as his family flies off to Paris. He discovers he is alone in the house and goes berserk doing everything he knows he’s not supposed to. He watches movies he’s not supposed to; eats loads of junk food; jumps on the bed, ransacks his older brother’s room, runs through the house screaming at the top of his lungs.

In short, He’s being an 8-year old set free, and while the carnage of freedom lasts for a little while, he makes a shift from recklessness to responsibility - from making a mess to taking care of his “world.” He buys groceries, does laundry, decorates the house for the holiday, and defends it from the forces of darkness outside (the WET BANDITS).

Advent is our refuge from an insane world. Some of us may have come in looking for Christmas decorations, Christmas trees, poinsettias, Nativity sets and all that, but the closest thing we have to the seasonal foo-foo (that’s the liturgical term for all that stuff) is our Advent wreath over here.

On the First Sunday of Advent, we light a single candle. We pray God to give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, but one little light doesn’t really seem up to the task, does it. And how about that phrase: “Works of darkness”? That seems a little melodramatic, doesn’t it?

I used to love that phrase in the Prayer of Humble Access we use to pray: “we are most heartily sorry for these our misdoings. The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden intolerable …”

I don’t know. I’m not sure I ever felt the things I did were intolerable. At least not to me. But maybe to God.

Have you ever thought of God sitting there on the throne, looking down and saying, “Folks, I’m down to my last nerve, and you’re standing on it!” (Crash, thunder, BOOM)?

But God’s desire is not our death, not our destruction, but our restoration – our restoration to health and salvation.

Did you know that SANITY and SANITATION share the same root? It’s the Latin word for health and wholeness. To be insane is to be unhealthy in mind; to be unsanitary is to be unhealthy in body. When people were sick with lingering illnesses, they went off to Sanitariums – places where they could be restored to health.

The Church is a spiritual sanitarium. It’s a house of healing.

I love the Church and the Church Seasons because they remind us that we are human. There is a mixture of light and dark we can’t get away from. It’s like walking through the forest. The sun shines through, and the forest floor is dappled with the interplay of shade and sunlight. The sunshine and the shadows are both there. Like driving down the freeway, you sometimes get that strobe-light effect, and your eyes are going STOP THAT!

As Christians, we KNOW insanity resides here. We know what it’s like to smile on the outside and act like everything is OK, while on the inside little Kevin McCallister’s on the loose wreaking havoc. But we also know we have a God who not only CAN restore us to sanity, but who will.

We light a single candle, and it may not look like much (at first) but it is a start. It’s the first step in casting away the works of darkness.

To confess there is darkness residing here in this space (heart) and here (mind) and here (gut) is the first step. To invite God to come in and do her work (restoring those spaces) is the armor of light we put on. It isn’t our strength that gets the job done, but hers. That’s the GRACE part of the equation. God restores us.

When people complain about the insanity of Christmas, I get to share good news with them: You know, that’s one of the things I love about our church: it’s an oasis of peace and serenity at a time I need that most.

One final thought: in Home Alone, Kevin does all he can to protect his home. He calls for help, and he knows help should be on the the way. He runs away from danger, though a neighbor's house, and as he comes upstairs, the bad guys catch him. They hang him on a hook and tell him everything they're going to do to him when BANG! Another neighbor hits the two bad guys, lifts Kevin off the hook, and carries him to safety.

That is the Gospel in a nutshell. God rescues us, gets us off the hook, and carries us to safety. Like Kevin, we do what we can, and we cry out for help, and God does the rest. We cast off the works of darkness, and God clothes us with the armor of light. Happy Advent! :-)