Advent distractions

Image by MusikschuleMOI from Pixabay

It's my habit to have several Advent books on the go. Here's this year's list:

• Donkey Roads and Camel Treks by Gemma Simmonds
• Beginnings and Endings by Maggi Dawn
• Christ Illuminated by Joy Margetts, fellow ACW writer
• O Come Emmanuel, a beautiful little anthology on the Advent antiphons (look them up!), delicately illustrated by Korean artist SunYoung Kim. The contributors include Tanya Marlow, who will be well known to many ACW members, and whose own Advent book, Those Who Wait, is also on my reading list.
• Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ by Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge, a collection of her excellent Advent sermons over some 20 years. It’s a big, fat book but not difficult to read, I just dip in and find something juicy to get my teeth into.

Advent is such a rich season, biblically and liturgically. As I often remind people in my own sermons, Advent is as much about our Lord’s Second Coming as it is about his First. The lectionary readings and many traditional Advent carols reflect this. Many Christians are (unfortunately) too polite to mention it, perhaps because teaching on the End Times can be wacky and unhelpful. But that shouldn’t prevent us from treating the subject seriously ... especially in this increasingly darkening world.

I love Advent, almost more than I love Lent (and I do love Lent). The Bible readings are prophetic (and sometimes scary), the music outstandingly beautiful, the sense of anticipation, the waiting for the hope and light of Jesus, is irresistible.

The irony though – and Gemma Simmonds points this out in her own book – is that Advent coincides with the giant consumer fest which swallows up Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas lights and glitter. But the weeks leading up to Christmas are so ridiculously busy, and cause so many people so much unnecessary stress, that it can be hard to pause and reflect during this beautiful season … the season of pondering the double mystery of Christ’s incarnation and his future coming, when human history will end and the Prince of Peace will restore full harmony to the universe.

I can therefore find it hard to find the time to enjoy all my Advent books! And I can find it hard to focus on my writing. Advent, a penitential and contemplative season, can be full of distractions.

So let us all put those distractions aside and focus on Jesus, the glorious reason for the season. Take time, pause, breathe, reflect. The world is full of darkness. There is probably some darkness in your own life too, or even a lot. We can’t escape it, we’re human. God knows that, and indeed he chose to feel that human frailty in his own self, which is amazing and exactly what we celebrate this season. But look upwards, towards his eternal and abiding light. And look within, where he has placed his light and peace in our hearts.

Two nights ago the huge Cold Moon was shining, reflecting the light of the Sun. So may we all look towards the one and only Son, rising with healing in his wings. May his glory shine over our writing, and indeed every aspect of our lives, this Advent and beyond.

I work for the Diocese of Rochester, where I am also a Reader. I wrote a devotional for the anthology Light for the Writer’s Soul, published by Media Associates International, and my short story ‘Magnificat’ appears in the ACW anthology Merry Christmas Everyone.