Being a bit countercultural this Christmas

The supermarkets have had Christmas goods on sale since September and most put up their Christmas decorations in early November. The public lights are up in the streets and Christmas trees have appeared in prominent public spaces, and I expect many of us have been attending Christmas lunches and parties from the beginning of December onwards. 

But just as November slips into December and the festivities begin, the church starts to do its most counter cultural thing of the year: holding off Christmas for as long as possible! 

Yes, the Church of the Good Shepherd did have its Christmas Fayre on 29th November, but in church the next day, Advent Sunday, 30th November, we were stripped back. Almost the only colour is the advent wreath and, as in Lent, we don’t sing the Gloria and the liturgical colour is penitential purple. 

Most churches resist the Christmas tree coming into church for as long as possible, but the pressure of carol services means they usually have to give in around mid-December!

The nature of Advent 

Advent is a time of preparation and waiting for the coming of Jesus in three ways: 

• at his birth in Bethlehem
• into our lives today
• the end of time. 

It used to be known as “little Lent” and Christians reflected on those three comings of Jesus and their preparedness for them with fasting and prayer. The feasting didn’t begin until Christmas Eve and then the feasting and celebration went on for the 12 days after Christmas, days still remembered in a popular Christmas carol. In the Western church – that’s the Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Methodists and others – the fasting has virtually disappeared under the weight of pre-Christmas dinners and mince pies, but in the Eastern Orthodox churches Christians are still expected to fast – it is known as the nativity fast – and their Advent season is longer, beginning on 15th November.

Fasting in Advent is pretty impossible unless you want to be totally anti-social, but we can still be reflective, and it can be good for us to make space for times of quiet in the busyness of the build up to Christmas. Every year I intend to keep a better Advent – to experience “waiting”, but usually I get engulfed in the rush and bustle like everyone else. 

Finding quiet in Advent

I remember a few years back I managed to have a couple of nights and a day out of my schedule in Advent and went on retreat. It made such a difference having that time of quiet as the world became more frenzied. As I thought back to that while writing these first thoughts, I decided that however busy I was, I would take some time out to wait on God, and I booked into a quiet day at Storrington Priory on 4th December. I was glad to be reminded to slow down and be counter cultural! 

We may not be able to fit in a quiet day like I managed to do, but we can introduce times just to wait, slow down, reflect, listen and be counter cultural. Some suggestions:

• Even if you haven’t signed up for an Advent group, read the Advent book “Listening to the Music of the Soul”, listen to some of the music it links to, and watch the talks on the Big Church Read website.
• If you only have a few minutes stop and look closely at a holly leaf or a pinecone, appreciate it and see what thoughts come. 
• Listen to a favourite Christmas Carol, focus on the words and let them lead you into prayer.
• When it is dark on a clear night, wrap up well and go outside and walk to the darkest place you know and look at the stars and lose yourself in wonder. 
• If you don’t want to go outside, stay in and after dark light one candle, switch off all the lights, sit in the dark, focus on the candle and perhaps say the verse “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9.2) and then listen attentively – just 5 minutes of your time.   
• Come to the Quiet Christmas service at 6 p.m. on 21st December, especially if this has been a sad year or you are not in the mood for Christmas festivities. 

May you manage somehow to switch off for a little while from the commercial Christmas going on around us, be counter cultural this Advent, be still and aware, ready and waiting for Jesus.