"A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle...."
Happy New Year! Yes, it is a new year, though not on the chronological calendar that begins on January first. But it is a new year on our Church Calendar, for we reckon our holy time from the beginning of Advent Season--those four all-too-short weeks before Christmas.
What is Advent? Well, many things, really. It marks the end of fall and the beginning of winter. Seasonal weather, even here in "Paradise," is noticeably colder, days are shorter, nights longer, the flu season reemerges, and for most of us, it is time to prepare for the often frantic, yet exhilarating, holidays ahead.
But these are just the symptoms of Advent, of course, for at its heart, Advent is a religious season, a holy time of preparation.
From the Middle Ages until quite recently, Advent was considered a penitential season much like Lent. But now our Advent observance is more appropriately recognized as a time not so much for penance as it is a time of preparation for the glorious arrival of Jesus into our world. But, which arrival?
What has always fascinated me about Advent is that we are to prepare for both great Comings of God in Jesus Christ--the First and the Last, the past and the future. In early Advent our Scripture lessons remind and encourage us to prepare for the Second Coming--the "Day of the Lord," as Zechariah puts it, when night shall become as day and cold winters like warm summer. This Second Coming is surrounded with clouds, both literal and figurative, and is loaded with rather overpowering symbolic language of early distress and heavenly battles. But the bottom line is a straightforward fact of faith. It is a time in the future when the Son of Man (Jesus) will come again with power and great glory.
As we move into the Third and Fourth Sundays of Advent and closer to Christmastime, the focus will shift from the Second Coming to the First--the Birth Day of Jesus, when God literally became Emmanuel--"God with us"--and we will prepare for Christmas.
The Church in its wisdom helps us to enter into our preparation for Advent Season: Liturgical colors are changed from Summer Green to Advent Purple. I don't know much about colors, but purple does seem to have a sense of "royalty."
I believe the most helpful guide or symbol of preparation for Advent is our beautiful Advent Wreath, those five candles which will be lit, one for each of the Four Sundays of Advent, culminating on Christmas Eve when we will light the white Christ Candle.
These candles are appropriate Advent symbols because they suggest something specific that we can do, or be, in order to prepare ourselves for Advent (whether the First or Second Coming). For, as Christians, we are each one of us called to be a light in the semidarkness of the world. And of the many, many ways we can be a light, maybe the most direct and important is for each of us, as the eyes and ears, the hands and feet of Christ, to reach out and touch someone in need. There is an old proverb which says, "A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle and the result is that there is twice as much light as before." Do you know that if you touch, or light up, the life of one person each day, in twenty years you will have touched, illuminated, seventy-three hundred people!
To help us reach out and touch, to be lights in the darkness, and so prepare ourselves for the Advent Comings of Jesus, I would like to share with you a short course, Twelve Commandments.
"On Being A Light in the Dark"
The first seven need to be first for they focus inward. They help me release my own self striving and self-centeredness; they help me get my candle lighted.
The latter five help me to focus outward; they help me light another.
This Advent I will:
Close my book of complaints and open my book of praise.
Ignore what life owes me and think about what I owe life.
Stop looking for friendship and start being friendly.
Be content with such things as I have and stop whining for things I have not.
Enjoy the simple blessings of life and cease striving for artificial pleasures.
Forget what I have accomplished and remember what others have done for me.
Cease looking for someone to help me and devote myself to helping others.
Then, looking outward, I will:
Become more aware of humanity's suffering and get involved with their struggles and comfort those in need.
Withhold judgment of my brother and sister and attempt to understand their thinking, their attitudes and their behavior.
Not close my eyes or pass by on the other side whenever there is need of my service, my friendship or my presence.
Choose each day this Advent Season (28 days) to be a light to one person. I will lift someone's spirits each day by giving a word of hope, a smile of encouragement and a hand in need.
Finally:
In order to do all these good things, and remembering that without Him as my Source of Light I can do nothing, I will this First Day of Advent re-consecrate my life to God with humble and hearty thanks for all I have.
Amen.
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