Valerie Hess

This is a piece I wrote for the December Conversations Journal Blog:

We need Advent. Why? Because Advent is not Christmas.

The Nairobi Statement on Worship and Culture says the Church is to be transcultural, contextual, cross-cultural, and counter-cultural.  When we, as Christ-followers, follow Church Time vs. mall time, we live out these principles intuitively. By living into Advent, a time of focus on the Second Coming of Christ, as well as his first coming, we are less caught up in the madness of December and what our culture calls “the holidays.”

In Advent, we live in a different rhythm, a rhythm practiced by Christ-followers around the world, today and in centuries past (transcultural and cross-cultural). Not rushing into Christmas the day after Thanksgiving (or sooner) is very counter-cultural. So is celebrating Christmas for the Twelve Days (December 25 to January 6, the date of Epiphany); the Church begins Christmas just as the world ends it.  We can be very contextual by speaking the ancient prophetic words of Advent (“coming”) into a modern, next-door world that has lost hope.

Advent is not a warm-fuzzy but rather a real Word to fractured, hysterical people rushing to find happiness and a sense of family in all the wrong places. Advent has hard edges; it looks to the cross that hangs over the manger. It says that Christ will come again and not in swaddling clothes. Yet, when the madness of December is over in the mall, the Church will still be standing, like a light on a hill, giving direction and hope to all who have lost their way. As “the holidays” become 75% off in the world, the Church says that Christmas continues, not with the false tinsel of materialism but with the Word made flesh.

We need the fasting and introspection Advent invites us to. As the days in the Northern Hemisphere get darker, we need to reflect on the darkness of our hearts, a darkness which keeps us from full fellowship with God. John 1:5, part of the Gospel reading appointed for Christmas Day, only makes transformative sense if we have been through Advent: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” We must know what that darkness is to understand the strength of the Light. Advent teaches us that strength and helps us offer it to others.

Advent is not a parlor game or something that only certain denominations observe. It is not a time to “get ready for the holidays” in the way most of us understand the purpose of December. Advent is a spiritual transformation gift of time from centuries of Christian thought and practice. We need Advent to understand Christmas and the Incarnation of Jesus.

“Be not afraid,” the angel of the Lord says more than once in Scripture. God must not want us to be afraid! Does fear indicate a lack of trust in God’s loving care and ultimate protection? Where is the line between healthy fear (face-to-face with a cobra) and fear of doing the right thing? Courage, a word with French origins relating to the heart, is a way of living and being despite knocking knees. It is a willingness to say NO in the face of evil, knowing that that evil will not back down easily or without a fight in many cases. Courage hears the music of heaven above the cacophony of earth’s violence and injustice. As O. P. Kretzmann once said, the cry of the Child in the manager is the beginning battle challenge of the Prince of Peace.

May we take up the cry of our Commander-in-Chief and move boldly through this day.

God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because God is good. God does not love you because you are good; you are good because God loves you.  Fr. Richard Rohr

Blessed St. Nicholas day, everyone!

At this time of year, Protestants find themselves thinking about Mary. Many Protestants don’t know what to do with Mary. They certainly don’t want to worship her (and they are accurate in that belief) but the whole idea of calling her blessed (as the Angel Gabriel foretold she would be called) makes them very nervous.

The Eastern Orthodox Christian church venerates her but doesn’t worship her as those who are part of the Western Roman Catholic church tend to do. We can honor someone without worshiping them. Also, Mary is a model of how we should always respond to God: be it unto me according to your Word.

During this season of Advent, let u,s as Protestants, make peace with Mary. She is the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. She is a witness of a healthy submission to God, a model for us all to follow. We can praise her for that as we would applaud any profound witness to the Truth but we don’t have to worship her, nor should we.

Mary is a companion on the road we all walk. Let us not be afraid of embracing her as a fellow pilgrim along the way. It is OK to think of Mary, to call her blessed, in the same way we call any spiritual model or mentor blessed.

A well-done short video: Advent in two minutes.