Observing the Fourth Sunday of Advent

We are roaring toward the Fourth Sunday in Advent.  Naturally, this is also the last Sunday in the season.  The date is the 23^rd.  So, Christmas Eve is one day following and then Christmas Day is the day after that.  For a lot of people, it will be “Christmas Sunday.”  It is the Sunday closer to Christmas Day.  It is the Sunday of “Christmas Weekend.”  And… we get in such a hurry, it seems that we just can’t wait for the day to get here.

However, it is still Advent.  The time has not yet come.  If it were a matter of Christmas being the following Friday or Saturday many of us could easily embrace these days of anticipation.  But, being almost here, we act as if the day had already arrived, or as if we can somehow hasten its coming by artificially including Christmas in our observances.

The New Revised Common Lectionary (NRCL) still holds off.  The Old Testament reading is the Bethlehem oracle from Micah.  The Gospel Lesson is Luke’s story of The Visitation.  This worship tool says to us, “Wait, wait.”

I am not talking about a matter of being the Christmas police, standing with arms crossed before our people and shouting, “You better not be doing Christmas stuff before December 24/5!”  I hope to be encouraging folk to embrace Advent itself in all its fullness.  Lawrence Hull Stookey says,

            If you were taught that Advent is primarily about 

            the past expectation of the coming of the Messiah, 

            consider instead that Advent is primarily about the

            future, with implications for the present.¹

These are wondrous days.  I would hope that we can make the most of them.

¹Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church 

(Nashville: Abingdon, 1996.)