Advent Sunday



Today is Advent Sunday- according to church tradition, the beginning of Advent. It is a time of traditions- an advent wreath or lighting the first advent candle, perhaps.

We all have personal traditions for celebrating Christmas. Maybe you have already put up a tree, and smiled as you decorated it with familiar ornaments? Or decorated your house and yard with Santa, his reindeer and a twinkling display of lights? My Dutch friends’ children have their shoes out, ready for Saint Nicholas and his helpers to arrive under cover of darkness at Sinterklaas this week.

Our traditions help to root us, just as the inevitability of Christmas provides a reassuring anchor to the turning of time. Even if we are unaware of it, they identify us as British, American or Dutch by the food we prepare, the songs we sing and the rituals which are meaningful to us. They ground us in our particular families, too- reminding us of where we have come from, of the generations before us. In a fast-moving age, where new updates are always available and we are frequently exhorted to keep up with change, our traditions can be a valuable reminder of our identity.


But we should also take care that our traditions don’t become misleading, either to others or to ourselves. Are we hiding behind them, or attempting to convince ourselves that for one month of the year, we are people who love spending time with our family and wish peace and goodwill to all?

Look at Paul- he was immensely proud of his Jewish heritage. He writes in Philippians 3: 5 and 6-

I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

We see here the same sort of passion and pride that can surface in fanaticism today. If our heritage, our identity and our traditions cease to be things which help us find our place in the world and become something we use to reinforce our own superiority or to justify exploitation of others, then we need to re-examine them. 

This Advent Sunday, do we need to spend some time considering how we plan to celebrate Christmas this year, and ensure that our traditions are good ones? The Bible Society had some ideas for actions that impact our communities- see their
#AdventChallenge

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

advent day two

Advent Day TWO~ Every one of you, hide among the rocks and in the ground, Because the LORD is fearsome, marvelous, and glorious. When the LORD comes, everyone who is proud will be made humble, And the LORD alone will be honoured. The LORD All-Powerful has chosen a day When those who are proud and conceited will be put down Isaiah 2: 10-12 What are we waiting for? Its good to remind ourselves  of who God is. What words would you use to describe God? Glorious?...Marvellous?...Fearsome? Try to spend some time today in a place where you can see something of God’s glory– it might be at the sea, under a starry night sky, watching a sunset or down on your hands and knees with the insects. God created this world we live in. He controls it, orders it, sustains it. He breathed life into our bodies– and He will decide when life leaves us. This is the LORD we worship. And he has chosen a day to return to earth in unmistakable power and glory. The angel choirs who sang to shephe...
Read more

Peter- walking a rocky road

Sometimes reading self help books or well-meaning blogs can make us feel that adopting a regime, a mantra or a new habit will lead to measurable results in a steadily increasing way. We feel as if we should be drawing a progress chart that climbs steadily upwards- but real life is just not like that. Maybe that's why so many of us find Peter an encouraging character in Scripture. When Jesus changes Simon's name to Peter, meaning the Rock, we cheer for him as we see Jesus recognising his strength of character. Jesus replied,  ‘Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter,   and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades [  will not overcome it.   I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be  bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be   loosed in heaven.’   Then he ordered his...
Read more

Isaiah 8

Why do people not read the Old Testament more? I imagine it's because of passages like this one- it's full of incomprehensible Hebrew names and places, which seem to have had some sort of significance to the first people to read them, but are off-putting to us today. Is the only way to read a passage like this to get out a concordance or commentary, and work out who all these people are? Or should we just ignore the stuff we don't understand, and skip straight to a verse or two that we can make sense of? One thing that reading through Isaiah one chapter at a time is showing me, is that the second option is not a valid one. the bits we might chose to pull out rarely mean what we might expect them to. It is worth pausing and asking what message they gave to the people of the time- even if that doesn't seem to be a message that is relevant to us today. This is a book that tells us about God, not offers us a quick fix for our problems and concerns. So in the middle of this ...
Read more