Reflections "Skipping Advent"

I'm not sure how well the sermon worked. I had fun with it, but it was a tongue-in-cheek sermon for the most part, and I'm not sure how that got interpreted by the congregation. In the chapel service, I got several smiles and some laughter, but in the sanctuary service, the mood seemed a bit more serious. Maybe that was how I came across in those respective settings.

In some ways, I find it harder to preach Advent each year because it seems so contrived. But, as I worked through what it might be like to not have Advent, I realized that this time of preparation really does add a lot of meaning when we finally arrive in Bethlehem.

In preparing the sermon I realized how critical the events of the faith community are to the Advent preparation (or at least mine). The group activities are what I would miss most if we skip Advent. I also realized that the call to repent is the hardest to express during Advent. John the Baptist's call to repent gets easily lost in the sound of Christmas carols and the ringing up of cash registers as we enter this frenzied pre-Christmas time. Of course, the theme of Jesus coming again gets no traction in our Advent thinking.


Introduction: john Grisham's novel Skipping Christmas tells the story of Luther and his wife who decide to skip Christmas. No Christmas preparations, no gift giving, no parties – nothing to do with Christmas. And with the money they will save, they will go on a cruise starting Christmas day.

As I reflected on our Advent journey this year, it occurred to me that most of us would not want to skip Christmas, but we might be willing to skip Advent.

In fact, I found my Top Ten Reasons to skip Advent this year:

Move 1: 10 reasons to skip Advent and go straight to Christmas

Reason #10: Skip Advent hymns
a. I know you would hate to not sing those Advent hymns.
b. You would probably miss the minor keys and somewhat unfamiliar songs.
c. No more “Richard must think the words are important, or why else would he sing this hymn”
d. Imagine singing Christmas carols every Sunday in Dec. and even a Sunday in November.

Reason #9: Skip the Advent candle lighting each week.
a. Worship has been running long lately, so why add something else.
b. One more thing the Worship committee has to find volunteers to do.
c. The candle lighting is an unnecessary addition to our worship.

Reason #8: Skip the purple colors
a. Purple is for Lent anyway.
b. The color purple that calls calls us to be penitent and reflection.
c. Purple with Lent makes sense – getting ready for Maundy, Thursday, then Good Friday, then Easter – that might call for a time of reflection.
d. But Advent – skip Advent and the color purple.

Reason #7: Skip the Advent devotionals
a. Who has the time?
b. The kids probably do not have time in their busy schedules.
c. No more feeling guilty every time you pass the Advent devotional guide on the table and remember that another day has passed without doing it.

Reason #6: Skip that sense of superiority we get from not rushing to Christmas.
a. No more being a retail store and hearing Christmas songs in November and thinking, “I can't believe they are already playing Christmas songs. They don't understand the true meaning of Christmas like I do!”
b. No more feeling guilty about those thoughts because we are going to skip Advent and head for Christmas.

Reason #5: Skip John the Baptist
a. What a strange guy, anyway.
b. Most of us won't miss him, or his harsh words, or his call for us to repent.
c.Barbara Brown Taylor liken John the Baptist to a Doberman pincher that keeps nipping at our heels all through Advent.
d. But we'll jump ahead to baby Jesus and leave John the Baptist out of the story.

Reason # 4: Skip that Jesus will come again stuff.
a. Advent does not just settle for preparing for the birth of Jesus.
b. We are also challenged to look toward the day when Jesus will come again.
c. But if we skip Advent, we will not read texts like the one in Matthew that calls us to be vigilant and be prepared for when Christ will come again.
d. No, we'll just focus on baby Jesus and not worry about anything else that might be coming.

Reason #3: Skip worrying about what you are doing with your life at this very moment.
a. No need read passages like the one we read from Paul's letter to the Romans that calls them to act as if Christ were coming that day.
b. No more hearing John the Baptist call us to repent and being forced to examine our lives to see if what we are doing to prepare to meet Christ.

Reason #2: Skip those extra church activities
a. The Advent dinner takes up another Sunday night.
1. they'll probably have those three guys acting like shepherds again.
2. we might miss the chance to share fellowship, or invite someone to come with us, or
b. the kids have busy schedules so why make time for the program.
c. No Christmas caroling
1. It's generally cold.
2. if you've heard Mario and me lead the singing, then you probably want to skip it anyway!
3. of course, the people we visit might miss it.

Reason #1 to skip Advent: Skip waiting altogether
a. Heinz Ketchup had a very successful pr campaign years ago that was based on the idea of how great it was to anticipate the ketchup finally coming out of the bottle (I bet some here could even sing that song about anticipating).
1. It sounded good, but what did everyone still do when they grabbed the ketchup bottle? Stick a straw in it; or a knife; or shake it really hard; anything to make the ketchup come out of the bottle faster.
2. Anticipation wasn't all that great, after all.
b. Who wants to wait for Christ to come.
c. Who wants to wait for Christmas Eve service.
d. The birth of Jesus is what it is about, so let's just skip the waiting and get to the point.

We can find a lot of compelling reasons to skip Advent, to race to the manger, and to leave all of Advent behind.

But before skipping Advent all together, consider this story Jim Lowry tells about the nativity scene his grandmother put out every year during Advent.

It was not one of those delicate, beautiful, no one can touch it manger scenes. Instead, it was built with children in mind.

His grandmother had a great gourd almost as big as a bushel basket. His grandfather had cut a hole in the side of the gourd and painted the inside dark blue to look like the sky. He dotted the sky with stars and then he did a most remarkable thing. He installed a little electric light in the sky that could be turned on to be the Christmas Star.

Best of all, they had a shoe box filled to overflowing with a wonderful assortment of mix-and-match figures. Most of the figures were chipped and bruised, and the angels’ wings were bent from years of handling and pretending. For weeks before Christmas, as a way of getting ready, the gourd was kept on the floor with the box of figures beside it.

Together they were an invitation for children of all ages to arrange and rearrange the figures and to tell the story to anyone who would listen; it was a chance for little people and big people alike to become part of the story of that remarkable birth. James S. Lowry, “Introducing the Luke Cycle: Advent Preaching for Year C,” Journal for Preachers, Vol. XXI, No. 1, Advent 1997, 9-10.

Conclusion: Advent invites us to be a part of Christ's story. Not just the birth story, but to be a part of the story of the one who came and lived among us; to be part of the story of the who calls us out of our sinfulness to a new way of life, to be part of the story of the one who dies on the cross and claims us as our Savior, to be part of the story of the One who will come again. Amen.