Welcome to the Advent Conspiracy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to subvert Christmas. And yes, I did say subvert. Merriam/Webster says to subvert is to overturn or overthrow from the foundation, to pervert or corrupt by an undermining of morals, allegiance, or faith. It’s not the sort of thing pastors usually encourage.
Far more common to hear a pastor say, “We need to retake Christmas!” Like it’s a hill on a battlefield. In my opinion, anyone who says such things simply hasn’t done their homework. We cannot retake, reclaim, recover, or repossess Christmas, because all of those RE’s imply that upon a time Christmas belonged to us.
The real story is lost to us, but my guess is it went something like this. Once upon a time, the only thing that shone in the night were the moon and the stars. Winter wasn’t a wonderland, it was a marathon. Which would last longer? The snow? Or your food supplies?
In those days, when the world got colder and the nights got longer, it would be easy to give up hope. People without hope do dangerous things, even if there is enough food. So, one of their wise ones taught them to watch the sun.
If you stake a pole in the ground and watch where the mid-day shadow falls, you can make a little mark in the dirt. Each day, that little mark will shift, each day’s mark moving farther and farther north. As the days get shorter, the lines get closer together, until day after day, it seems as if the sun is standing still. That’s why they call it solstice. Sol, meaning sun. And stice meaning stands.
When the people saw the sun stand still they would know that winter’s back was broken, and that spring would come again. Naturally, they would throw a party. One ancient tradition says they would cut down the largest evergreen they could find, throw the giant log into the fire, and as long as that log burned, that’s how long the party lasted. Another says they would sacrifice a boar, make vows, and share it in a feast. The truth is probably as diverse as the people that celebrated, but all those traditions added up defiance of darkness.
When the Christians came, they saw a parallel between the defiant hopefulness of solstice, and the defiant hopefulness of the narrative of Jesus’ birth. They Christianized a pagan festival. Well, they tried. We wish you a merry Christmas. So bring us some figgy pudding. Imagine you’re trying to honor the birth of Christ, and crew of drunken hooligans stand your own lawn and demand food. We won’t go until we get some.
Now you understand why the Pilgrims banned Christmas. The Puritans called it, “Foolstide” 16th-century clergyman Hugh Latimer said, “Men dishonor Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas, than in all the 12 months besides.” Christmas didn’t become an official American holiday until 1870. And from the very start, it has existed in a tension between believers who sincerely want to honor Christ, and business owners who sincerely want to make money.
Santa Clause as we know him was popularized at least in part by Coca-Cola, Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was invented by Montgomery Ward. You cannot reclaim Christmas! It was never ours. Christians have been intentionally subverting someone else’s holiday for approximately 2000 years.
Remember, to subvert is to overturn or overthrow from the foundation. What was the foundation? The sun! People needed warmth on a cold day. They needed for hope in a long, dark night. So their wise ones pointed them toward the sun.
Does it really change anything? Does it start getting warmer after December 21st? No way! Just the opposite, right? You are not half-way through winter. January is going to be cold. And February is going to be worse. Solstice does not change your situation. It changes your point of view. Christianity does the exact same thing, it just points people toward a different son.
If you would join this advent conspiracy, it begins with fixing your eyes on the proper son. So your tactic this week is to worship fully. Follow the example of the Psalmist. I have to admit I’m guilty of a little selective reading this week. Did you notice we skipped the middle of the Psalm?
This is a modern rendition of Psalm 25. Written by a band called Third Day. Great band. Here’s their version. If you want to just listen along, that’s good. It’s a good song. But if you want to turn to Psalm 25 and read along, you might learn something.
So what part got left out? The whole middle. The part about pain and fear and loneliness and enemies. The Psalms can be disturbing to our modern sensibilities, so when we read them or rewrite them, we tend to skip over the hard parts, but their beauty lies in their absolute honesty. David lived a complex life and he brought every ounce of it, the joy and pain, the loss and the anger, he brought it all to the face of God. When we worship fully, we see the world from an eternal perspective.
The problem, as Isaiah discovered, is that God speaks in a whisper. He’s not in the noise of the wind. He’s not in the motion of the earthquake. He’s not in the light and heat of the flame. God speaks from the silence. So, your homework this week is to shut your mouth. My homework, our homework, is to seek silence. If you have family, try it at the dinner table. Go one whole meal without saying anything. And notice what you really wish you could say. Because I bet it’s not, “Please pass the salt.”
We don’t just truncate the Psalms, we edit ourselves. We keep the hard parts to ourselves and speak the trivialities. But when we practice seeking silence, when we intentionally shut our mouths, we discover almost accidentally what we really wanted to say.
When we do that, when we practice the presence of God, we begin it see the world from an eternal perspective. It helps us stay calm when everyone else is frantic from the noise, the commotion, and the flashing lights. It helps us stay centered when everyone else is chasing the latest beeping, bouncing, glowing gadget. And even though it’s only December, even though the days are still dark and cold, even though it might get worse before it gets better, that new perspective gives us hope. Don’t you think the world needs a little hope? Welcome to the conspiracy.
