​     Unless, as the song goes, your true love gives you gifts on each of the twelve days of Christmas, most likely your gift-giving took place seven days ago, Christmas Day, the day of the Nativity of our Lord.  Through gifts we often are given precious memories by our friends, memories that will last well beyond the twelve days of Christmas.
 
     Gift giving at Christmas hasn’t always been universally accepted.  The Puritans forbade the observance of Christmas and everything associated with it.  And while Charles Dickens helped to popularize the giving of gifts at Christmas, others have tried to dampen the practice because of its obvious materialistic dangers.  Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist, thought it best not to give gifts, but to sit still and think about truth and purity until her friends were all the better for it.  Can you imagine the reaction of your family and friends if you had told them that instead of giving gifts this year you meditated on their behalf?   It’s a nice gesture, but it wouldn’t have the impact of a nice, tangible gift.
 
     As we find ourselves on the First Sunday after Christmas Day, it’s good to reflect on the meaning of that event that brought all of our celebrations about.  The Gospel that’s read on this day is the first 18 verses of the Gospel according to St. John, and its placement on this day is precisely for the purpose of reflection on the meaning of Christ’s birth.
 
     These verses have come to be known as the Prologue of John.  John is seeking to answer the question, “Who is Jesus?”  Before we examine what John says, I’d like for you to imagine what you would say if someone who knows absolutely nothing about Jesus were to ask you who he is.  How would you respond?
 
     Some might say Jesus is the Son of God.  I watched a television program in which Jesus was referred to by one of the characters as the Great Communicator.  Some folks would say that Jesus was a great teacher or a great moral leader.  Some would say he’s the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy concerning the awaited Messiah. 
 
     The apostle and evangelist St. John, in beginning his account of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, says he is the Word.  Being familiar with the Hebrew scriptures, John starts his account of the Gospel in the same way that the book of Genesis starts: “In the beginning.”  But John’s story of Jesus actually begins before creation, when nothing existed but God himself.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  So, when John says, “In the beginning was the Word,” he’s speaking of much more than a mere utterance of speech; he’s speaking of God himself.
 
     John’s using a concept of the Word that was familiar to both the Jews and the Greeks of his time.  For the Jew, a word was something in itself; it was an event, an action, and it had power.  Genesis proclaims, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.”  Each part of creation came to be through God’s uttering a word. 
 
     Words had a life of their own.  When Isaac gave to Jacob his words of blessing, even when they were to the wrong person, the person not intended by Isaac to receive his blessing, they couldn’t be taken back.  The event had happened through the utterance of words.  The prophet Jeremiah records God’s words: “Is not my word like fire, and, says the Lord, like a hammer which breaks the rocks in pieces?”  By around 100 B.C., because the name of God—Yahweh—was considered too holy to be said, whenever the scriptures were read in public, when the reader came to the name of God, he would substitute “Word” for Yahweh, and that practice was in use at the time John wrote his account of the Gospel.  In calling the Word God, John is not doing anything surprising to the Jew of his day.
 
    Likewise, for the Greek, logos, which is the Greek word for word, means reason.  It suggests the order that characterizes creation, and ultimately, it is the mind of God.  And so, to the Greeks, for John to call logos God is no surprise.
 
     What is a surprise to both Jew and Greek is what John goes on to say, for he says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”  This Jesus, who was born as a baby in Bethlehem, at a particular time in history, existed from before all time, and is God himself.
 
     We hear a lot about keeping the true meaning of Christmas, and this is what Christmas really means: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  God taking flesh in a particular human being at a particular time in history has at least two profound theological implications.  First, it means that God is intimately acquainted with human nature, from the inside.  He knows what it is to be hungry, to be anxious, to be rejected, to be tempted.  The incarnation shows us the extent of God’s love for us and the fact that there’s nothing that we experience that is beyond his compassion, his concern, his forgiveness.  Jesus wasn’t born in a church and reared in a protected, insulated environment.  He chose and continues to choose to be involved in every aspect of human life—our relationships, our businesses, the tough decisions we have to make.  God isn’t aloof from life, but is intimately involved.
 
     And second, the incarnation gives to the Church the model for faith.  We’re called not simply to think good thoughts, not just to say our prayers, as good as these things are, but to live out our faith in our deeds.  And so we build hospitals to care for the sick, schools to educate the young.  We hand out lunches to the hungry, build homes to help the poor break out of the cycle of poverty, provide counseling to troubled youth.  Wherever there’s a human need, there’s the Church, incarnating our belief that God is intimately involved with our every need.
 
     That is the meaning of Christmas.  So keep giving gifts at Christmas as tangible signs of your love for your family and friends, but don’t let it stop there.  Let us make giving a way of life, modeling ourselves after the self-giving love of God, who became flesh and dwelt among us.

The greens have been hung. The frontal has been changed. Flowers of red and white bloom from cold stone and dark wood.

And yet we wait. Advent may begin in the dark, with the thundering voice of John the Baptist ringing in our ears; but it ends in the light, with glad tidings lifting our hearts. Can you feel it?

Anticipatory smiles are on our faces. Good humor is already tugging at our lips. We know what is coming in just a few short hours. The music, the cookies, the shrieks and squeals of delight (at least in my house): the gift of Christmas is about to be opened — because the baby is coming. He’s almost here; but this morning on the last Sunday of Advent, his mother is still in labor — though not as we might expect. For with the words “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee,” the pain of childbearing begins to fade, the sin of Eve begins to be redeemed, the curse itself begins to lift. Because Mary — our Mother, God’s Mother — bowed her head and with her whole being said, “May it be to me according to thy word.”

Her “yes” was the beginning of it all, the beginning of the rebirth of everything — man, woman, child, bird, beast, rocks, trees — everything reborn in the birth of the Virgin’s Son. 


Mary couldn’t have known what would happen the day Gabriel appeared. She may have been sweeping the floor or doing dishes when suddenly an angel spoke. And he addressed her as one would a queen: “Hail! Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

And Mary, that righteous woman, fell on her knees, afraid — in awe — of what was about to be revealed. Her spirit was troubled. What could this greeting mean? And so she was silent. She waited, and she watched, and the peace of God which passes all understanding filled her heart and settled her mind and stilled her body. 

Because Mary knew God. She knew him. She knew that the Holy One of Israel Is Who He Is and Will Be Who He Will Be, never changing and always surprising us. And so it was that she believed that this Word she had been given was Good News.

God is on the move. Messiah is coming. He is drawing near to save his people; but he comes not as a conquering king, approaching only as close to his servants as he could stand. He comes as a King who, setting aside his crown and taking off his royal robes, humbles himself until even the smallest, weakest child can behold him and know without a shadow of a doubt that this God-Man is Love. As the Apostle John put it so poignantly, the Word that was born of God before creation began, through whom all was made — He was born of Mary. God tabernacled among us, trading his glory and power for the helpless fragility of a baby in his mother’s womb. 

And Mary loved him for it, loved him as her God and as her very own Son. How could she stay silent any longer? “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed. The Almighty has done great things for me. And holy is his name!”

The Blessed Virgin waits. Mother and child are about to meet. It is the quiet of the morning before the dawn of the last night — and we wait with her. Joyful. Expectant. Bearing Christ in our own way and in our own time. Praying with his Mother, our Mother, that the Child born in a manger might reign in our hearts — not just at Christmas, but always. AMEN. 


​

Christmas is a time when memories are made. For me, many of those memories have
to do with the Church. For as far back as I can remember, the bulk of my Christmases
have been spent in church. Before I was a priest, I was in church choirs. Christmas for
church choirs is a very busy and time-consuming holy day. For example, our parish choir
sang for our four o’clock mass and now for our 11 o’clock mass, with rehearsals prior to
the services. That was my experience, too, as I was growing up. So many of my
Christmas memories are tied up with the music of Christmas.

It’s so beautiful and heart-warming. The Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah is a
favorite, especially “For Unto us a Child is Born” and, of course, the “Hallelujah
Chorus.” But the music that’s most beloved are Christmas carols. Many of us learned
those carols at an early age and we look forward to coming to church and singing them
each year. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without that beautiful tradition.
When I was young I knew all the words to the carols, but I didn’t catch the subtleties
that are so important to me today. Take for instance “O Little Town of Bethlehem,”
written by Philips Brooks in 1868. Three years earlier he had traveled to the Holy Land
and had seen Bethlehem and the place where it’s believed Jesus was born. When he
returned to his home in Philadelphia the memory of Bethlehem stayed with him and
inspired him to write his now famous hymn.

As in so many of the hymns of the Church, there are at least two levels of meaning in
the hymn. The first is literal and the second figurative. “Yet in thy dark streets shineth
the everlasting Light” recalls not only the dark streets of Bethlehem in the first century,
but also the dark streets of Philadelphia in the 19 th century. How dark those streets were,
as in every city in the United States at that time. The Civil War had only ended three
years before. So many had been killed, the economy was in a shambles, places where the
war had been fought were still having trouble getting back to normal.

But he also knew that if his hymn happened to survive the test of time, those words
would speak to every age. Those dark streets of Bethlehem are not so much a place as
they are a condition of the soul. Those dark streets speak of a sense of isolation from
God and one another and even from oneself; the dark streets are the wounds each one of
us has that have left their scars, some still not even healed. Those dark streets speak of
grudges still being held, consciences nagged by secret sins, selfishness and greed in the
midst of hunger and want. Those dark streets are in New York and London and Moscow
and Kyiv and Champaign, and every place where human beings are found, because those
dark streets are in the human heart.

It is into those dark streets that Jesus, the everlasting Light, wants to shine. Just as
that Light shone on the streets of Bethlehem, so he continues to shine in our day, “where
meek souls will receive him.” I see that Light in the lives of the people of this parish and
I’m inspired by your witness.

The famous preacher, Fred Craddock, who died in 2015, tells the story of a missionary
sent to preach the Gospel in India toward the end of World War II. After many months
the time came for him to return home for a furlough.

His church wired money for him to book passage on a steamer; but when he got to the
port city, he discovered that a boatload of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily.
These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world, literally
looking for a place to live. These particular Jews were now staying in attics and
warehouses and basements all over that port city.

It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one
of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, “Merry
Christmas.”

The people looked at him as if he were crazy and responded, “We’re Jews.”
“I know that,” said the missionary. “What would you like for Christmas?”
In utter amazement, the Jews responded, “Why, we’d like pastries, good pastries, like
the ones we used to have in Germany.”

So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for
all the Jews he could find staying in the port. Of course, then he had to wire home asking
for more money to book his passage back to the States.

As you might expect, his superiors wired back asking what had happened to the
money they’d already sent. He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for
some Jews.

His superiors wired back, “Why did you do that? They don’t even believe in Jesus.”

He wired in return: “Yes, but I do.”

The dark streets in that very dark time had a Light shine in them that night, for Jesus
Christ came to that little community of Jews through that missionary. Each one of us is
called to bring the Light to those in our families, our workplaces, our clubs, our schools.
The people with whom we associate may not be Christian, but we are, and that means
that Jesus can be present wherever we happen to be.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.

“Who are you?” they asked. “Who are you? The Messiah? Elijah? Tell us. We must know.” In the Greek text of our gospel lesson today, the urgency in the priests’ and levites’ voices is unmistakable. A man has come, from the wilderness, from who knows where, and he is preaching, proclaiming a message that sounds different than anything the Jewish people in those days could remember hearing. This man in his hair shirt and his leather belt, beard unkempt and voice blasting, sounded like a prophet — but a prophet from another time and another place. He spoke like Moses. He spoke like Elijah. “Who are you?” they asked him. “We must know. Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” 

And John said: “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” 

St. John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, knew who he was. And who he wasn’t. He knew it was his role, his purpose to step out in front of the Messiah, proclaiming that his advent was at hand. And then he would fade away, his job done. Which is what happened. Imprisoned by an angry king, John was killed. Beheaded. John once said that “I must decrease, so that he, so that Christ, can increase.” And that happened. Literally.

John the Baptist has always been a formidable figure, defying easy categorization, offending just about everyone. Like the season of Advent, in which he features so prominently, this last prophet of the Old Covenant straddles two worlds and two times at once. It’s really no wonder he’s grouchy.

All jokes aside, his intensity, though off-putting, is right on the mark. St. John the Baptist understands like no one else did or does what was about to happen not simply in Judea during the 1st century AD but in all places and for all times. God himself was coming, coming to save his people, to save his creation. “Make straight the way of the LORD.”

On this third Sunday in Advent, we cannot forget that imperative. The voice of the one crying out in the wilderness won’t let us. His words echo throughout our music and in our liturgy. Even the collect for today is on John’s side: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; for we are sorely hindered by our sins.”

But what does that mean? As we’ve heard this week and last, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And hundreds, thousands of people from the whole Judean countryside and all of Jerusalem came running and were baptized, confessing their sins — a scene that never seems to make it onto any Advent calendars. Perhaps because such a spectacle can’t really be called festive. 

If there’s anything more discomfiting than talking about John the Baptist, it’s that s-word, “sin,” which if we were to poll most people would be one of the topics that is strictly off-the-table for holiday gatherings. Sin is not the stuff of polite conversation. And yet we keep hearing about it. John the Baptist keeps talking about it — for a reason. He knows what is at stake. He knows that it is for our good, for the well-being of our souls, to reckon with the fact we still need rescuing, because Sin — with a capital “S” — is still among us.

And by that I don’t mean that we’re all terrible people who should do more to feel bad about how bad we are. Sin isn’t just about the misdeed, the white lie, the one-too-many drinks. Sin is a power. An adversary we’ve all met, whether in the tragedy of a loved one’s death or in the never-ending medical bills that accompany chronic illness or in the sudden rush of irrational anger or the surge of irrepressible fear that plague us when we’re driving to work or failing to sleep at night. That is Sin. It is alienation from God. It is a negating force that works its way through families, cities, and nations, breaking and brawling until we’re afraid that everything will go to ruin. 

We shouldn’t be surprised that our culture’s Christmas season has become so long and so extravagant — because Sin and all that accompanies it is so clearly visible: on TV, online, on our phones. We never seem to get a break from bad news. And we are all desperate for relief. We are all hungry for love. We are all longing for good news. And we don’t want those things to be a nostalgia-fueled dream we live for a few months out of the year. We want to possess the reality. Which we already do. The LORD has done great things for us, and we are glad indeed. 

In the paradox of our life in Christ, which is the paradox Advent puts on full display, we are reminded in no uncertain terms that happiness is not found under a Christmas tree. Happiness, true happiness, is found at the foot of the cross. And that, contradictory as it sounds, is the Gospel, the good news, the cry of victory, that still applies to us. For we are sorely hindered by the sorrow and the sickness in our world and in our hearts; and yet there is One who is not. There is One who has triumphed over all the forces of darkness, who willingly, actively accepted the worst the world could give so that he might deliver his beloved from Sin and Death and clothe her with the garlands and the jewels of holiness. From slavery to salvation. Christ would do, he does do the same for us, coming daily, hourly, moment-by-moment to strengthen and transform his bride. 

And that is not just a hope. Not just a figment of our imagination. That’s real. It’s our reality. Someone who loves us, who knows us, who promised not to leave us, is working for our good at all times. He is there, even now knocking on the door of our hearts, saying “The LORD has sent me to bring good news to you.” 

Christ has come. His Advent is at hand, and he has been sent by the Father to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, to comfort all who mourn — and not just that, but to build us up and send us out, so that the ruined might raise up the ruins and the devastated build back the former devastations, until paradise begins to take hold now. 

But how? And where? And why? Those are Advent questions, the questions that characterize a Christian life, which is one of learning to see Christ and then walking straight toward him. That posture, that watchfulness and wakefulness, will change us, will make us the kind of people who look for the light in every eye, for the good in everything, who thereby find Jesus and follow him wherever he might take us.

As St. John the Baptist prays, so do we: That we might become less and less and Christ become more and more. For He alone is our Hope. He alone is our Love. He alone is our Joy. 

“May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.” AMEN.
 

​

Gazing out over the walls of Jerusalem, you would have thought that all was well. The King in those days, Hezekiah, had recovered, miraculously, from a terrible illness. And, on top of that, he had stopped Babylon, that insatiable empire, from destroying the last vestige of Solomon’s once-glorious kingdom. There was peace in Judea. Peace in a world at war. The end they all feared — from the kids playing ball to the elders sitting in the gate — had not come. Yet. “Hear the Word of the LORD of hosts,” the Prophet Isaiah said. “The day is coming, O King, when all that is in your house will be taken to Babylon. Even your own children will be taken there and serve in its courts.” And Hezekiah, thinking that there would be peace and security in his day, said, “The Word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.”

When the Prophet Isaiah recorded the exchange I’ve just mentioned, when he wrote that familiar cry in today’s OT lesson, Jerusalem was on the edge of disaster. The tension was palpable. Smoke rose from ruined cities to the North and to the East and to the South. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before Babylon came knocking on Jerusalem’s door. It didn’t matter what Hezekiah thought he heard. The time for intervention was up and the time Jerusalem’s reckoning was at hand. 

There was little they could do but wait. There was little they could do but lament the failure of their leaders and regret the idolatry, the faithlessness that had brought them to this point. And there was little they could do but hope — for it was at that time that God said, “I am coming.” 

During the season of Advent, we, too, walk that fine line between despair and hope, between the already and the not yet, between darkness of Sin and the light of salvation. During the season of Advent, we, too, feel that holy dissatisfaction with a world that is so out-of-step with the pain all around us. During the season of Advent, we, too, are the people of Israel, who wait for a miracle. Who wait for Someone to come and save us. 

But during this season of Advent in particular, that feeling is stronger than it has been in years — because we can’t forget that we need saving.  

Smoke rises from almost every corner of the globe. The poor are oppressed. The widow and the orphan go hungry. And the last vestige of virtue and civility, the foundation of our society, is crumbling away. Has crumbled away. To quote a Chinese curse I’m sure you’ve all heard, We live in interesting times. And we would like very much to have it any other way.

But the strength of our wishing doesn’t accomplish much. Like the people of Jerusalem, we watch as the end of something — whether the precarious post-Cold War peace, or the power and prestige of our own nation, or the blessings of modernity that we’ve long taken for granted — begins to wither away. Everyone knows we’re close to something dark and dangerous. And it doesn’t matter how much Christmas music is piped into every grocery store in town, we can’t drown out the silent scream of a people who can no longer see the humanity in each other for the fear and anger in their eyes. 

Possessed by worry, hardened by hate, we all, every one of us — yes, us here, too — are in danger of losing our way, of losing our life, not to a literal physical death but to unreality. To non-being. To evil. Babylon is still among us, prowling around like a hungry lion, longing to devour the people of God. She knows we are weak. She knows we are vulnerable. 

But that is precisely where our strength lies. 

We never could live life on our own. We never could fight our battles like the last survivor in a sea of enemies. We never could find recovery or reach the good without Someone else’s help. And we never needed to. 

The battle is over. The strife is ended. Although we so often live like war is raging around us, it is in fact finished. Darkness once covered our eyes, ice enclosed our hearts, and we did not know it. We lived as though asleep, asleep to the glory and the grandeur and the grace that is all around us. And yet Someone has been fighting on our behalf. Someone has been laboring for us, never ceasing to seek out and save the lost. No matter what condition we might be in. 

Our Savior doesn’t wait. He doesn’t wait until all is well to make his Advent among us. He doesn’t wait until we are fit for his presence. He comes. He comes now.

And that is the beginning of the Gospel. 

The voice of one is crying in the desert: “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.” He is on the way.

When our leaders have failed us, when doom is imminent, when all hope seems lost, God speaks — to our hearts. “Comfort, comfort my people.” Undeterred by the ruin, unafraid of the flames, unashamed of our faithlessness, Christ comes. Gaze fixed, heart sure, hands steady. He comes with might. He rules with strength. He would stretch out his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that every one might come within the reach of his saving embrace.

Our Lord would gather us up, each one of us, with the tenderness of a shepherd with a lamb, with the tenderness of a mother with her newborn child. He gathers up the lame and the leper, the weak and the wounded and loves us back to life again. 

His Advent is at hand. Not only at the end of time when he comes to judge the quick and the dead; not only in the manger where the one through whom all was made makes all things new, as he cries for his mother; but now. He comes now — into the wilderness of our hearts. He would raise the valleys and lower the mountains and dwell with those who need him, who have seen in their own selves their need for a Savior, and who are looking for him — only to find he’s been there all along.

As the psalmist said, God’s salvation is near to those who fear him — on our lips and in our hearts, speaking peace to a people who can hear that we are all poor in spirit, dry and dead without the living water of Christ to cleanse us and nourish us and lift our gaze once more toward the world where Christ is all in all, where his footsteps are there for us to follow. 

“Comfort, comfort my people, says the LORD. I AM coming.” AMEN.

​

​      We have come to this marvelous season called Advent.  Here in the church, the signs of Advent are unmistakable.  The liturgical color is a rich purple, the flower arrangements are more subdued, we began with the Decalogue and a prayer of confession, the hymns and other music speak about expectantly awaiting the coming of Christ, and, of course, the Advent wreath is in place with only one candle lighted on this first Sunday.
 
     Advent is a first cousin of Lent; it's penitential but not as penitential as Lent.  Unlike Lent, it has no prescribed fast days, but abstinence is encouraged, especially on the Fridays of Advent.  It follows the ancient custom of providing the Church with a season of penitence before the celebration of a great feast, in this case, the Feast of Christmas. 
 
     The biggest difference between Advent and Lent, however, is that Lent is not controversial, but Advent is.  And it all has to do with how Christmas is celebrated.  In our culture, we are now fully in the Christmas season.  Shops and malls, neighborhoods, many homes, even of Christians, are decked out with Christmas trees, beautiful lights, and all other kinds of decorations.  Christmas programming and advertising are ubiquitous on the television and radio.  Such will be the case through the 25th of December, and then all of it will disappear and Christmas music will be heard no more until next year.
 
     The only place you currently don't see Christmas decorations and hear Christmas carols playing in the background is the Church.  If you weren't accustomed to the tradition of Advent and came into the church for worship on any Sunday of the season, you might even be irritated that this is the one place where the birth of Christ is not being observed!  You might even be a little indignant!  "What kind of a church is this?!" you might exclaim.  Even some Episcopalians think that the penitential emphasis of Advent is inappropriate and they refer to this traditional understanding as Sadvent, whereas they would observe Gladvent!
 
     The fact of the matter is that the Church is obviously not going to change the culture in which we live so that everybody observes Advent, and Christmas begins on the 25th of December and ends on the Feast of the Epiphany, 6 January. 
 
     Likewise, the culture is not going to change how the Church observes Advent.  And we are a part of the Church as well as a part of the culture, so during this period before the 25th of December we Episcopalians lead a kind of split-personality, schizophrenic life. 
     And I think that's probably the best we can do.  Yes, if we tried hard enough, we really could decide that we’re not going to participate in any Christmas activities between now and the 25th of December. We could choose not to accept any party invitations and we could refuse to give gifts or accept gifts until the appointed time.  When people wish us a Merry Christmas during Advent we could give them a disapproving look and wish them a blessed Advent. 
 
     Another way of dealing with the incongruity of this time of year is simply to accept the fact that worship in the Church emphasizes something entirely different from what's going on elsewhere and that we just forget about the meaning of the Advent season in the rest of our lives. 
 
     I don't recommend either of these approaches during the season of Advent.  The better choice is truly to be schizophrenic about the season!  We can engage in what the culture does at this time of year, but also incorporate the things of Advent into our daily lives.  Advent devotionals at meal times are a wonderful way to do that, using an Advent wreath, which is also a visible sign of the season. 
 
     Heed St.  Paul's warning, incorporated into today’s Collect, "to cast away the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."  Think about making a sacramental confession, or at least take time to confess your sins in the privacy of your own home.  What works of darkness are still a part of your life?  Confess those works of darkness, ask for God's forgiveness, and replace them with the things of faith.  This Advent write a letter or send a card to someone who is lonely; incorporate more prayer into the midst of your day, not long periods of prayer but short prayers of thanksgiving, calling to mind that Jesus is present in your life and you in his.
 
     Finally, when Christmas really does come, keep it for a whole 12 days.  Make your family celebration of the Christmas season truly a joyful proclamation of the incarnation. 
 
     Do you believe Jesus is coming today?  He may!  He tells us, “Watch, therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning---lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.”  Enter into the mystery of Advent, and you and I will be ready when he comes.