Advent

Christmas is coming. Shopping malls and stores of every kind are filled with people rushing about, spending money, and accumulating stress. Funny how stress goes hand in hand with the holidays. Even the monks and nuns have stress this time of year because of the rush on their food products. Lots of commentators tell us that we should relax, not take the gift buying so seriously, to step back from ourselves and enter into the meaning of the holiday. Yet, isn't Advent a stressful time in a religious sense as well?

At the time of Jesus birth the entire known world was stressed by revolutions, lunatics sitting on thrones, ill health, and the general misery of the people. The people of Israel were under Roman rule, a statue had been put into the Temple, Herod was ruler, and things must have looked like they were going to hell in a hand basket. No doubt there were plenty of people wishing for the "good old days," whatever that is supposed to be.

The advent readings offer hope, but not much in the way of immediate relief from the stress of the time. For the entire world from creation until Jesus was born was one very long Advent. We only have to put up with four weeks of Advent before the great glory is revealed in the birth of Jesus.

Somehow then it seems appropriate that we go through stress during Advent. I'm not defending the modern world's values, or our consumer culture, but I do say that the hurry and shopping and cooking and arguing that we all do during the season, is nothing more than a small sample of what the world went through for the thousands of years before Jesus was born. Maybe we should remember that, and how blessed we are to only have to wait a few weeks for the Incarnation of him, who we know as Christ.