Why the Holding Back?

Advent is a strange and wonderful time in the life of the worshiping community: strange, because we seem to be holding back when the culture is going wild; wonderful, because we know that a night is coming when we will join together in singing "Gloria in excelcis Deo" and "O Come, All Ye Faithful" with candles blazing everywhere.

Advent is not a penitential period like Lent. But, like Lent, Advent is a season of anticipation and preparation. There is reason for restraint. Liturgically speaking, if you can't hold back, you can't celebrate. Christians know about fasting and feasting --or we could know about it if we used the means of grace and let the Christian calendar discipline us. Our culture is geared to instant everything, and "right now" is our demand. Yet the gospel's wisdom is that we do not live according to our timetable. We live by the Lord of time who is coming, but who never seems to be on our time schedule; who came long ago when no one was ready except a few shepherds who didn't know what to make of it.

So we do odd things in the church. We use purple or blue to suggest a state of unfulfilled readiness. Then, at Christmas, we bring on the joyful white; and the contrast with the somber color of purple or blue sets it off with greater effect. The tone of Advent music and texts is more restrained so that the sound of the angels' song may resound with greater freshness on Christmas Eve! (See "Advent: Finding the Balance Between the Sacred and Secular"by Anne Burnette Hook for other possibilities for planning and music during Advent.)

Does this mean we need to be deprived during Advent? Absolutely not! Not if we enter into the character of the season and feel the tension pulling us and surfacing in us all our yearnings and longings for One who is like us in our suffering and struggle in the flesh and who comes from beyond death to bring justice and establish God's reign.

Over time, the church has discovered ways to wait and anticipate with "holy groaning." Here are some of the ways we may groan and wait:

• Use the Advent wreath in worship and urge people to use it at home. See 261 and 262 in The United Methodist Book of Worship for guidance in constructing, blessing, and using an Advent wreath in worship. Offer An Advent Calendar of Devotions (available from Cokesbury bookstores) or another weekly or daily prayer guide for all people to use during Advent.
  
• Use "An Order for Evening Praise and Prayer" (The United Methodist Hymnal, 878-879) daily or weekly to gather people for the mystery of lighting the evening lamps and candles (including the Advent wreath) in the darkened church. People don't often have the opportunity to experience worship at night. Schedule the services at a time that fits the schedule of the people--on the way home from work or before choir practice. These services can be simple, brief, and profoundly moving. Be sure to include children. Take care to "pray" for the longings and yearnings of the community and the world, especially the oppressed and forgotten. Sing "I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light" (United Methodist Hymnal, 206) as an opening hymn.
  
• Make use of the rich prayer texts in The United Methodist Hymnal (201, 211) and The United Methodist Book of Worship (249-255). Find ways to use them in the liturgy, as texts for family prayer and daily devotions, and in church gatherings.
  
• Link celebration of Word and Table (Holy Communion) to the longing of the world for justice, love, peace, and compassion. Find ways for true self-giving consistent with the way we pray in "The Great Thanksgiving" (see Book of Worship, 54-55) :
  

  "Pour out your Holy Spirit on us . . . . Make [the bread and cup] be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood."

Find ways to touch the hurting world as the body of Christ.

Daniel T. Benedict, Jr. retired from the staff of the Discipleship Ministries in August 2005.