Yesterday, the faculty and staff of 天美视频 gathered for our annual Christmas luncheon. , President of 天美视频, offered this Advent reflection, about the particularity of the birth of Christ and the scandalous challenge that it presents to all of us. May you find in his words a reminder of the beautiful, haunting, unexpected arrival we are celebrating this month.
Christmas this year has taken an unexpected turn. At the epicenter of it happens to be two coffee companies. I know them well. A few years ago, Wendy and I were given a tour of the CIA with a donor. Actually you basically get a tour of the hallway; down the hallway and behind locked doors are important things that happen; in the hallway you are pointed toward the important things behind high security doors. Come to think of it, that was the role the angels, actually a Greek word for messengers, played: pointing to where the important things were happening.
It requires a higher classification than a visitor鈥檚 badge to get behind the doors at the CIA. But, we did get to eat lunch in the CIA cafeteria where all the presidents have visited. And there it was: culture in contrast. On one side was a dark wood, green-countered, wood-chaired, subtly lit and classy looking coffee company from Seattle: Starbucks. On the exact opposite side was a diner-like space with bright lights, tile floors, diner-type stools, and a far better food selection: Dunkin鈥� Donuts from Canton, Massachusetts. That was a couple of years ago.
This year鈥攁 red cup with nothing about Christmas or a Dunkin鈥� Donuts styrofoam cup with large letters that declare Joy in red and green traditional colors? The controversy stirred by Starbucks has been intense, for some.
Thankfully, for me, those are not my only choices. Frankly, I don鈥檛 look to the American business culture for an epiphany or appearance of something revelatory. When that happens I am surprised. But the epiphany more likely comes when we gather as a worshipping community of expectation, wonder, waiting, faith, and yes, surprise.
It happens to me year after year. Even the coffee cup controversy can help us ask the deeper question: what鈥檚 going on? What鈥檚 behind this season of Advent? What does it matter, after all? It鈥檚 only about the birth of a child in a small Middle Eastern village, but that birth got people talking and wondering and Starbucks or Dunkin鈥� Donuts notwithstanding, it still does鈥攚ith more vitriol and rejection of cultural views of Jesus, I suppose, but there is still a hint of scandal that keeps us talking. This birth has mythology around it and icons of sheep and shepherds, turbaned magi from even farther east, choirs of angels and bright night skies. And, who is the daddy of this child anyway?
Advent鈥攖he word is jarring in its etiology. Advent simply means the arrival or the coming of something or someone noteworthy. The Greek word came from another word, Parousia, which takes the minds of our MDiv students to another coming鈥攁 second coming, as it were. Another arrival. But here鈥檚 the tricky part: if Advent means someone is coming, someone to notice, someone to whom we need to pay attention, then Advent is a time for us to make up our minds all over again. It鈥檚 a season when we decide if we鈥檒l join those who became convinced that God entered human history in that birth, that he arrived here鈥攊n history and geography.
I like the word particularity because it says you can鈥檛 just dismiss this child鈥攂orn in time and place, a particular moment, a particular gender, a particular ethnicity, and particular location in a particular moment. Birth is particular鈥攏ot generic. Ask any woman who has delivered a child or any parent or grandparent who has watched it happen. It鈥檚 not an idea that arrives鈥攊t is someone. And you have to decide if you鈥檙e going to get in on the celebration, and the noise, and the mess, and the life it will demand of you. Because Advent isn鈥檛 just a celebration of lights, candles, and the spirit of sentimentality.
Karl Barth had a way of speaking about this particularity. He called it a 鈥渟ummons to reverence and worship.鈥� That鈥檚 another way to say there is work to be done on our part. It asks something of us and frankly, some days I wonder if the church does that anymore.
Eugene Peterson, one of my sources for good writing, notes that 鈥淎rtists, poets, musicians, and architects are our primary witnesses because they haven鈥檛 argued the case, but our artists have painted Madonna鈥檚, our poets have provided our imagination with rhythms and metaphors, our musicians have filled the air with carols and anthems that bring us to our knees in adoration, and our architects have designed and built chapels and cathedrals in which we can worship God.
Madeline L鈥橢ngle tells us why: 聽
鈥楾his is the irrational season
When love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
There鈥檇 have been no room for the child.鈥欌��
The birth of this boy-child named Jesus has never been an easy truth for people to swallow. The world is in a mess, poverty still grips millions, hunger still haunts our city streets, violence is everywhere present it seems, terror and fear hold us captive, darkness seems to cover the earth鈥till.
So why believe any of it is good news? I can鈥檛 answer that except say this: Isaiah declared it long before Handel put music to it. God said it long before the poets did. And we need to hear it too in this season of of Advent: 鈥淯nto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.鈥�
Kathleen Norris gives me my best one-line summary of 聽Advent. She writes, 鈥漇omething or someone wants our attention.鈥� So I say, we have a decision to make: not either the plain red cup or the colorful red and green cup of joy, but whether we will look into the face of the child to embrace or ignore what God has set before us鈥nce again.