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Remembering
and Rehearsing Advent
December
2-3, 2006
Fr.
George Smiga
Luke
21:25-28, 34-36
Ernest
Hemingway wrote, “Chewing on the past is a bum way to spend
your life.” Hemingway was right. Yet we all know how easy
it is to get stuck in the past, to play over and over again
in our head the way that things used to be, to relive again
and again a decision that we wish we would have made differently
or words we wish we had never said. Living in the past is
both senseless and wasteful. It is a bum way to spend your
life.
These
thoughts are helpful as we approach the season of Christmas,
because there is a tendency in Christmas to get stuck in the
past. Our Christmas cards and displays all tend to describe
celebrations of the holiday in terms of generations gone by.
There is nostalgia to an old fashioned Christmas. Our Christmas
carols and family traditions bring us back to our childhood,
and it is easy to see our childhood as a simpler, purer way
of living. Christmas can idealize childhood and lead us to
become entrapped in our memories. We can imagine that the
purpose of this holiday is simply to provide similar memories
for our children and our grandchildren.
Now
there is certainly some good in this nostalgic, old fashioned
approach to Christmas. But there is also a good deal of danger,
for it is impossible for us to live our lives in the past.
If we set up childhood as some kind of ideal, it is an ideal
we will never be able to attain, because we cannot be children
again. With childhood as a norm, we are saying that the best
part of our lives is already behind us.
For
all these reasons we are fortunate to have the season of Advent,
because Advent is not about the past but the future. It is
not about the people we used to be, but the people we can
become. It does not tell us that we can find God in the memories
of our childhood, but rather in the promises of the future.
There
is a pattern to Advent, a pattern that we re called to follow.
The pattern of Advent is remembering and rehearsing. Advent
is not afraid to remember. It does not hold back from reliving
what we have experienced and the things we have witnessed
in our life. But the remembering of Advent is not a goal in
itself. It does not call us to the past but uses the past
to allow us to live in a new way. That way is by rehearsing,
rehearsing the coming of Christ, rehearsing for the good things
that God still intends to give us. Advent is about remembering
and rehearsing—remembering the truth of our past so that we
can live in the present open to the gifts of the future.
What
should we remember in Advent? Two things: our mistakes and
our blessings. Advent calls us to remember our mistakes, those
patterns of behavior that constantly trip us up. You know
what your mistakes are. You know them very well. You know
the exact thing that you can say to your spouse which will
start an argument. You know the precise thing that you can
do when you come home from school which will upset your parents.
You know the decisions that you can avoid making which you
will pay dearly for in the future. You know the hurts and
the prejudices which you continue to feed and which will rob
you of peace. We know our mistakes. We know exactly what they
are, and yet we keep doing them over and over. Advent calls
us to remember those flaws, not to discourage us, not to fix
us in the past, but to lead us to a new pattern. Advent calls
us to a new step, a step that is wiser, more generous, more
life-giving. Remembering the mistakes of the past can lead
us to a new way of living; a way that is a rehearsal for the
Kingdom of God .
But
Advent not only calls us to remember our mistakes, but also
our blessings. And blessed we are. Advent calls us to claim
those blessings. Do we not have children of whom we are proud?
Do we not have a spouse with whom we can laugh? Do we not
love our job? Do we not have abilities and talents that give
us satisfaction? Have we not been given opportunities which
we never thought could be our own? Advent calls us to claim
those blessings. Not as an end in themselves, but so that
those blessings will lead us to a greater confidence in the
way that we live today. Those blessings will allow us to rehearse
a conviction of hope, a hope that comes from realizing that
if God has blessed us so much in the past, God will not abandon
us in the future. With that conviction of hope, we can move
forward with the confidence that God will be with us despite
the troubles in our family, health issues, and all we have
lost in our life. In the words of today's gospel, we can “stand
up and raise our heads because we know that our redemption
is drawing near”.
Make
these upcoming weeks before Christmas more than a way of looking
back to the past with nostalgia. Take some time each day to
remember and to rehearse. Remember your mistakes and your
blessings, and rehearse living differently and with more confidence.
Remember and rehearse so that you can live this Advent in
preparation, so that you might be ready to stand before the
Son of Man when he comes in glory.
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