May I be helped to speak in the name of the Living God. Amen.
Today is Advent Sunday, and in church we begin our preparations for Christmas. The pulpit fall and my stole become purple, as if by magic. The Advent wreath makes its annual appearance. As Advent progresses, on Sunday mornings we will light the candles on the wreath.
Advent slowly builds up, and we draw closer and closer to Christmas Day. A Christmas tree will appear, the church will be decorated. We will have a Christingle Service, a Service of Lessons and Carols, a Crib Service.
These next weeks are a great time for the Christian faith, as we prepare to celebrate once again the birth of a child 2000 years ago. It is a time when we wait, acknowledging our failings, our shortcomings, and look to that child to show us the way. It is a time which can be of great spiritual value.
In the world away from these church doors, Advent takes on a different tone. The shops are full of red and green, gold and silver displays trying to attract our attention. They do it every year, but this time is desperate, they’re pulling out all the stops.
Just in case you try to avoid the shops, never fear: through the wonders of junk mail and television advertising the message comes right into our living rooms. The message is clear and simple: Christmas is coming, spend your money.
There is food to buy; not just the everyday stuff, but tins of biscuits, cakes and puddings, dates and nuts, chocolates, wine, and of course chickens and turkeys; sales of beers, wine and spirits rocket. There are cards and wrapping paper, trees, tinsel and baubles.
And then there are the presents … electrical goods are everywhere: suddenly an electric toothbrush becomes an essential item for every home. Half the musicians of the world rush to get their latest release into the shops in time for the spending spree.
Clothes shops are filled with party frocks for that once a year staff dinner, with shirts and pullovers and all the other things that will be worn a few times around Christmas week and then put away at the bottom of a drawer for months to come.
And of course, it’s the time for buying toys. The toy companies sell a huge proportion of their produce in the build up to Christmas: electronic toys, cuddly toys, computer games, all sorts. And they all cost a fortune.
Christmas is a major event in our national economy. Many industries depend on it as a time to boost their profits – and especially so this year when many businesses are struggling to survive. So Advent, a time when we should be preparing ourselves for a great spiritual occasion, has become a time of materialist frenzy.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the world at large recognised the importance to Christmas of Jesus, a new-born child. But they don’t: Christmas has become separated from Christ. Religious programmes are pushed into ever more marginal slots in the TV schedule. Nativity displays are replaced with Santa’s grotto.
To many in the outside world the meaning of Christmas is not a child born 2000 years ago, but a jolly old man in red clothes, with white whiskers, casting largesse on everyone and urging us to do the same. In some ways we are in danger of losing the spiritual meaning of Christmas itself. But as for Advent before it, the church lost the fight long ago.
Usually people spend a fortune at this time of year – I’ll be fascinated to know if it’s like that this year. It seems as though you have to spend money on your friends, your family – and especially your children – simply to prove that you love them.
It’s interesting to see what falls into the category of ‘stocking fillers’ these days. Once you got a puzzle book, an orange and a banana; now apparently the stocking is to be filled with things costing anywhere up to £15. I don’t even want to think about the prices people pay for the main presents …
We are creating divisions in our society with such behaviour. Our children are separated into the haves and have nots like never before, because not everyone can afford to spoil their children, their friends and family like that.
How can you spend hundreds of pounds on presents for each person in your immediate family if you are in low paid work, or you are unemployed, or you are a pensioner, or your salary is eaten up with mortgage payments and fuel bills and day-to-day living?
With all this commercial pressure, all this advertising, with all the expectation that it builds up, Advent and Christmas have become incredibly stressful occasions. It’s a time that features on those lists of stressful life-events. It’s a time when suicide rates, family arguments, you name it, go through the roof. It is a time of great stress. What an appalling thing to do to the supposed season of joy.
Advent has been swallowed up by the urgency to get everything done in time for the big celebration. It’s become a time to make all those material preparations. But it’s supposed to be about preparing our spirits as well as; about preparing our spirits above all else.
So, I implore you … don’t give in to the outside pressure. Take the stress out of Advent and Christmas; take the stress out of your over-stretched personal finances. You have to buy presents, you have to buy cards, you have to buy some of the special food, I know. But keep a sense of proportion.
Christmas is a great social occasion, and I don’t want to lose that, I don’t want to come over as a modern day Scrooge. But that doesn’t mean it has to be an orgy of materialism. Don’t give in; don’t let the world’s expectations turn you away from the spiritual nature of this time of the year.
Make sure your Christmas is a spiritual celebration as well as a social event. And let your Advent be a season of spiritual preparation, instead of the all too familiar season of frenzied shopping.
Rev’d John Routh.