Four Advent Movements

1

I’m driving across the brown fields of north Missouri...and nothing makes me happier.  The fields are empty but for the quiet searchings of cattle for dropped and broken ears.  No more standing grain, no more grain carts or combines or trucks….just the ruts remaining as evidence of the drenching rains that made 2018’s harvest as stressful as the dry summer that preceded it. Now, Thanksgiving snows are memory and no one in our part of the state is longing for a White Christmas.  

2

Winter’s pale bright air spotlights every Christmas display, every billboard, every red barn.  Deep ruts squirming across a field are a sure sign some farmer will have to forego no till in 2019.  These level fields bring to mind holiday travel across Illinois so many years ago. Every field was black, ridged and frosted with snow like an Oreo cookie.  The crusty drifts in the ditches reversed that color scheme with a dusting of windblown soil clinging to the icy ridges. The snow invariably disappeared as we drove south, finally revealing tawny pastures and clear still farm ponds across the Mississippi.  Kids in Missouri were the lucky ones; they seemed to get out of school for Christmas earlier and go back to school later that we Illinoisans did. Christmas back then was a beloved story read over and over again that we never tired of.

3

Advent. Wreaths and the gradual parting of the wintry darkness as each candle is lit and the prophecies assure us that the Messiah is nigh.The interior of our little Lutheran church was dimly candlelit during Wednesday evening services.  Unlike the Lenten hymns which were unrelentingly slow with a multitude of dolorous verses to remind us of our sins, the Advent hymns, while minor, seemed to me beautiful with ancient longing…”O Come, O Come…”

The choir loft of Christ Lutheran was hot in the summer and hot in the winter, but the organ and pipes were there and my father directed the choir, so we sat up there often.  From the back pew you could look down and see the ropes for the church bells and watch them go up and down at the beginning and end of the service.

My granny and grandpa’s house had only two temperatures: hot and cold. A story and a half brick house with metal framed windows that grew  icicles in the winter. During Christmas though, the combination of pots boiling on the stove and a houseful of guests defrosted the windows until rivers of water puddled on the sills.  

Grandma Nelson’s old house hissed and fizzed on Christmas Eve while the floors creaked under the load of aunts, uncles, cousins and more cousins and the air was redolent of wet coats and boots.  I wonder….with churches full and fires stoked, was Christmas Eve the only night of the year our ancestors were warm?

4

Scripture is so ingenious in introducing the life of Christ with a tale that would captivate any and every child.  Who would not be amazed by the shepherds in the fields and the angels in the air. The mysterious travelers following a star in search of a king.  The baby who spent his first night with the animals in the barn. We all have our favorite hymns, like Levi’s ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’ and ‘We Three Kings.’  Lee just wants carols she can sing...no more 'Angels We Have Heard on High' for her.  I used to tire of ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Away in a Manger’, but these days they bring tears to my eyes.

This week, we will sing the old songs, loud if not well, and listen again to the beloved story we never tire of …..

Mary and Martha and the Christmas Cookie Plate

The Bible holds multitudes. Take, for example, the subject of Christmas cookies and the other similar confections we concoct during this season for gift giving: caramel popcorn, homemade Cherry Mashes, peanut clusters, fudge, and anything using Hershey kisses. And the lesser treats: Chex mix, frosted pretzels, candy canes and dark chocolate M&Ms. When I look at the building blocks of all this sweet bounty, brightly colored like a mosaic, on special end caps at the grocery, then spilling out of the plastic sacks in the kitchen….maraschino cherries for one recipe, almond bark for another, condensed milk, Rolos for unwrapping….all those ingredients one only purchases for holiday baking….what else can I possibly see but “good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.”? Powdered sugar...cream cheese….candy canes for pounding...and so much butter I’m embarrassed to enumerate it.

I pray using this verse from Luke, the very words of our Lord in the Beatitudes, is not sacrilegious.  But, in some tangential way, I consider the making of Christmas cookies akin to Mary pouring the expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet...and then wiping them with her hair.  Christmas cookies, lavished with chocolate and nuts, or cunningly shaped and decorated, aren’t just simple constructions of flour and sugar and shortening. We know they are treats….not necessary, but extravagant….and sometimes so lavish, so sweet, and so rich as to be inedible!  But that’s why we give them: to be just a little bit over the top ….in decorations….in calorie content. “Good measure….running over.”

Martha, Mary’s sister, not maligned so much as not up to snuff in her choices as a hostess,  is also a Christmas cookie kind of gal. Anyone with a sibling knows Martha, from her all too human aside to Jesus (“Lord, don’t you care that Mary isn’t helping!”) regarding her sister to her desire to have everything just right.  This story is in the Bible for all of us through the ages who get so wrapped up in the worry of serving that we miss the fun not just of giving, but of receiving too.

So be a little Martha and a lot of Mary. Bake that Christmas dinosaur.  Don’t sweat the plates or presentation or the angels without heads.  Give the kids the honor and glory of making and baking. Spread the sprinkles. On this earth, we won’t always be able to give the people we love what they most need.

But we can always give them cookies…..