Recently I had the honor of giving the invocation at our County Commissioners’ regular public meeting. At one point I heard something like this come out of my mouth: “This holiday season may our Lyon County employees and citizens experience peace on earth and good will among one another.”
Those words are familiar to anyone who’s had the Christmas story read to them from the Gospel of Luke. They’re some of the words the hordes of heavenly beings famously heralded at the nighttime birth of the Christ. A few shepherds in a dark part of the world were among those who were divinely blasted by them.
During much of my younger life, circumstances betrayed such words. I experienced anything but peace on earth. As for goodwill from others, let alone from me toward others, it was pretty lacking too. The holiday season only amplified and sharpened those things. I dreaded the last eight weeks of every year, and every year the season lived down to my expectations.
That is, until a certain beautiful woman whom I later married changed everything one Christmas many years ago. Her circumstances at the time provided even less reason to experience hope, peace, joy and love than mine did. Yet the opposite happened. Thanks to her, I experienced a Christmas that overflowed with hope, peace, joy and love.
Every year since, and that is many, through thick and thin, lack or plenty, easy or not, our Christmases have been uncommonly special. There is an atmosphere beyond what we create. A divine presence not of our own making is tangible.
Hope, peace, joy and love. Each of those headlines the marquee for a week of the four-week season leading up to Christmas. That season is known worldwide as Advent. This year, Advent started Nov. 30. Tradition holds that a candle is lit and the headline changes, typically on Sunday.
Advent is an ancient tradition dating back hundreds of years. It was renewed in the 20th century, largely because it was felt that Christmas was becoming too commercialized and too chaotic. We now find ourselves in the 21st century, and you don’t need my help to describe what’s happened with commercialization and chaos since then.
The DNA of Advent is actively, expectantly waiting. Awaiting what? An arrival. A little like standing at the bottom of the escalators at the Reno airport, stealing glances upward for a special someone to appear in the flesh.
Simply waiting, but not passively. Sometimes faith is believing in the future. Sometimes it is believing the future in. Engaging in Advent often produces a certain beyond-human confidence that, even in the face of all that’s going on around us and within us, okay-ness will arrive. That I am okay. And I will be. And I will become okay-er.
I’m getting a bit long in the tooth. Many former times I put my faith in material things, habits, lifestyles, “isms,” people and more, all of which turned out to be hollow. For many years now, I have looked to, and have found in, the person of Christ the hope, peace, joy and love for which I so deeply yearned. God hardwires that deeper yearning for something more into every one of us.
May I suggest the remaining days of Advent might be one place to start. Advent is not exclusive to churchgoers. It is available to all. That said, many of our area churches are a great place to begin your search or to deepen it.
You probably also know someone who seems to carry the hope, peace, joy and love of Jesus. I hope you will reach out. One way or another, I hope you find or return to actively, expectantly awaiting the arrival of the something more.
May you and unshakable, unending, divine hope, peace, joy and love find each other and grow together this Christmas and New Year’s season.
I love you. Yes, you.
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