Advent reminds us that an
essential part of being human is our ability to long and to hope for change. The
Old Testament writers harness the ability to long for things with great skill, the
Israelite history is a history of a people turning longing and desire into a
religion: think of the Promised Land and the Messiah. In Advent – the season of
expectant waiting - we are given the opportunity to hone our skills of
describing the things that we long for, the things that we expect and hope God
to provide. However, I wonder how convincingly Christian voices in our culture
manage to articulate a vision of God. When we contrast that with our culture,
we notice one that is fantastically good at harnessing the language of desire
and longing to sell things and lifestyles. For example, we will be told:
salvation is to be found in this model of a car; that this perfume will give
you a glamorous life-style; that only if you buy this new and better model will
you be fulfilled – that, in summary, meaning and happiness are located in the
acquisition of more.
We are
habituated to our desire being manipulated in all sorts of different ways, but
we are probably much less immune to it than we think we might be. The market
economy knows that desire is more profitable than fulfillment, and ensuring that
people keep longing for the next model of the i-phone, or the next bigger
television is what marketing and advertising is all about. Having the thing is
much less exciting than longing for it, and so not being fulfilled through
buying more feeds the machine. It is a confident and loud business – no-one
feels embarrassed by trying to get people to buy more – it is our way of life,
who we are.
In
contrast, Christian voices tend to be quiet and shy ones in our culture; Jesus
is not in fashion, persuading people to believe is embarrassing. We do not
spend billions of pounds advertising our way of life, as John Lewis,
Sainsbury’s and so on will spend this Christmas. People will flock to see
Santa, who is neutral and inoffensive, but fewer will notice the child in the
manger.
But, we
mustn’t give up; we must remember the value of what God offers his people and
keep inviting people into experience who we are. As heralds of the new kingdom
we must learn again to be confident in God and in what we believe. John the
Baptist is the icon of a man who heralded in the new kingdom by pointing the
way to Jesus. Our calling and heritage is to point the way to Jesus still,
amidst the clamouring voices that seek to locate salvation elsewhere.
In the
short article I wrote for the December magazine I mentioned some research ('The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life that Matters', Emily Esfahani) that
sought to find out where true human happiness was to be found- a popular
subject in our culture. In the first instance the research found that meaning was a greater indicator of
well-being than happiness. And meaning the researcher found comes from: 1) a
sense of belonging; 2) having a purpose; 3) partaking in storytelling which is
redemptive; and 4) experience of transcendence.
Just
reflect for a moment on those things. What do you notice about them? What
Christians seek to provide our culture with at Christmas time is an invitation
to find all these things through participation in a faith community, a church.
We invite people to belong to a community of people formed through the love of
God; our common purpose is to praise and worship God in a variety of ways – we
know who we are and why we are here; we tell stories of our redemption in Jesus
each week and we experience transcendence in our worship, our buildings in our
world view, our faith. Church communities are places full of
meaning. They offer, at their best, anyone who seeks it, the
opportunity to come ‘home’: to be part of an accepting and loving family.
As
Christians we have experienced where true meaning and life in all its fullness
can be found. The demands of Christian witness are that we get much better at
describing, valuing and communicating that which can’t be commodified. We give
and receive presents: yes; we see family and friends, eat too much: yes, but
much more importantly we gather together to worship God. For it is God and God
alone who sets us free. He tells us who we are and for what we are made. It is
in God that we find a fulfillment that does not disappoint; he is the end of all
our desiring- the rest which quietens our restlessness- the peace that the
world cannot give.
As St
Augustine wrote:
“You have made us for yourself, and our
hearts are restless, until they find their rest in you.”
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