Advent, with its message of watchfulness, with its mood of elegiac expectation and yearning, almost always seems to get ignored in the larger crush of the “holiday season”. And with the “holiday season” beginning commercially months before Christmas, we are apt to feel like a small island of pensiveness in the larger ocean of jollity. I actually stayed in a hotel this summer in Nashville which advertised that their Christmas decorations would be put up in September. I wished I could call the Christmas Police and get a restraining order!

But, as with everything else having to do with keeping spiritually centered, (such as the old fashioned notion of going to church on Sunday morning), we cannot depend on the culture to help us. The engine of commerce, upon which we all depend , will try and cash in our intentions to spread love and goodwill, and always believes that more is better.

So, think of the church during Advent as your own personal sanctuary. Think of it as a place where you can become aware of both your need for renewal and receive that renewal. Think of it as a place for getting in touch with your own still, small voice, and of the larger, more expansive Voice of Love within us all. Use worship as a time to reflect, to give thanks; to yearn for gifts to receive, to yearn for gifts to give, from and to the Living Christ in our midst.

The premier Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” is a long, beautiful prayer of desire. It expresses our desires for peace, for goodness, for knowledge, unity, forgiveness. Advent is meant to be a time in which we come to terms with that for which we yearn, and ask God for those things.

And then, on Christmas, new gifts of the Spirit are given. The baby, the rebirth of Christ in the manger of our yearning, will come, yet another year, to give us what we hope for and need.

So, enjoy the ocean of festivity and fullness. But don’t forget to swim up to that quiet and calm island to pause a bit. For this time of year it is especially true, “Ask and you shall receive. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”