Christmas is Practically Here

So here we are at the end of Advent. Tomorrow evening the Advent songs will appropriately give way to Christmas carols. The wait is almost over.

Almost.

As we enter into the final hours of Advent, what ought to be our mindset? Our attitude? Our posture?

Many of us will spend these next few hours in a hurry. There are last minute gifts to buy, food to prepare, houses to make ready for guests. Perhaps this is all appropriate — we are in a hurry to get ready for Jesus! Quick! Get ready! Jesus is coming! Christmas is coming! “It’s practically here,” as the Grinch would say.

But in these final hours of Advent, we must confess that it is not within our power to bring about the arrival of Jesus. None of our hurry, none of our purchases will force the hand of God. Jesus arrives as pure gift. Grace. Ready or not. House clean or not. Decorations up or not. Regardless of how we have spent the season of Advent, the season ends with the arrival of Jesus.

So as we enter into these final hours, perhaps we should still our busy hands, quiet our minds, and prepare to receive the gift of Jesus.

This brings us to our final Advent song: “Yahweh” by U2.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb

“Yahweh” is the final song of U2’s 2004 album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Personally, this might be my second favorite U2 album, only behind Joshua Tree. The album opens with the upbeat “Vertigo”. “Hello, hello/I’m at a place called Vertigo/It’s everything I wish I didn’t know.” “Vertigo” is a place of fear and disorientation. As we discussed on the first week of advent, fear often leads to violence. “The night is full of holes/’Cause bullets rip the sky of ink with gold.” “Vertigo” is a place of temptation, a place where we hear the voice of the devil say to us: “All of this, all of this can be yours/All of this, all of this can be yours/All of this, all of this can be yours/Just give me what I want and no one gets hurt.”

Much of what I said in week one of Advent about “Bad Moon Rising” can be said about U2’s Vertigo. Yet, unlike “Bad Moon Rising”, “Vertigo” gives us a hint to the answer. The song ends with the words: “Your love is teaching me how to kneel.” Vertigo, fear, disorientation is the path toward forging atomic bombs. But U2 wants to ask the question: how do we dismantle an atomic bomb? The answer is faith. Trust. Love.

“Yahweh”, the final song on the album, serves as a kind of closing prayer and benediction.

“Take these shoes/click clacking down some dead end street/Take these shoes/And make them fit/Take this shirt/Polyester white trash made in nowhere/Take this shirt/And make it clean, clean/Take this soul/Stranded in some skin and bones/Take this soul/And make it sing.”

The posture we are invited into is one of surrender. Rather than clinging to and protecting what we have, we surrender our lives — everything from our shoes to our souls — to God. Nothing in our lives is too big or too small to be given to God as an offering.

When we recognize everything in our life as a gift that belongs to God, we do not have to protect it anymore. “What no man can own, no man can take.”

The tragedy of the commercialization of Christmas is that we have become so obsessed with buying and receiving gifts when the whole point is that everything, absolutely everything is a gift. The life we have, the air we breathe, the shoes on our feet, and the ground beneath them — it is all a gift from God. We do not earn it. We receive it. “What no man can own, no man can take.”

In the second verse, Bono sings: “Take these hands/Teach them what to carry/Take these hands/Don’t make a fist/Take this mouth/So quick to criticize/Take this mouth/Give it a kiss.”

This is the posture that dismantles atomic bombs. This is the posture appropriate for the conclusion of Advent.

Always Pain Before a Child is Born

Advent is the season in which we find ourselves whether or not we are in the liturgical season of Advent. Karl Barth said, “What other time or season can or will the church ever have but that of Advent!” Advent is the season of waiting and expectation for the arrival of Christ. Advent is when we are. We are waiting for Jesus to come and make all things new. And when Jesus returns, He will return in the same way in which He first came: as an unearned gift. Grace. We cannot make it happen. We cannot hurry up the process. We must patiently wait to receive what only God can give.

This is a season of waiting, a season of expectation, a season of pregnancy. Waiting is hard. Pregnancy is hard.

The chorus to our final Advent song is a cry out to God in the midst of waiting for God to make everything new: “Yahweh, Yahweh/Always pain before a child is born/Yahweh, Yahweh/Still I’m waiting for the dawn.”

“Always pain before a child is born”. If that is not an Advent song, I do not know what is. If I were composing a new church hymnal, “Yahweh” by U2 would be placed in the Advent section right next to “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.

The days and hours before the birth of a child best capture the attitude and posture we are invited to have at the conclusion of this season. There is a lot to do when you prepare to bring a child into your home. There are things to buy: diapers, baby clothes, a car seat, a bassinet, and so on. You are busy in those final days trying to get ready. But you also know that the baby can come at any moment. So even though you are busy, you are ready to leave whatever you are doing behind at a moment’s notice. Because ready or not, that baby will be born. And when that newborn baby is in your arms, all that stuff that had been consuming your time, focus, and energy fades to the background. It simply loses it’s importance next to the gift of this child.

In the same way, all the stuff that is consuming our time and attention right now will mean little once we receive the beautiful gift of the Word made flesh. And so we are invited to take all the stuff that is consuming our thoughts and attention and surrender it all to God. “Take these shoes…take this soul…take these hands…take this mouth…Take this heart/And make it break.”

My full Advent playlist can be accessed here.