In the Julian calendar we live by, the new year starts on January 1. However, in the ancient church calendar, the new year starts with Advent. This year the calendar flips over on November 21, Christ the King Sunday. That is when the old church year ends, and the first Sunday of Advent this year falls on November 28.
You may be thinking, ‘so what?’ But there are important implications of this for the life of faith. First off, it is a message to the believer that we are citizens of a different allegiance. We are people of the Realm of God and only secondarily of our earthly one. The commandment of Christ to love one another takes precedence over all the commands of this present world. Jesus clearly stated that the greatest commandment is to love God with our heart, mind and strength. He continued by saying that this means we, therefore must and will love our neighbour as ourselves. Anything else is a distraction and a departure from the teaching of Jesus.
We live in an empire of money, of neo-liberal economic priorities. That empire of money demands allegiance and tells us how to live. Money is very clearly the idol of our age. When we accept that “The Economy” is the most important thing in life, we are bowing to an idol, to a vision of reality that is profoundly anti-Christ. When we put economics above care of people and care of creation, we are in error. Love of our neighbour must always be first. If doing what is best for people crashes the economy, then so be it. A new economic system can be designed. We built this one. We can change it. In fact, no political or economic order is perfect, nor can it ever be permanent. Things change. Currencies rise and fall. Companies and governments, and national boundaries shift and morph and eventually vanish in the dust of time.
What endures is love. And that love is seen most powerfully in The Incarnation. This is the Good News that God loves us so much, that divinity became human and dwelt among us. God loves us enough to be present and to experience all it is to be human. That is amazing! So the story starts with Immanuel, God with us. God comes humbly, meekly, small and defenceless in a tiny backwoods town, in an insignificant defeated nation. And by breaking into human history, everything is changed. This is explosive good news! God is here, and we are set apart to proclaim it!
Happy New Year! Happy Advent! God is here, and love is here. Amen.
-Carlton Larsen
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Disclaimer: opinions expressed are those of the writer.
