Advent gives us the gift of lamentation and hope. How painful, then, is our refusal to participate. We are freed to long for redemption, to grieve over our sins, to cry out to a God who all too often doesn’t seem to be paying attention.

But, theologians of glory that we are, we refuse all of that and go straight to Christmas. We wrap up our season in cheap glossy paper and over-produced jingles all in an effort to pretend like Christmas has already come. Such pretending both dishonestly denies the darkness where we find ourselves and prevents us from looking to the light of the new creation, which Jesus has promised.