Full Belly – Empty Soul

"It's not easy to put a light-up representation of a baby in a small manger scene, you know." At least that’s what Dick Callaway, mayor of St. Albans, West Virginia says. His town left Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of the manger this year because of lawsuit fears concerning separation of church and state.

There’s irony here, if you’re following the church’s calendar. You see, this is Advent, the season of preparation and waiting. To be liturgically correct, there should be no baby in the manger until Christmas day. Nor should there be any Christmas carols or Christmas trees. All that stuff is for Christmastide, the two week period of the church’s calendar beginning December 25 when we celebrate the birth of Christ.

The dominant culture of America, though, is about spending and consuming, and all that happens in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Christmas meaning has morphed into gift giving – or gift getting – whereas Advent is about waiting. We cut to the party before properly preparing, creating lots of opportunity for empty rituals.

Isaiah uttered a harsh word on God’s behalf about this. “Your New Moon feasts and appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of them.” Imagine a ritual so empty that God is burdened and tired of it. Or, closer to home, consider the holiday rituals that burden and tire you. Why do we do all the things we do?

Empty rituals and feasts of Christmas leave us with a full belly, but an empty soul. Like so many sugar cookies and fruit cakes, the calories of Christmas are aplenty, but we wake up December 26 unsatisfied. Have our feasting and rituals become meaningless? Is your family’s observance much different that the feasting that Isaiah condemns?

Maybe the empty manger in St. Albans is a good thing. Maybe it is good for us to wait on Jesus’ birth and postpone the hype until we’re sure the Savior is central in the scene – in the manger, and in our lives. Or at the very least we can reflect on which of our traditions matter most and jettison the ones that tire both God and us.

I’ll be preaching a sermon entitled Full Belly – Empty Soul this Sunday based on Isaiah 1.14-19. Willow Meadows Baptist Church will gather at 10:30am, so why not join us for a few Advent songs and prayers? Maybe we’ll decide together that Christmas is worth the wait.

Postponing the party,
Pastor Gary