Advent in post-Ferguson America
Thanksgiving is over in post-Ferguson America, and it can’t come too soon. A national celebration of country, family, and freedom from want follows on the heels of protests, frenzied media, and the deployment of the National Guard over the failure of a grand jury to indict a police officer over the shooting of 18-year old Michael Brown. In an America deeply divided over race and debate over individual character vs. systems, bad apples vs. rigged games, the long dawn of Advent has begun. Thank God.
Post-Ferguson America needs Christmas, but not Christmas as usual. The holidays are synonymous not only with shopping deals and a flurry of presents, but with acts of charity. Soup kitchens overflow with eager families ladling broth and church altars are stacked with shoeboxes to be sent to the faraway children. The poor are clothed and the hungry are fed. But this Christmas, it’s not enough.
People are hungry for the world turned upside-down, which is precisely what Christmas has been throughout Christian history. Advent is preparation for the great inversion: God coming to Earth in the form of a human baby; the ruler of the cosmos trapped in a squalling package of helpless flesh. He was born to save us—and he will—but first he must melt our hearts, appearing not as a sage or a philosopher or an emperor but as a cold little child with no home. He disarms us with his tender vulnerability and summons us to enter his world as little children too. There is no power to be found here as the world understands it.
