For those of you seeking a good Advent devotional resource, check out "Get Ready," the new booklet put out by the Higher Education Ministries Arena (an ecumenical group made up of denominational higher ed staff from PC(USA) and the American Baptists, Disciples, Episcopalians, Evangelical Lutherans, UCC, and United Methodists). A. Robert Hirschfeld, an Episcopalian minister, wrote this year’s resource, available online at www.higheredmin.org/meditation.html. You can also check back there for HEMA’s annual Lenten devotional guide next spring.

I try to follow along with both guides during the Advent and Lenten seasons, and today’s devotional reminded me of what I was saying yesterday about the original purpose of Advent. It was an apocalyptic meditation, based on Psalm 72. In it, Hirschfeld says about the American fascination with Hollywood disaster flicks:

"I suspect that we are getting weary of ourselves, our opulence, our collective complicity in the oppression of the poor, and in place of the rituals of church, we find in the rituals of movie-going the saving sacrifices—our comfortable suburban homes swept away by towering walls of water, Wall Street the first to get flooded, and the insensitive and greedy press getting crushed under the foot of a genetically-altered reptile.” --pg. 6

Of course, this need for purging and penance isn’t new—we simply use new technologies to express age-old angst. The Bible itself speaks of Noah’s flood and the destruction of Jerusalem. During the Black Death, self-flagellation became a popular way of displaying penance for one’s sins. Sacrifice, from the animal sacrifices of ancient Israel to the “giving up” of chocolate during Lent today, also play into this need for cleansing.

Yet the season of Advent makes an important point—this need for purging, for sacrifice to cleanse us, is available through the coming Christ child. We do indeed weary of ourselves, and of the opulence that threatens to wipe out our interconnectedness. But Jesus calls us to a new way of being, a new life that doesn’t push us away from this fallen world but instead empowers us to transform it through the Spirit. Our penance isn’t about physical sacrifices or self-flagellation, about anything we can do. Rather, we purge ourselves simply by listening for the call and living out our answers.

When we live out our answers, purging and sacrifice become joyful rather than guilty. And then, maybe our catharsis films will reflect the apocalypse of King and Ghandi, Susan Anthony and Alice Paul, the babe in the manger, rather than Godzilla.

“He shall defend the needy among the people; he shall rescue the poor and crush the oppressor. He shall live as long as the sun and moon endure, from one generation to another.” --Psalm 72:4-5

Kelsey