Advent Reflections #12: The What of Advent--Truth

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I don’t think we think of truth as a theme of Advent.  I haven’t, until now, and it’s not because I’m just going through a random list of Christian themes.  It’s because I’m teaching Sunday School (I get to teach the words of Jesus Christ!  What is cooler than that!) this week to my small class and the passage is John 14.  Unequivocally Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  Can’t get much more absolute than that, folks. 

Truth claims are exclusivistic, and today we want Advent and Christmas to be inclusive.  Any truth claims are divisive, and we want unity at this time of year, because unity brings peace and good will, right?  And truth as a theme of Advent means we have to take seriously all that stuff about a virgin having a baby and angels and a birth in a stall/cave (which isn’t that far-fetched at that time in history, or even today; most women in this world have pretty low-tech, primitive conditions for their births, just not in the developed world).  We have to accept it as truth and not just an inspiring story that symbolizes how much God loves us. 

The accounts in Luke and Matthew are pretty straightforward, to-the-point, and take for granted that these things happen, and place them in a real world.  The miraculous within the day-to-day requirements of the Roman Empire’s taxation system; the unbelievable within the Jewish laws of divorce.  Is that not how it is today?  We simply don’t see the miraculous intervention of God every day.

Yes, truth is a theme of Advent; otherwise it’s pretty meaningless, right?  Then any other inspiring story we can make a holiday around (and there have been others).  We only  have problems with truth being exclusivistic when it involves our responsibility to God, maybe.

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