(dramatic upbeat music) (dramatic upbeat music) (dramatic music) good morning. welcome to mosaic. i am ron swisher. this is advent christmas season, a time of great faith, hope,

love, joy, a time we anticipate and expect our lord's coming. i am especially joyful that my colleague and cohost and producer hugh burls is with us. >> thank you, sir. nice to be your guest. >> tell us a little bit about how we will begin into this great season of advent. >> you set the tone that it is joyful and religious. it is looking forward to christmas and all that. i think it's a little bit more than that for most of us. thanksgiving and hanukkah coincided but we kick off the holiday season, what does that mean? it means santa clause arrives at macy's and will officially open the shopping season. even though this year on thanksgiving stores were open. it's black friday. now it's cyber monday. it's a lot of things coming

all together. you wonder when does it start, and when does it end? it used to be when the rockets would dance and santa would come to macy's. that was the beginning. then you knew it was over at the orange bowl because that was january 1. you had the parade and then you had the rose bowl and the orange bowl. then you went to work. that's the holiday season. now it's more difficult than that. after the bowl games then you have the nfl. that goes into the first week of february. >> super bowl and all that. >> now the whole thing is extended to what i call an early winter holiday. the question becomes you can't celebrate everything it seems.

we just get overwhelmed. there are great things about it. coming in today, i was on davis street. there are one of the high rises with the great big red christmas balls. you go into embarcadero one and the christmas trees are up and christmas carols are going on. i am saying wait a minute, how many more days do we have? the think the danger is we become overwhelmed and exhausted by the pace of this. so i am going to suggest that we have to take a step back and pick and choose with where to begin all that. i thought what we would do is look at some particular customs that we have and then move on to reminding people about what the christian holidays are

about and even be radical and use scripture to highlight that. we go back and we can start with the ancient traditions and move up from there. there was a dispute in the early church of when is christmas celebrated? churches in north africa said we are very certain. it's january 6. the churches further north said well we are very certain about it too. it's december 7. how do you know this? that's the feast of st. nicholas. then the people in the eastern church said i am glad you are all very certain but we know december 25. so you had three competing dates for christmas that developed over the course of

500 years. >> many people don't know that. >> so there were these tensions. what would you do? you can attribute everything to pope gregory. he said enough of this. i will tell you what we will do. we will celebrate feast of st. nicholas on 7th of december but we will not give the gifts. we will give the gifts after that for the 25th. and we are going to start the celebration of christmas on the 25th after december and extend it for 12 days until january 6. that's where you get the 12 days of christmas. it solved a big argument and got us 12 more days of celebrating. >> that's already enlightening. >> should i stop? or i can keep going. >> we will come back to that. i bet a lot of people didn't know

those dates. >> we'll go through luther. >> please join us as we talk about this advent christmas season with hugh burls. thank you for being with us.

welcome back to mosaic. we left off with 12 days of christmas. tell us more about the season. >> i think when people talk about the true meaning of christmas, i don't know if i would go down that road exactly. we'll suggest true meanings at the end. the fact is that it is a big grab bag of customs. let's take st. nicholas. he is an early bishop. he was a very religious ethical man, and he would give gifts at the winter solstice.

much like st. valentine and that sort of idea. the idea of st. nicholas in a sleigh and so on, the scandinavians, northern europeans have a lot of this stuff. thor. there was a celebration for thor, the great god of thunder. he would be celebrated around a fireplace. he would leave gifts. his sled was powered by two goats. that became part of the lure. if you want to look at christmas advent traditions, i think you can blame the lutherans for a lot of this, northern european. >> not pope gregory this time. >> then the second blame we can put on the magazine writers and

novelists. as you may recall and many know martin luther is credited with the christmas tree. >> that's right. >> he was supposedly out wandering about one christmas eve and saw the tree and the stars and the fresh snow. he cut down the tree and brought it into the house. we don't know what mrs. luther said about this. it was an older custom that he built on the evergreen at the dead of winter. >> i heard he preached 2,000 sermons on christmas. >> how many do you? >> probably 40. >> he also brought in the christmas wreath and that idea. it's evergreen, a circle. some would say it maybe had some druid ideas of the circle of life. in the 19th century, somebody took the wreath and it

became popular and they put it with candles, advent wreath. so it becomes a little more religious. this sunday, this is traditions, if you go to church, what are you going to see? what's important, you have to remember what you don't know and you have to know the meaning of what you do to really get it. if you don't know it, it's hard to plug in. my grandson hampton is six and a half. i was putting him to bed and talked about noah and the ark. he says who is noah? i go into my best interpretation. >> he doesn't have that tradition, history. a lot of us

don't. >> similarly if you don't know the christmas stories, it can be pretty baffling. so the wreath is part of the christian symbolism, brought in early 1600s but has taken route across american churches where each sunday as part of the service usually a family or person lights a candle. there is a name for each one. >> faith, hope, love, joy. >> they're all purple. it's advent. that's how you can tell. and a white one or red one for christmas eve. that is the light. if you go to church and you don't know that it's lighting each of the symbols on the road to christmas. >> i like that it is preparing. it's not a one time event.

it's four weeks of preparing for the lord's coming. scriptures as you say are there to point us in that direction. you can use the four or five passes that can help formulate your preparation and expectation for the coming of the christ. >> next segment i will go into the biblical text. the preparation, that goes to an argument, gregory again. some say when do we start? it was a fast like rent. advent is like rent. with advent and you go into church, everything is purple or dark blue. if you go to lent, you see purple as well. that's because the time before easter and time before christmas, they were times of

fasting. gregory said it's not six sundays. it's four sundays. then later is the 12 days of christmas. it is a time of preparation. as we look at some scriptures, we will see that they overlap. if you don't know why we are listening to these readings, what's the thing behind it, you kind of lose the sense, free floating. >> next segment, we will look at the scriptures. thank you for the background. please continue with us as we look at this advent christmas season and how important it is to all of us.

advent is the latin word for come in english. i was surprised to read that 1462 times it appears in the old and new testament. 1,000 in the old testament and 462 in the new testament. a scholar did the research. i did not. i was reading it in a commentary. i found that fascinating. one of the last verses in the big of revelation is come lord jesus.

jesus says come to me. you will see that word throughout. we have been talking about advent and are looking at scriptures that can help prepare us. what are some of the scriptures? i think it would be helpful as you say to prepare for christmas. we may do a lot of things. everybody has their own family traditions and so on. reading a christmas carol or the night before christmas. >> joy to the world is my favorite. >> watching "it's a wonderful life," trying to get through the movie the miracle on 34th street. we all have these stories and traditions. part of that is to just go ahead and do them. if you want to watch frosty the snowman, that's great as long as you get the sound track. charlie brown's

christmas, all this stuff. choose what you want for your own family traditions. mike says his tradition is you keep your jammies on, your robes, and you open gifts then. i think as part of the tradition, what we are urging people to do is go to church. you talk about the four sundays that lead up to it. preparing for and getting ready. as part of that, most roman catholic and orthodox churches and protestant will follow a set of readings. why are we reading, what we are reading, when we are reading it. it usually has an old testament prophecy, a psalm, song, some from epistles, letters of paul and

so on, the gospel readings. all the churches don't use all four. you can print it out. go to shared common lectionary. >> many of also follow it. >> the advantage is you can go to church anywhere in the world and you will be hearing the same text. there is power in that. it also tells the story. it's a three year revolving thing. it's a balance reading what we like and what we don't. you reached on isaiah last week. >> that's right. i try to keep the balance. two isaiah talks about the famous passage that's a sculpture in front of the general assembly in united nations building. that is

beating your sword for the plow share and your spears are the pruning hooks and nation will not use sword against nation and they'll study war no more. what a great passage. that's one of the spirituals. study war no more. i love that passage. isaiah is saying that 800 years before christ comes. they had the vision of advent of some type of peace, peaceful kingdom he has a couple weeks before in 65 isaiah where the lion lays with the lamb and wolf with the oxen. a vision of hope and a vision that there would be peace some day. it's not just a recent development. they say it's a time when their people are going into exile, coming out of exile,

going into captivity or out of captivity. >> the theme is if you go to church you will hear each of the four sundays this year from isaiah. i think you quoted isaiah perfectly. let me pick up one of the texts that will be read this next sunday in romans. those of us strong and able to stand in the faith need to step in and lend a hand. i am reading from the version given to me, a modern translation. step up and ask how can i help? reach out and welcome one another to god's glory. jesus did it. now you do it. so you have encouragement

and hope in the four prophetic readings each sunday from isaiah. >> it's not just projected hope. you do something practical. >> do something practical and do it right now. we are in matthew's gospel and it's stepping up and telling the stories beginning this sunday with john the baptist. jesus was taken up by the spirit for a test. jesus appeared on river jordan and wanted john to baptize him. he says i am not worthy. he thinks there is going to be thunder in the desert. prepare for god he is alive al. make straight the way. change your life. he thought it would be a coming with the sword. it prepares us to say actually it's not going to be like that so much.

>> but it's all the preparation. >> it's all in the preparation. in the psalm it also echos the idea and day of hope. let me see if i can get a little bit of that one for us. the psalm this sunday would give the gift of wise rule to your kings. let the mountains give exuberant witness, shape hills and contours. stand up for the poor, help children of the needy, come down hard on the cruel tyrant. the idea of justice and hope. that will continue in each of the four readings as we lead up to the christmas reading. >> last month we had the food banks. i understand the food banks did well. they had a lot of people come. >> sharing and charity. that's the idea behind this. >> we have one more segment.

let's look more at the time together. >> then we'll shift to christmas reading. >> we hope you are inspired and we will prepare your hearts for the coming of our lord.

last segment you heard a lot of scripture. i hope that inspires you. there is luke and john i believe. you have some scripture around that? >> yes. we are pointing out that there are four readings when you go to church. why are

you hearing what you are hearing? they're chosen and supposed to have a common them as ron pointed out. on christmas eve and christmas it shifts and goes from matthew to luke. it's in luke that begins this familiar thing. about the time cesar augustus ordered census to be taken throughout the empire. this is usually from luke's gospel we remember that. then it goes to john's gospel. you have to remember that john is not interested in history. he is interested in the meaning and theology. so many in churches on christmas eve, you will hear this again in the modern language. life light, he was in the world, world was there through him and world didn't notice. he came to his own people but they didn't want him. so you have

this great light image in john. he is trying to convey meaning. not matthew's got a history, luke's got a history. the beginning of the word. and the word was god. when someone would irritate me when i was a pastor and they would be quoting the bible to me in advent study groups, i would say would you read us the christmas story from mark. they would open their bible. why are you laughing? >> there is no christmas story. >> it's like someone said read the 17th chapter of mark and there is no 17th chapter. they said they read it. you are not telling the truth because there is no 17th chapter. >> this is part of what advent is about and the value i think of going to church and hearing the readings again and knowing the stories, being reminded of

the stories and what they're about. if you don't have the stories, you can't really understand christmas as a celebration. it's good to know frosty the snowman and charlie brown's christmas, i am for that, and going to the nutcracker is great, going to sing christmas carols, terrific. i am for that. but i think there is value in going to church and participating in the rituals with other people. if you want to get to a sense of i really got something out of this christmas season and felt some christmas spirit, you will have to put something into it. >> life is a matter of stories. i think of the great rabbi, said you can come religion in one word. remember. we remember

the stories. >> when is your christmas eve service. >> christmas eve of course at 7:00, fairfield community united methodist church. you have been there and brought my mother on easter. i thought that was significant. sunday morning at 10:30. >> it's been easy drive from the bay area. one of the best preachers there is, ron swisher. thanks for having me on. >> appreciate it. >> merry christmas. >> merry christmas to all of you. thank you for joining us.