193. How to Celebrate Advent — A Conversation with Eric Huntsman

Professor Eric Huntsman has an infectious enthusiasm when he talks about Christmas. He’s up for the fun, the decorating, the shopping, the lights, and the gift-giving. He also has a deep intellectual curiosity and many years’ academic research into the historical development of this holy day. And of course, most importantly, he has a profound devotional attachment to the holiday’s namesake, Jesus Christ. 

So it’s only natural that he would spend years developing ways to help his family, students and community find more meaning throughout the Christmas season. One way that he’s done that is through the observance of Advent. Much more than just the calendar many of us think of checking off the days in December leading up to Christmas, Advent is a traditional Christian season that’s been observed for at least 1500 years and is marked by the four Sundays prior to Christmas, each of which celebrates a theme of Christ’s birth: hope, love, joy, and peace. 

In today’s conversation, Eric shared with us the background and purpose behind Advent and some of its symbolism, how he celebrates it, and what he recommends for anyone looking to observe Advent as part of creating their own traditions or rituals.

Resources:
Good Tidings of Great Joy: An Advent Celebration of the Savior's Birth (Eric's book): https://www.amazon.com/Good-Tidings-Great-Joy-Celebration/dp/1606416596/r

Come, Lord Jesus: An Advent Invitation (Wayfare Magazine): https://www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/come-lord-jesus

Celebrating Advent: https://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/2013/11/celebrating-advent.html

First Advent: https://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/2013/12/first-advent-hope.html

Christmas Resource Guide (Daily December devotionals): https://huntsmanseasonal.blogspot.com/p/christmas-resource-guide.html

Advent Carols: https://www.amazon.com/Advent-Carols-Countdown-Stories-Christmas/dp/1639930477

Transcript

1:57

All right. Well, Eric, thanks so much for joining us. We're so happy to have you back. We loved the episode that you did with Zach in the spring and it made our Easter so meaningful. So we were really excited that you'll come back and walk us through Advent. Sure. Sure. Um, so months ago we had the Maxwell Institute had just come out with a book about ancient Christianity and we had Christian heel in here and, and we had this conversation and the thing that struck me over and over was how unrecognizable Christianity would have seemed. For centuries to some to people like us and in one of those one of those ways I think was that there was no celebration of the birth of Christ at first like it wasn't this holy day and that it never It's a really unusual thing the idea of a birthday celebration or an anniversary celebration was a very big thing in Egypt a very big thing in Rome So when Rome shifted from a republic to an empire, celebrating the Emperor's birthday or this Emperor's accession or the Emperor's wedding was a big deal. But the early Christians, you know, this was kind of like pagan, right? And so they really resisted that. But as Christianity became more widespread in the Roman Empire and then more Egyptian and Italian, They had this impulse, right? And, of course, it's also the same thing. As much as I love Easter and Holy Week, we're not enjoined anywhere in the New Testament to celebrate Christmas or celebrate Easter. The word Easter only appears once in the entire New Testament in the Book of Acts, and it's actually a bad translation of Passover. Paul says, I need to get back for Easter. Passover. So, you know, here are these fundamental things, right? God becoming man, right? The Jehovah becoming the babe of Bethlehem and Jesus suffering, dying and rising again for us. And yet we're never told to celebrate it. And yet they're the most momentous events in human history. Of course we want to celebrate, right? And so these celebrations kind of developed organically. And you'll sometimes see people, particularly evangelical friends, you know, struggle with, you know, I don't want to call it Easter. That sounds pagan. Or, you know. Christmas trees are bad because they come, you know, from the North, North or something. You know, my feeling is People, you know, the Lord finds people where they are and we build upon whatever truth and feelings they have Why not celebrate those things, right? And why not incorporate local traditions, as long as you are always intentionally keeping a Christocentric focus on it, if that makes sense. Did those early Christians, early Christians, were they celebrating something? Did they have holy days that were just not around? The Lord's Day. So it was the week, the commemoration of the resurrection. Was sunday, right? I mean, this is the reason we moved from the jewish sabbath on the sixth day Seventh day of the week to a christian sabbath on the first and this is another discussion for another time But gay stravin has just edited a collection called sacred time about the sabbath And I did the chapter on john in which I called bringing forth a new creation where I made an argument based on the text Of john that wasn't just the resurrection, but that jesus was Bringing forth a new creation through his atonement and just as the father rested on the seventh day when his creation was finished Jesus's was finished Easter morning. Well, so that's what they celebrated was the weekly. Yeah, right The Lord's Supper will commemorate his suffering in death and then we will rejoice that he rose again And that was the celebration weekly. Yeah, very cool I can see you by the way as we're talking your eyes totally light up when you talk about well I am an unabashed Jesus freak. Yeah, I will just say that And, um, I, as we were talking before this episode and I was giving you a little bit of my personal history, I'm like a, you know, seventh generation Larity Saint, my family's from Southern Utah, but I was raised the greater part of my childhood in Pittsburgh. And most of my friends were Roman Catholic and Presbyterian. And then the middle of my junior year of high school, which is a terrible time to move. I moved to Jackson, Tennessee, which I like to call the. Buckle of the Bible belt and all my friends were Baptists and born again Christians. Yeah, and then when I went to grad school I lived in the Jewish neighborhood. So I I had friends and people I was close to in traditional Christianity evangelical Christianity and then Judaism and Even though I have always been a faithful Latter day Saint I just could not help but see the sincerity and the belief of these people. And I really always took to heart what Joseph Smith and Gordon Hinckley have both said, which is, take what you have, which is good, and we'll add to it. And, and my friends, when I was in high school, I used to belong to an organization called Young Life, which is a Christian evangelical youth league. And you know, they're Just 100 percent focus on Jesus changed me. It changes the way I teach, it changes the way I write, and it changes the way I experience the gospel. And one of the reasons I am such an advocate of Latter day Saints more intentionally celebrating not just Easter but Holy Week, and not just Christmas but Advent, is I think these are the two places where we have points of contact with the rest of the Christian world. Our theology will always be different. Our understanding of the atonement and the plan of salvation will always be more expansive. But to come together, regardless of when things actually happen on the calendar, to come together when so much of the world is celebrating, not just celebrating the divine conception of the birth of Jesus, but anticipating it, which is what Advent's about. And then celebrating the events from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. That's where we have so many things in common with them. And it's two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, it's a chance for us as Latter day Saints to come together with them, but it's also a chance for them to present to us, here's some traditions that you can draw upon, right? Which I don't feel like is betraying the restoration. Not at all. You know, I mean, Joseph, a lot of the early church in the 19th century really was shaped by Presbyterianism and Methodism because that was the context out of which Joseph Smith and his family and the early Latter day Saints rose. You know, if the church had been restored in Greece, maybe our church architecture would look a lot different. Maybe we'd have. You know more mystical art, right? We have I you know, I mean my point is there's nothing wrong with these great traditions And if the early leaders of the church drew upon their context, yeah, and you've got this you mentioned christian heel Well, he's english, right? And I was just in the united kingdom on my way home from jerusalem when the war broke out And they were already getting ready for Advent. So I went to Evensong in St. Paul's and they said, it's the second Sunday before Advent, you know, and I thought, wow, there is this long tradition. One of the places I took Elaine and Sam, my wife and my son, as we went to Old Sarm, which is one of the earliest sites of Christianity in England. And I remember thinking at the ruins of the original church before Salisbury Cathedral was built, thinking people have been worshiping the risen Lord here since before William the conqueror. Right. And some of these Advent traditions we're going to talk about have been going on since then. That's beautiful. I mean, we love this concept of holy envy. Christer Stendahl. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So he was the, the bishop, the primate, they call it, of the Lutheran church in Sweden. But he was also an academic. He met, um, Richard Bushman and Truman Madsen. Well, maybe it was Truman. It was Truman Madsen when he was actually a professor at Harvard Divinity School. But Christer Stendahl coined the term, or at least popularized it. When the Stockholm Latter day Saint temple was about to be dedicated, is that right? Right, they were having open houses and is always the case with open houses, a lot of anti Mormon sentiment. We called it anti Mormonism then because we were Mormons then. But anyway, um, he articulated what he called the three principles of religious understanding. The first was if you want to know more about a tradition, ask a practitioner, not someone else. So if you want to know about Islam talk to a practicing Muslim. Yeah, not Fox News. Okay, if you then don't compare your best to their worst and the third was cultivate a healthy sense of holy envy and Bishop Stendhal did that saying I walk through the Latter day Saint temple as it's getting ready to be dedicated And it's so beautiful And it is, and the idea of linking families together and everyone having a chance to accept the gospel is beautiful to me. That's where Holy Envy came from. Yeah. You wrote us? No, I wrote. Yeah. Did you not know that? I wrote a little book, Fr. Ezra book called Worship, Adding Depth Through Devotion. And I talk about Holy Envy in the introduction. So you can look up. That is so exciting. I had no idea. Yeah. We actually, no, we were actually wondering just a few weeks ago where the term. There it is. I just gave it to you. Yeah. We didn't Google hard enough. So, you know, I just recently returned from Jerusalem where I was the academic director and it's something I'm really, really stressed with each of my semesters of students is here we are. And as you go to the Western wall and watch our Jewish friends pray with such intensity, you don't have to pray the way they do. And that's what Bishop Stendhal said is you don't have to adopt their practices or beliefs, but you can be inspired. So I say to my students, you see how they're praying with such intensity. How can your prayers be more intense? You hear the prayer call five times a day. You see our Muslim friends stopping wherever they are. Right? Then can you pray several times in the day? And to what we're talking about today. You watch. Christian friends from more liturgical or traditional communities doing things like Advent or Holy Week and say, wow What could I do to remember what Jesus has done for me more in those periods? Yeah. Oh my god. Thanks for sharing. So beautiful. Yeah I'm in the middle of well I'm in the middle of rereading Casper Terkiel's book about the power of ritual and something that he talked about that I've really valued is this idea that you can create ritual By using what's already happening in your life, like what's already important to you and, and give it more meaning and make it a spiritual practice. And to me, as I've read what you've written about Advent, that kind of feels like the invitation that, that this is already something we value and like here's a way to do it that will make it so simple and so meaningful. And that feels like something we're all always trying to do. I think for Latter day Saints, particularly, you know. People who are practicing fully active, I guess is the way to describe it. We almost need permission to come up with rituals. But I think the inspiration for family and personal rituals is so innate in what we do. I mean, obviously the sacrament baptism, obviously the temple ceremonies. And, and what, but what you have to do to feel comfortable with personal family rituals is saying when they are God established and authorized. We call them ordinances, but when it's something that we do for our benefit, even if we feel like it's inspired, right? Call that a ritual or a family tradition. The other thing, my wife, when we were first dating, because I've always been a little Uh, you know, and I have, anyway, she, she said, it's great. You do X, Y, and Z just don't expect me to do it. And she goes, don't go Pharisee on me, which I have since repented of because the Pharisees were actually wonderful people and we've mischaracterized them historically. So that's another conversation for another time, but that's the way we used to talk about it. Right. But what we finally settled on is if you feel inspired to do something for you, that's great. But at the moment you try to insist. Other people do it. That's where you're crossing the line, right? So she says, okay, you may have this interpretation of word wisdom, but this is mine, right? This may be how you mark this out, but this is how I do it, right? Now when it comes down from FBQ 12, first president of the 12th, okay, that's authorized. That's for the community, right? But it's not really our role to tell other people how to do things. One other thing. Sorry, I'm talking too much. Um, this will, would have come out at some point anyway, but I have only two children. I have a daughter who used to call many me. I mean, Rachel's just like me, temperament and intellectual interest. And she did ancient years and studies because I was the ancient years and studies coordinator when she was at BYU. And then we have a son who special needs. We have a son who was, who was, uh, diagnosed when he was three and a half with quite profound autism. And, you know, wow, the miracles we've seen in Sam's life have been amazing. But if you know people on the spectrum, one of the things that's comforting for people on the autism spectrum are what they will call in the literature, rituals. Or traditions, or patterns, or practices. But the reality is, you know, I, when I moved from Classics in 2003 to Religious Education, and moved from being a Greek and Latin geek and teaching Greek and Roman history to teaching, you know, New Testament, mostly also Book of Mormon, you know, I, I was trying to, trying to negotiate this change, but I, I do everything so intensely and so intellectually. But Sam has been one of the Greatest blessings, not just in my life, but my teaching, because with Sam, I mean with Rachel, I could say, in fact, our nativity Cresh, she used to divide into a Methean side and a Lucan side. So the characters she divided according to Matthew 1, 2, and But with Sam, it was the simple message, right? And so raising Sam, I had to go back to the basics. I had to say, what is the salient message? With Sam, talking about the historicity of the Lukean census doesn't go anywhere. Um, but the fact that Jesus divinely conceived and miraculously born, and that's the miracle of Christmas, that's what mattered. And in all my writing since Sam. I don't accept this dichotomy that it's either academic or devotional. It's either seminary and institute or it's intellectual. I think, you know, we're supposed to worship God with our heart and our mind. I think you've got two Oars in your boat, intellectual and spiritual. And so I've always tried to bring those together. But Sam has helped me do the spiritual side. I think a little bit more. Yeah. So one of the things I'm most excited about with this conversation is that we have a chance. So the, this will be released the weekend of the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is the beginning of Advent. Right. We'll call first Advent. First Advent. Could we, could you talk about what Advent is? I know when people hear this, and I'll try to keep it simple. They see the cardboard calendars with chocolates, right? And that's a mistake. Yeah. Because the Advent calendar, which is 24 days of chocolate or figures to put on the tree or whatever. Uh, we call that Advent, but that's not what Advent was historically. So Advent, Advent comes from the Latin term by adventus, which means the arrival, the coming. And it was a penitential period where Christians in the Middle Ages prepared themselves spiritually for the, the Feast of Nativity. It was so that they would be in the proper spiritual position to celebrate Jesus's birth. And it goes back to Pope Gregory and a little bit before then, but anyway. And the Feast of Nativity. Is Christmas. Okay. And so what it was is the four Sundays before Christmas, wherever Christmas falls. Okay. And so that was an each of real quick. So in traditional liturgical churches, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox. Which is slightly different in the East, but in the Western European traditions, Roman Catholic, but then Lutheranism and Methodism still holds on to some of the, certainly Church of England, Episcopalianism, um, with liturgical churches, you have this concept of sacred time, which is not just your weekly Sabbath. It is, you've got these monumental events, usually in the life of Jesus that you're looking at. So preparation for Jesus's birth, that's Advent. And what that meant was in the Sundays of Advent, you were looking at the prophecies of the Hebrew prophets for telling Jesus coming and using that as an inspiration to prepare for his coming. And then you had what was called Christmastides. So Christmas Eve, Christmas, 12 days of Christmas. Not the 12 days before, it's the 12 days after, right? Okay. So December 25th through January 5th. And then Epiphany, which is Jesus being manifest to the wise men, so that's why it's Three Kings Day. And then you have another thing on, I think, February 2nd, Candlemas, which is the presentation of Jesus in the temple by Mary and Joseph. And then you move back into what I call ordinary time. And then the next thing is you're getting ready for his saving work. And so you have the 40 days of Lent, which is not the four days before Easter, because you don't count the Sundays, because those are feast days. But 40 days minus those Sundays. It's just like Jesus was in the wilderness preparing for his ministry 40 days. We're going to prepare for 40 days of fasting because you don't fast on Sunday because it's a feast day anyway. And then you have Palm Sunday and then you have Monday, Thursday, and you've got Good Friday and you have Easter and then you have, you have a 40 days ministry. So then you have Pentecost and then you move back to ordinary time, but ordinary time ends up being less than half the year. All the other Sundays are structured by these events and these seasons and these tides, as they call them, which meant the readings in mass or in the service and the sermons, all the worship would be focused on the principles of that season. Does that make any sense? So Advent is this season, the four weeks before Christmas Eve. Okay, the four Sundays before Christmas Eve, and we can talk more about what the traditional themes of those are. Yeah, and it was all spiritual Okay, it wasn't about the fun and it wasn't about the chocolate It wasn't about the presents and in fact in some really traditional anglican or catholic Households or churches, they will not put Jesus in the manger till Christmas Eve and the wise men don't show up to epiphany, right? Yeah, in fact, I remember some of my Catholic friends. They didn't sing Christmas carols. So Christmas Eve they had Advent carols and I'll throw a shout out to my friend Michael young He has put together for Latter day Saints a book on Advent music He serves a mission in Germany and he knows the European tradition really well Yeah, look it up in Ezra's book. And he has something coming out for Easter next year, too. Oh, that's great. I love that explanation of liturgical time. I was reading that, uh, the Benedictine nun, Joan Chittister, says that liturgical time is the experience of spiritual ripening. And I love that. Way of thinking about it because that's exactly how advent feels it's like four weeks to focus on something So very simple so that when christmas comes you've had time to sit with so many different aspects of the christ Story that it really does feel holy. It feels like a right Well, and this is of course the thing is we face commercialism And the more secularization of christmas you always hear these, you know the war in christmas We've got to resist it or we talk about let's put christ back in christmas now just so you know I'm all for Santa Claus, and I'm all for all kinds of decoration and all kinds of fun. Because I figure I believe you. If you're not watching the YouTube video, you can see that this is real. Because What you do is you're harnessing the joy and excitement of your children. A good friend of mine, um, George Durant wrote a book called Don't Forget the Star. I don't even know if it's still in print, but it's about different Christmases in his life. And he has in the second Christmas is the year Santa Claus goes away. Then he has his mission Christmas a few chapters later, which is when he really understands what Christmas is about. But then the next chapter is when he proposes to his first wife, Marilyn. And as he's putting the ring on his, her finger, he sees something in the sky and it's Santa Claus saying, I'm back, George. And then he has this phrase and I had it all ready for the time when my children would have some questions about mythological fat men in red suits. And he said, I found that Santa Claus was not someone to get things from, but someone to give things through. Right. My point being, Have fun, but make sure you're intentionally keeping the spiritual part there. So this idea of a Latter day Saint family like yours or mine on the Sundays of Advent, getting together for a little bit more formal family tradition or family ritual, if you want to use that strong of a term, that's going to really anchor something. And Sunday should be more spiritual anyway. Yeah. I stopped there. And so you might point to this, the seasonal blog that I've kept for years where I developed things much further than I did in my first book on Christmas. That was 2011. Good times were great joy. Advent celebration of the Savior's birth was its subtitle. I ended up doing this blog, which is you're sitting here. Those of you who are new to, you can see I have a big binder. What I did is I put together something from my family to do, not just on the four Sundays of Advent, but every day of December. Not just the chocolate behind the door, Brian. I want something a little bit more intentional. And, and the background to that is really interesting. Our second year of marriage, this was 1994, we had just moved here from Philadelphia where we had been in grad school. We had just bought our first home, a tiny little brick box in West Provo. And my aunt had given Us as a Christmas gift, this little Xerox copy, Cyrilox, you know, bound thing with a story, a carol and a, and a scripture for each day in December. And we were young and we were still trying to have a child and, but we were trying to establish some Christmas traditions and we didn't do it every day in December, but several times that first December we didn't, this is nice. Well, when our daughter was born, I'm like, we're going to have a pattern for this. Cause I'm kind of, uh, Uh, triple a personality and I had to have a pattern. And so I went through and reorganized it. I found new stories, but more importantly, I found something that felt restoration to me instead of just the traditional kind of Advent scriptures from Isaiah and Micah and Jeremiah. I went through Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants for a rare price. Didn't end up having that much from Doctrine and Covenants actually. But what I did is I picked 24 scriptures beginning with a prophecy of Adam about Jesus found in the book of Moses. The next one was Enoch in the Book of Moses, but I went all the way out through chronologically through the Book of Mormon and, uh, the Old Testament so that we'd have a scripture in order building, right? And on the 24th, it was, you know, pre mortal Jesus speaking to Nephi, right? It was the third Nephi, behold, tomorrow I come in the world. And so we had a, a meaningful scripture for each day in December, found a meaningful Christmas story. I'm really into music. And so I found some carols, including some primary ones. And this is our little Christmas book. And so, you know, we're going to have family prayer every day. And we're always trying to read some scripture every day. It's not always very good scripture study. We always read a few verses, right? So I thought, why not in December, before we go to bed, gather, read a fun or inspiring Christmas story. It can be either way. Read a scripture, which is laying the foundation for the magnificence of Christmas Eve. And then sing together and then have family prayer. And my little son called that doing Christmas. And you know, Ina Fellaini and I were at a dinner party and we're getting home at like 11. On December 12th, the sitter could not get sound to go to sleep. I've got to wait because we've got to do Christmas. I've got to stay up for mom and dad so we can do Christmas, you know? And so, so you don't, no matter how fun or I singer, so I'm in concerts, I'm in rehearsals and we've got parties to go to no matter how busy or shopping we're still going to have. Christmastime every day in December and about a half hour of Christmastime each of the Sundays of Advent. Yeah. And what do the Sundays of Advent signify? They are distinct. They are. And, and different traditions may organize these things in different order. But the most common one, the one I stumbled upon when we were first planning this when my daughter was about three was hope, love, joy, peace. So you start with scriptures that focus on the hope of a redeemer for the first, the whole first Sunday for that for Sunday. And, and what I have done in our Advent practice, you know, I told you I have a scripture for each day in December, but I have four or five scriptures for the Advent. Some are Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. We call it summer Book of Mormon summer program price. Right. And so I found scriptures that are about the hope. And then we find some songs that celebrate that the traditional first carol of Advent is O come, O come, Emmanuel. When Craig Jessup used to be the music director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, even though we didn't do Advent as a musically spoken word, he always programmed O come, O come, Emmanuel on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Well, musicians are always keyed into this, right? Because whether they're, you know, some of my friends are organists, some of my friends are music directors because they do the traditional corpus of music. And organists are always working for other churches, right? So they're, they're going through Lent, they're going through Holy Week, and they're going through Advent. But anyway, in terms, so that's what it is. So the first one's hope, the next one's love, you know, and even though it's traditionally an Advent or Hebrew Bible or Old Testament scriptures, how can I, not that we have a favorite gospel, but if we did be the gospel of John, how can you not read God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son? The next one is joy, and the last one is peace. Because that's the real message of Christmas. Uh, it's a hard year for me because of what's happening in the Holy Land. And we're purposely, you know, the church and BYU Neutral on this, so all I'm saying about this is that Psalm, Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, has never meant as much to me as it does now. But you know when we first were dealing with this conflict before we we left Jerusalem I remember saying to my students when they were a little scared cuz they'd heard a siren So this is how people in Ukraine feel every single day, but you know what sadly You can go back to the Assyrians and the Babylonians. I mean, war and conflict have been the history of the world. And that's why the Advent theme of peace is not just about his first Advent, it is about his second Advent or what we'd call his second coming. So those are the traditional themes. As I said, sometimes you'll see a church might do it in a different order. Do you know where the themes came from? You know, I never really quite got the bottom of that. I think they just discern them in the messages of the prophets. Okay. Uh, one, one image that I think probably comes to mind for people who have heard of Advent Advent or who have had friends in other traditions, uh, is this, is the wreath with the candles. Will you talk about that image? Cause I think that's probably really fun. Wreaths have a broader. symbolism, of course, because, you know, it's the everlasting circle. It's beginning and end, it's eternity, that kind of thing. And of course, uh, early on, particularly medieval, well, it even goes back to Roman Christianity, but medieval Christianity in particular, evergreen, right, is everlasting life. So, so wreaths always had that, but the idea of having a wreath with four candles, one for each of the Sundays of Advent, right? And so on the first Advent, you light one of those candles. On second advent, you light that one and a second, third advent, those two and a third. It's actually really beautiful, especially since in our family, we light them every single night when we have our family Christmas devotional, what happens is that first candle gets. burned down pretty far. And then the second and the third and the fourth got this lovely staircase, right? That's cool. And traditionally, three of those four candles are purple. So it's representing the coming, the advent of the true king. The third one is traditionally pink or rose colored. Um, it's because remember Advent was originally a penitential period of preparation, but that third Sunday was called Gaudete Sunday, which is Latin for rejoice. And so it was rejoice kind of breaking the serious tone. But I love the symbolism and I don't know if this was traditional, but I love the symbolism of seeing this image like, like the red. In a green wreath, you're anticipating the blood of Christ as well, right? So even though it's joy, I'm thinking about the coming sacrifice. Do you see ways I'm so curious if you can imagine how Advent might look in an actual Latter day Saint worship service on a Sunday, have you seen that incorporated? So I have a funny story. When I was Bishop years ago, I had a counselor, Bob Clark, who had service mission in Germany. He talked about how, um, there's an old lady in the, in the ward who, But on that front wreath and put it up and everyone is okay with that. Cause sometimes we used to have Christmas trees in the chapel. I don't know if you remember that later, they got moved to the foyer when I was Bishop, my gosh, we decked out Garland on the wreath. And we had parties in the front of the chapel. Sure. Sure. Cause I, you know, my poor parishioners, my ward members, they never said, they said, we didn't know if this week it was a Mormon service, whether it was going to be a born again evangelical service, but we always knew at Christmas and Easter, it was going to be Episcopalian. I just, I just love the music and I love the decorating. Right. But anyway, so Bob was saying that, you know, it was out there and no one thought anything about it. But after the opening hand, the woman came up and lit the candle, put it out. So after the opening prayer she came and lit it again. So I'm not advocating that. I remember my mother telling me when she was growing up in Cedar City, Utah, they used to have a Christmas Eve candlelit service. Now part of that was because my grandfather's a concert violinist. As I've mentioned, musicians are always kind of keyed into this. I'm not advocating doing this in church. I see these as family traditions or personal rituals, if that makes sense. Now, if I knew as much about this and love this as much when I was Bishop, I'll tell you what I would have done. I would have had sacrament talks about the hope that we have in Jesus on first advent. And I would have had stuff about the love of God and love of Jesus, second advent and third advent. So I think what I would do is I'd have talks that mentioned the themes. Yeah. Does that make sense? But if you want to have an Advent wreath, that's a family tradition or a family ritual. That's cool. We, um, we've talked, you've mentioned a couple, but I'm curious, usually, you know, I think even when Latter day Saints turn to the scriptures to celebrate, celebrate Christmas, we're typically turning to the New Testament. Do you have any favorites? Like. Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price that you could share, sort of Advent or Christmas related scriptures. Yeah, so, um, not that I have favorite things to talk about, but if I did, besides Jesus, it's gonna surprise you, it'd be about Mary. Quick anecdote. And I know we're short on time. So, um, between my first stint teaching at the Jerusalem center, and when I returned a couple of years ago as academic director, the only way I could see how I could get back to the Holy Land is to take commercial tours, which I know sounds awful, but it was a chance to get there, but as a commercial tour person, you always have to have a local guide. And the first time I did one of these tours in 2014, I had a local Palestinian Christian who. Didn't like me and didn't want to share time with me. And anyway, it was just awkward for the first day. So we get to Nazareth and we're at Annunciation. And you know, he talked about the church and the facade and the history of it. He says, okay, do you want to say something? I said, yes, I do. And I pulled out my Book of Mormon to 1st Nephi 11, read that beautiful part of Nephi's vision where virgin pure and fair is carried away from the city of Nazareth and she comes back holding a child and then we find out the tree of life is actually, you know, Jesus, you know, and anyway, and I said to my group of Latter day Saint tourists, after our Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends, probably no one should have more love and appreciation for the mother of Jesus than we do. And I said, you know, Mother Eve, Mother Mary, you know, we're looking for female role models in our tradition. Here they are. Anyway, George's name is, he goes, brother, I can work with you now because you love Mother of our Lord. But I love First Nephile. I love Messiah 3 when King Benjamin prophesies him. I love Alma 5. You know, the book of Mormon is replete with the prophecies of Jesus, but then there's the sign of Samuel in the light, right? And there's the passage I already mentioned, just kind of in passing. Tomorrow, I come into the world, be a good cheer, Nephi, son of Nephi. So there are great scriptures like that. By the way, George, after that, the rest of that week kept calling me father. Every time he was a father. We like to teach here. Oh, that's amazing. So yeah, yeah. And this is why, as I was putting together, not just kind of a family Latter day Saint. Advent script for lack of a better term, but as I was putting together scriptures for our daily December devotionals I wanted to make sure I had lots of restoration scripture and in my mind that was gonna be mostly Book of Mormon, but I was surprised how much I took from the Pearl Great Price because that book of Moses had some of the full prophecies and anticipations of Jesus that we know Adam and Enoch and And Abraham and Moses had, which you don't see in the Hebrew Bibles that came down to us. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, totally. we probably do need to wrap up. I just want to come back to this. I'm sorry, I have talked too much. No, this has been incredible. It really is. But, and you, you mentioned this for a second, that you were, you were in Jerusalem. And I just want to, I want to come back here for a second, because this is so heavy right now. And I just wonder if you could talk about that, you know, with all the confusion and all the fear that's going on right now, you were, you were there. You know, two weeks ago. How is that changing the way you are thinking about peace and love and joy? I have a little survivor's guilt. You know, I thought I would spend Thanksgiving with my family and back at the temple. I'm back in the choir. I'm celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I can't even call myself blessed because why would God give me those things? I'm not them. So I have kind of had to say, I'm fortunate. I have a dear friend in Jerusalem. He's our associate director. He's a Palestinian Christian. Tofi Ghalawi. And, you know, one of the things he was so excited to do about five years ago was put up a big, huge Christmas tree outside the Jerusalem Center so the entire city could see it. And his son has a drum and bagpipe corps, and most people don't know about Palestinian Christians, but traditionally up to 20 percent of the Palestinians were Christians. And anyway, the whole, all our neighbors, the Muslim, as well as the Christian Palestinians come for our tree lighting ceremony. We do all of this last year. It was so fun. And he was glad it was coming back. Cause he knew how much I love music and as much I love Christmas. And so then he and our staff put up this huge tree. We found out that the YMCA's tree was two feet tall. So I look out my office window. I've got a great office in Jerusalem, a great view. And I see the staff all doing something by the tree and they were putting boxes on your head. So our tree would still be the Mormon tree because we're Mormon university there. We still use that term there. The Mormon tree was going to be the biggest Christmas tree. I'll tell you Christmas and Holy Week are the two times of the year that the local Christians come out of the woodwork You know, they're minority within a minority. They always keep a low profile, but we do a Palm Sunday procession We wave those palms and come singing down the Mount of Olives and we celebrate Easter Christmas Eve we go to Bethlehem and It gives me hope because I know those who know Jesus Are waiting for him to come provide the answers I mentioned in passing, I didn't mean to be flippant about it. This is called the Fallen World. And this is called people that are proud and want power and are in the thrall of Satan. and the reality is Ukraine, and not as much now, and the Holy Land are getting a lot of airtime, but there are places in Sub Saharan Africa, and there are places that because they don't fit the right categories, we don't pay attention to. But I know that God loves every one of his children, that his heart breaks for everyone who suffers. But he's so committed to our agency and the plan. And the only thing I can think is that with the eternal perspective that God and Christ have, and that presumably we all had in the Council in Heaven, even if we had been shown how hard this life would be and what horrible trials it was to go through, we understood that that was going to be just the blip. And that this plan of a Jesus Would make all the wrongs right. That's why this ad my celebration is more about the next advent than the last one Because I haven't be praying for hope love joy and peace in Christ more than ever right now, but when he comes again Thank you so much. I think oh, you're welcome. Thanks for having me Happy advent to all your listeners and Merry Christmas in the time comes. Thanks Yeah