Jigsaw Puzzles

Today is the beginning of the season of Advent. The world does not recognize or understand Advent. Nor, in fact do many Protestant Christians, those who worship in non-liturgical churches. And since that includes, among others, all of the Southern, American, Conservative and other variations of Baptists, that’s a lot of faithful Christians who do not experience Advent as we do. It is my favorite time in the church year, and I would miss it terribly if it were not a part of my winter every year.

A variety of symbols are associated with Advent. One is before us here, the Advent wreath. A circle of evergreens with one candle for each of the four Sundays of Advent. As you probably know, they are lighted cumulatively, so that the light grows as the weeks pass and Christmas draws ever nearer. Advent calendars are common this time of year, as well, even (I suspect) among folk who may not observe Advent any other way. Except for the fact that mass marketed Advent calendars suggest that Advent starts on December 1 every year, the calendars are a wonderful symbol for the season. Day by day, they mark the days as Christmas Day draws ever nearer. As an aside, Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Because Christmas is on a Saturday this year, Advent starts early, quite a few days before December 1. Which means that a true Advent calendar this particular Year of our Lord would be a real bonus with an unusually large number of windows to open and wonders to discover.

Like the Advent wreath, Advent calendars highlight the passage of time as an essential part of Advent’s character. Advent is all about time. Time spent in waiting and anticipation. Advent is about deliberately marking out and spending something near four weeks waiting. Waiting for, looking forward to, the promised wonder of Christmas.

I have another symbol to propose for Advent. I don’t expect it to catch on in a big way within the church, even though I think in some ways it has even more to offer, as a symbol, than the wreath or calendar. It is the jigsaw puzzle. How many families, I wonder, have the tradition of putting out a puzzle this time of year? It is a good symbol for the season. A jigsaw puzzle, too, is a symbol for the passage of time. Doing a jigsaw puzzle takes time. How long it takes depends upon the difficulty of the puzzle, but it always takes time. And it must be done incrementally, piece by piece.

This is one of the most important and possibly most counter-cultural lessons of Advent. Many of life’s most wondrous blessings, most glorious miracles, take time. And all of life’s best blessings and miracles come to us as gifts. Waiting for them reminds us that they are not ours to demand or acquire, only ours to receive… in the fullness of time. This is a counter-cultural perspective. We live in an on-demand culture. A world driven by our demands and needs and the expectation that those demands can and should be met on demand, virtually immediately. Us religious folk often decry the materialism that culture has shoved into every nook and cranny of the Christmas season. I am less concerned with materialism than I am with a pervasive cultural sense of entitlement. The driving expectation that every thing we want to give, every thing we want to receive, every thing we want to happen… should be ours on demand. Entitlement on demand.  If we are seduced into this on-demand worldview we will miss the wonders. Christmas is not ours on demand. Advent is an opportunity to step out of the on-demand world. A jigsaw puzzle cannot be completed on demand. Think how telling it is that our church year does not begin with Christmas. Our Christian calendar does not begin with the birth of Christ. Receiving the gift of Christ, even as a gift, is not the beginning. Advent’s span of time is the beginning. A span of time for waiting, hoping, preparing. It’s a good time to start a jigsaw puzzle.

Like the other symbols for Advent, a jigsaw puzzle reminds us to spend some time waiting, expectantly waiting. To put aside our pressing demands and wait upon the gifts we hope for. But one thing that I think a jigsaw puzzle illustrates even more powerfully than a calendar or even an Advent wreath is that this time, this Advent time, is about more than just marking time, more than just passing time. Advent is creative time. It is time for us, piece by piece, to prepare him room, to prepare room in our hearts and our homes for the birth of Christ. One of the most powerful ways in which blue resonates as a liturgical color for Advent is as Mary’s color. Advent is not just an empty space of time. It is gestation time. It is a passage of time which builds toward completion, fulfillment. Piece by piece the puzzle takes shape, piece by piece the picture emerges. Piece by piece we create a dwelling place for the Christ child to be born in our lives. Advent invites us to participate in this creative process of fruition and fulfillment.

I think that is part of the appeal of jigsaw puzzles. The invitation to be a participant in creation is almost irresistible. I know some people don’t like puzzles (and you’ll tell me who you are on the way out this morning), but I maintain my point. The invitation to participate in creation, to put in even just a piece or two, to contribute to the growth of the picture… the invitation is compelling. It draws families together this time of year. Even the most dedicated video gamer will pause at the puzzle for a moment or two to put in a piece. The common hope to contribute to the puzzle’s growth draws disparate ages and ideologies to gather around the same table.

And for the solitary, too, there can be satisfaction from participating in that steady act of creation. Young children love simple jigsaw puzzles because they put it together; they create a finished picture. And the ubiquitous jigsaw puzzles of nursing homes and hospital waiting rooms? Why that particular vehicle for passing the time? Because it is universally inviting, and because even there, especially in those places, a jigsaw puzzle promises that the passing of time is not meaningless but is creative, proceeding towards fulfillment and new birth.

Work a puzzle this Advent. Make the time.  Or if jigsaw puzzles really just don’t do a thing for you, find some other way to use this gift of time. Find some way that you may, piece by piece, day by day, put upon the armor of light. Create something. There are 27 days in Advent this year. They are an invitation to you. Grow, build, create something beautiful, something hopeful. At the very least, assemble your personal or family crèche piece by piece, day by day, so that you can watch the story grow to completion. Or do the same with your tree, saving the most beautiful ornaments for last, so that its glory shines most fully as Christmas comes. Or create your own Advent wreath and week by week, build a halo of light in your home.

There is at least one major problem with the jigsaw puzzle as a symbol for Advent. And it doesn’t have to do with missing pieces or sibling fights over who gets to put in the last piece. No symbol for Advent is worth much at all if it doesn’t draw us beyond ourselves to an awareness and acceptance of God’s gift of himself to us. All of Advent’s symbols are symbols of preparation, anticipation. We can never truly complete the puzzle’s picture. Only God can. In our hands it will always be just a collection of pieces, whether assembled or not. But if the process of building that puzzle, of participating in the creation of that picture… if that Advent process creates and builds a place in our hearts where God may be born, then the gift of Christmas will be wondrous and true. If Advent’s span of creative waiting, of incremental hoping, leads us to a yearning for the fulfillment, the life, the light, that only Christ can bring, then the blessing of heaven itself will come to us on Christmas morn.

I’ve just started a jigsaw puzzle.  It depicts a whole collection of lighthouses. A friend gave it to me when I lived in Maine. I can’t imagine a better symbol for Advent.

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