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Hola, y’all and a Feliz start to your Advent season!

Many of us have already set up our Christmas trees, started listening to Carols or Mariah Carey’s All I want for Christmas, and have done (will do) all manner of holiday shopping. The Great Litany yesterday during the 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. services, together with the lighting of the first Advent Wreath Candle, marked this holiday season as one of hope and anticipation. We are waiting for the coming of the righteous branch, foretold by Jeremiah. Every Advent liturgy, scriptural readings, and sermons point us towards this consummation of the ages: the human and divine in Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Being raised on both sides of the U.S.- Mexico border, I had the blessing of experiencing this season in two different ways. First, this more dominant, American-style of Advent celebrations. And second, the more Mexican way of waiting for the birth of the Christ child. For us, this season is marked by series of celebrations: La Virgen de Guadalupe (Dec. 12) and Las Posadas (Dec. 16-24). The feast of La Virgen de Guadalupe commemorates the apparition of Mary to St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (little eagle) on the mount of Tepeyec on three occasions in December 1531. This year we will be joining St. James Lutheran Church on December 15 in celebrating La Virgen de Guadalupe. We hope that you can all join us. Las Posadas are celebrated in the Octave of Christmas (the eight days leading up to Christmas). Las Posadas started approximately in 1586 in Mexico. Originally, this period of time between December 16 and December 24 for the Mexica (the Aztecs as they have been called) coincided the the birth of the sun God Huitzilopochtli, a central deity in the Mexica pantheon. Spanish missionaries syncretized this celebration with the Christian tradition of Octaves. In 1586, Pope Sixtus V wrote a Papal bull authorizing an Octave of Masses leading up to Christmas Eve.

Las Posadas are re-enactments of Mary and Joseph’s search for an inn. Typically done at homes or in churches, Las Posadas allow for children and families to play out the drama of that night when Christ was born. The group gathered for Las Posadas are divided into two camps: those on the inside representing the Inn-keepers (essentially all of us believers, making our hearts an inn for Christ to be born); and those on the outside representing the Holy Family (those in our world who are like the Holy Family today such as immigrants, and those fleeing violence and war). There are sung responses for each of the groups to sing until finally the outside group is welcomed into the “inn” of the inside group. There are prayers said, traditional carols (villancicos) sung, and then a feast is set with a piñata for the kids to hit. This last piece surprisingly has an interesting story. Piñatas are not just paper mache stress balls or candy dispensers. They originally represented the seven deadly sins that believers were called to remove from their lives; the candies were a sweet reinforcement of this “moral” corrective. I hope you can join us in welcoming the Holy Family in your hearts on Sunday December 15, 9:45 a.m. We will have some guest musicians, our children and youth have prepared songs for us to sing (as have our Spanish as a second language folks), and plenty of waffles and tamales from the Luther League for after Las Posadas.

Nos Vemos Allí,
Pastor Sergio Rodriguez