Consumer culture can be creatively cruel. The “holiest” holiday-shopping of the year, “Black Friday,” starts at 4 a.m. (or earlier) on the day after the biggest feast day of the year. Stuffed with turkey, yams, and pumpkin pie; drugged into a stupor by tryptophan and a truckload of calories: we collapse into bed after watching a marathon of football games only to force ourselves into some semblance of wakefulness in order to get to the mall long before dawn.

If “Black Friday” is the wake-up call for consumer craziness, this first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the wake-up season for Christians. Advent is the season where our faith should be on high alert, preparing our hearts and spirits for the arrival of the wholly new work of God on earth: Emmanuel, God with us, God present in …