Hey Church!

Welcome to Advent!* Over the next four weeks, I hope to tease out some of the unique characteristics of the season as it was understood by the historic Church. It may not be quite what you expect! For instance, last Saturday’s Personal Worship set the stage with the two-part question, “Is God good, and does He love us?” Believe it or not, these are just the sort of questions we are meant to ask during the Advent season. 

But before we go any further, we should first ask: What is Advent? Is it different than the Christmas season? Why does it matter? So, let’s get into it… 

First, it may help to know that Advent means “arrival,” which refers to Jesus’ “once and future” coming. It marks the beginning of a new year on the liturgical calendar and is the only season that looks beyond history to things yet to come–namely, Jesus’ return “to judge the living and the dead.” In this way, Advent most closely mirrors our present-day reality; in the darkness, we watch and pray for His return and the fulfillment of His final promises. 

Jesus likened our present reality to a doorkeeper who is left to keep watch over his master’s house: 

It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch… “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:34-37)

Since the early centuries of the church’s existence, Advent has been a time for believers to experience a deepened sense of anticipation for Christ’s return. Much like Lent is to Easter, Advent was treated as a penitential season of preparation for Christmas. While most churches today conflate the two, earlier generations believed there was wisdom in first taking a long and frightful look into the dark of Advent before celebrating the light of Christmas. 

To give you an idea of what that was like: Poinsettias, crèche scenes, decorative colors and lights, as well as Christmas carols, were ALL withheld from the church until Christmas Eve. In their place were songs of sorrow for sin, as would be sung by exiles awaiting deliverance. Instead of Peace, Joy, Love, and Hope, during the Middle Ages, the preferred themes of Advent’s four Sundays were Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell–in that order! 

The point here is not to suggest that we should capitulate to some other generation’s traditions. It is to say, however, that there may have been a baby-with-bathwater sort of loss over time that has stripped Christmas of much of its soul-moving power. Advent is an honest look at the state of our world and our need for a Savior. It is truly Jesus or bust. 

Fleming Rutledge, an Episcopal priest, tells the following story to describe the spirit of the Advent season. 

“In 2017, Yemen, the poorest country in the Arab world, was suffering from a prolonged crisis as a result of civil war. The government and all its agencies had ceased to operate. All services–medical care, sanitation, food supply, factories, airports, seaports, bridges–everything was collapsing. Parents were desperate as their children began to die of cholera, a disease that is easily treated in the developed world. A man named… Yakoub al-Jayefi, a Yemeni soldier, had not been paid anything for eight months, and his six-year-old daughter was in dire condition from malnutrition. Waiting by her side in a clinic, he said, ‘We’re just waiting for doom or for a breakthrough from heaven.’” 

Rutledge comments, “This is precisely the Advent situation: doom on one hand, deliverance on the other… 

When the prophet Isaiah cries out, “O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down! (Isa. 64:1), it is with just such a sense of desperate knowledge that nothing short of divine intervention can arrest the ever-recurring cycle of human misery.”1 

Nothing short of divine intervention can make things right. This is a season in which we watch and pray for Him to intervene. As a way of orienting our hearts and minds to this new season, our opening song this Sunday will be “Glory in the Darkest Place” (click the link below to listen). My encouragement to you is to soak it in, consider its lyrics in light of Advent’s profound historical meaning, and join me in welcoming this beautiful season of hopeful desperation.