Advent: Why Celebrate it?

In less than a week - next Sunday - the season of Advent begins.  For a lot of people, myself among them, I look forward to this with much anticipation.  But it was not always that way, and for many, it is still not that way.  

Advent?  "Bah Humbug"...Why Celebrate it?

I was raised in a family of eight and as a kid Christmas was my favorite time of the year.  Not only did we get vacation from school, but we knew there were going to be presents under a tree.  What I remember the most about December was that it was a busy time of shopping, decorations, family parties and Church pageants.  

Yet, for me, there were two days that we kept our eyes focused towards:  Christmas Eve and Christmas day.  

The other days in that month seemed to drag on endlessly awaiting Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We filled that time shopping for presents and Christmas gatherings at school, or relative’s homes.  

On Christmas Eve our Lutheran church’s children's program meant I stood up in front the congregation nervously trying to remember the passage of scripture I was assigned to say.  Christmas Eve couldn't get over fast enough, because back home presents had mysteriously appeared under the tree.  

Christmas Day was bedlam with presents to use and more to open; a meal that was second only to Thanksgiving, and visits to and from relatives.  Once the meal was finished and the relatives gone home, life returned to normal.  This was Christmas for me year after year until my very late teen years.

As a young adult I gave my heart and life to serve Christ.  It was not indicative of the way I lived my life as a teen, but an encounter with scripture aided by a faithful witness and the work of the Holy Spirit pointed me back to Jesus.  God drew me to himself, and I fell headlong into the life of a Christ-follower.  I entered that life with passion and a desire to learn all I could so that I could live my faith with all sincerity before Christ, my Lord. 

Interestingly, not much changed in relation to Christmas.  The church I became part of didn't do much different with Christmas than the one I was raised in.  I was a young believer and the church’s message was Jesus Christ died for your sins, and this is why he came.  

Every year Christmas was celebrated one Sunday before Christmas with carols, and the kids put on a pageant; but most of the emphasis was on “why” Jesus came – to save us from our sins.  Since the major emphasis was on salvation, the majesty and mystery of the Incarnation was left out. 

I went to a Seminary to follow God’s call to serve in vocational ministry.  The Seminary I attended did not mention the season of Advent.  The Incarnation was a topic for Biblical Theology, but not the mystery of God of the Advent season.  Advent was for the “high church” folk (which by the way I was told may not really be believers).  The liturgy of seasonal celebrations was deemed to be inappropriate for a real “Spirit-led” ministry.

I majored in Church History.  As I became steeped in the story of the church – its beginnings, persecution, growth and development – it gave me a broad brush to see how the church worshiped Christ. My perspective on the contemporary church that I was part of changed as I saw what Christ was doing in the Church’s history – “I will build my church…”.  It was here that I entered into my first Advent celebration of Christ’s Incarnation.  I was hungry for a richer experience in celebrating Christmas.  I had little experience, but I was persistent in reading as much as I could.  As I read the Church Fathers, the Scholastics, the Reformers, and Pietists, I began to see something of the rich diversity these spiritual fathers of the faith saw in Christ’s Incarnation.

I graduated from Seminary and began to pastor a small Congregational church in a rural farming community in Wisconsin.  It didn’t take long for old patterns to return.  The first Christmas seasons were filled with planning services, choral programs, children programs, the usual Christmas decorations, family shopping and gatherings…busy things.  I was returning to the Christmas of my childhood. 

A few years into my first ministry I began to loathe the Autumn, because I knew it meant a lot of busy days ahead, with little personal fruit to enjoy.  It wasn’t the fault of the church, or ministry, it was my own spiritual laziness that made me accept the busyness.  

Again, after several years, I wanted Christmas to be more than what I had made it into.  I knew that I was missing Jesus among all of the good church and family things.

I returned to Advent. 

I came to the season of Advent deliberately, intentionally.  I began to include Advent as a season-long celebration.  Advent meant that Christmas became a month-long celebration: more reflective, prayerful, worshipful!  

Eventually, my family joined in, not because I compelled them to, but because my wife saw what Advent did for me.  

We incorporated Advent candles around an Advent wreath.  Every evening we had brief nightly readings, simple reflections which our children embraced and year after year they looked forward to Advent, and not just the presents at the end.  

My quiet times were reflective, prayerful, and worshipful.  I read Advent books from many different sources.  The reflections, thinking, pondering, and musing made my journey through the season something I anticipated for weeks before it occurred. 

In our Church community I introduced elements of Advent slowly.  I did not attempt to “force-feed” what I wanted and needed for myself upon others.  Our worship services had Advent themes, and I shared the importance of breaking free of the world’s patterns for a consumer Christmas in favor of one that was more Christ-honoring.  

Some came along and embraced the season making a part of their own traditions.  Simple readings, the kids lighting candles each week, and incorporating Advent into weekly messages brought the congregation into the season “softly”.

I have a deep passion for Advent.  I am an evangelical pastor who loves God’s word and seeks to preach it faithfully.  I see in Advent a place of wonder, mystery, fulfillment, anticipation, spiritual “waiting”, and expectation – a few of the words that accompany this season.  

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, Advent is for you.  Maybe you thought it was for “those others”, but it is not.  

If you have never taken time to journey through an entire Advent season, let me invite you to come along with me.  I promise, taking time to prayerfully journey through the “Advent season” will make Christmas much more “wonderful".

What is Advent & the Advent Season?
The word "Advent" means "arrival" or "coming" in Latin and celebrates the mystery and the wonder of the first “coming” of Christ Jesus in his birth.  

Theologically, the Incarnation and the Trinity belong together.  Jesus is God in flesh, and yet truly human.  John 1:14 (NIV)
¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

1 Timothy 3:16 (NIV)
¹⁶ Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.

Advent begins the Christmas season and as well, the Church year for many churches in the western world.  Advent is a seasonal celebration, a tradition that goes back through the Church’s history to the early centuries of the church. 

For centuries before Christ Jesus, faithful Jewish believers waited for God to send His Messiah.  When Jesus asked his disciples who they believed him to be, Peter answered:  “You are the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:18).  Jesus’ followers were first called Christians in the early church era (Acts 11:26).   The early church’s teachers saw in Christ’s first Advent a fulfillment of the Older Testament’s prophecies concerning the Messiah’s coming.  But, for the early church, Advent meant not only the celebration of Jesus’ first coming; but also the expectation and waiting for Christ's second coming.

The exact time when the season of Advent came to be celebrated is not precisely known. 

It is composed of the four Sundays before Christmas day, and can be as early as November 27^th, or as late as December 3^rd.  This year, it begins on this next Sunday, Nov. 30.  

For Christians, Advent is a time of reflection about the amazing gift that God gave to us in the person of His Son who came to live among us, and who someday will return to us – a second Advent. 

Advent is an opportunity to restore Jesus to His rightful place as the center of, and reason for, Christmas as a holiday.

What do you do in the Advent Season?  

We'll revisit this the next post:

Peace