In case you weren’t aware, Christmas is coming.
We’re not quite sure how you could be unaware. After all, Target and Hobby Lobby jumped headlong into the holidays well over a month ago. But some of you need a bit more reminding. So we’re here to help you out. So let us be the first (or the last) to say it: Christmas will be here before you know it.
But before Christmas, there’s Advent. And Advent, as we all know, is … it’s a … well …
*awkward silence*
It’s okay. Most people we talk to aren’t quite sure what Advent is, either. So let us save you from a Google search—or another ChatGPT convo—and give you the basics about Advent. (It’s more fun here than on ChatGPT anyway, we promise.)
Advent literally means “the coming” or “the arrival,” and it describes two distinct arrivals. The first arrival is the birth of Jesus. The second arrival is Jesus’ second coming, at the end of the age. In Advent, we look back, remembering the painful seasons of waiting and longing prior to Jesus’ first coming, seen most vividly throughout the pages of Old Testament Scripture. But we also look forward, with an equal sense of longing, to Jesus’ second coming, that moment when he will usher in complete justice and perfect peace.
The Advent season, leading up to Christmas, is a time to prepare our hearts to celebrate the good news of Jesus’ birth. It’s a time of waiting, which any kid (or parent!) will tell you is not easy. But there’s a specific type of waiting happening at Advent. It’s less like waiting for your name to be called at the DMV and more like waiting at the top of a roller coaster. At any moment, your waiting is about to be radically transformed into sheer and utter joy.
This is the wonder of Advent. Even though it is a time of longing and waiting, it is also a season of profound joy. It is the joy of anticipation—that unique type of joy in the present which is caused simply by looking to joy in the future.
For all the ways we can get Christmas wrong, anticipation is the one way most of us tend to get Christmas right. Christmas is not just one day. It is the culmination of a season of joyful waiting.
Which is precisely what Advent is all about. Advent is a season to remember that although the night seems long, the sunrise of Christmas is just around the corner. It is a time to be honest with God about the pain of this world, but hopeful with God about his plan to redeem it all. It is a time to ask God, once again, to “make the wrong things right and the dark things light.”
And a time to remember that, at Christmas, God answers with a surprising, powerful, and beautiful, Yes!
If you're looking for a meaningful new Advent tradition, join us this year with Advent Blocks!