Advent Begins — A call to draw near

Virgin and Child, Serbian monastery Hilandar, Mt. Athos, 13th century

The Most Rev’d David Epps

Sunday, November 30, will be with First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new Christian year and the count down to Christmas.  Traditionally, the purpose of Advent is to focus God’s people on the Biblical truth of Christ’s Second Coming (Advent).  But the season also serves to prepare God’s people for a more meaningful celebration of Christ’s First Coming, which we celebrate during the season of Christmas. 

This coming Sunday, across the Diocese of the Mid-South and throughout our communion, we will light the first candle of our Advent wreaths, vest in blue (or purple in some churches), and sing songs which declare His coming such as “O Come, O Come, Immanuel.”  In our homes for devotion many of us will make use of Advent Wreaths and Calendars. 

Advent is also seen by many as a “mini-Lent” in which we take stock of our spiritual selves, repent, and amend our lives. We vow to “do better” than we have done, especially in our devotion to God.

Our new year begins Sunday. In this fragile and uncertain world where terrorists murder and wound hundreds of people in India and greedy shoppers in New York stampede a person to death in their madness to save a few dollars, we are called to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.” It is an opportunity to distance ourselves from the “world, the flesh, and the devil” and to draw near to Christ our God.

In our own hearts and spirits, it is time to “Prepare the way of the Lord.” Advent begins.