The Season of Advent
The Rev’d Canon Dr. Robert Wills
The season of Advent (from the Latin word, adventus, denoting a coming or arrival) is the season of the ecclesiastical year when the church prepares to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ (Christmas) and engages in self-examination in expectation of his second coming in glory to judge the living and the dead. The collects and Scripture readings embrace these two themes. It begins in the West on the Sunday nearest to and before St. Andrew’s Day (Nov. 30) and after Christ The King Sunday.
Advent always includes four Sundays. If Christmas Eve is a Sunday, it is counted as the fourth Sunday of Advent, with Christmas Eve proper beginning at sundown. In the East the period of Advent is longer, beginning earlier in November.
In the Church, each season has it’s own color. Historically, the primary sanctuary color of Advent is Purple, the color of royalty to welcome the Advent of the King. Christians believe that Jesus is the “King of kings and that at the appointed time, “every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” However, many churches, including my own church, now use blue to distinguish the Season of Advent from Lent. Royal Blue is sometimes used as a symbol of royalty. Some churches use Bright Blue to symbolize the night sky, the anticipation of the impending announcement of the King’s coming, or to symbolize the waters of Genesis Chapter 1, the beginning of a new creation. Red and Green are more secular colors of Christmas, although they derive from older European practices of using evergreens and holly to symbolize ongoing life and hope that Christ’s birth brings into a cold world.
The focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ in his First Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Second Advent. Thus, Advent is far more than remembering a 2,000+-year-old event in history. It is celebrating a truth about God, the revelation of God in Christ whereby all of creation might be reconciled to God. That is a process in which we now participate, and the consummation of which we anticipate. Scripture reading for Advent will reflect this emphasis on the Second Advent, including themes of accountability for faithfulness at His coming, judgment on sin, and the hope of eternal life.
In this double focus on past and future, Advent also symbolizes the spiritual journey of individuals and a congregation, as they affirm that Christ has come, that He is present in the world today, and that He will come again in power. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. That acknowledgment provides a basis for Kingdom ethics, for holy living arising from a profound sense that we live “between the times” and are called to be faithful stewards of what is entrusted to us as God’s people. So, as the church celebrates Christ’s Incarnation, and anticipates a future consummation to that history for which “all creation is groaning awaiting its redemption,” it also confesses its own responsibility as a people commissioned to “love the Lord your God with all your heart” and to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
St. Paul says that it was through the grace of Jesus Christ, sent by God in the fullness of time (Gal 4:4-5). God’s eternal design was to send His own Son into the world to redeem the human race, broken and bruised by sin. This is the masterpiece of His wisdom and love.
God willed to prepare the human race for the revelation of this mystery during some thousands of years. Why did God choose to delay the coming of His Son amongst us for so many centuries? Why such a long period? We cannot fully understand the depths of the reasons why God accomplishes His works under such or such conditions.
The revelation of the mystery of the Incarnation and the majesty of the Redeemer was given by degrees. After the first hint of promise made in Genesis 3:18, all the religion of the human race became concentrated around this “seed of the woman,” Throughout the years as they pass by, and as the centuries advance, God makes His promise more precise; He repeats it with more solemnity. He assures the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that it is through them that the blessed seed shall come forth.
During Advent, we are reminded of the prophesies of God concerning the coming of the Messiah. God prophesied that one day a Virgin of the family of David would bring forth a son. King David contemplates Him “in the brightness of the saints,” begotten eternally; a supreme High Priest “according to the order of Melchizedech” (Ps 59:3-4). He would be anointed to reign over us because of His ” truth and meekness and justice” (Ps. 44:5). David contemplates too the pierced Hands and Feet, the garments divided among the soldiers who cast lots upon His coat (Ps 22:17-19); He beholds Him given gall and vinegar to drink (Ps 68:22). He will not be touched by the corruption of the tomb, but, victorious over death, He will sit down at the right hand of God (Ps 15:10).
This contrast is not less striking in Isaiah, so precise and full of detail is he that he might be relating accomplished facts rather than foretelling future events. “His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, God the mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace” (Is 9:6). Born of a Virgin, “His name shall be called Emmanuel” (7:14), God with us. And yet this Redeemer, is to be overwhelmed with sufferings, and humiliations. When, therefore, we read the prophecies that the Church proposes to us during Advent, let us in the fullness of our faith, say like the first disciples of Jesus: “We have found Him of Whom… the prophets did write” (Jn 1:45). During Advent we want to “find” Jesus anew in preparation for making Christ the central focus of our lives for the new year.
