While we wait …
After another year of uncertainty, shock, disappointments and sustained lockdowns, there’s no doubt that many of us feel weary and can’t wait for Christmas to arrive and with it holidays and the hope that comes with a new year on the horizon. This time before Christmas as we await the end of the year and the dawn of 2022 is, for almost all of us, a season of anticipation.
The Christian calendar calls this season Advent. The word means coming or arrival. It is the period leading up to Christmas, and a season which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ in his First Advent, and the anticipation of His return. Advent celebrates the truth that God has revealed himself to us in Christ so that all of creation might be reconciled to God. That is a process in which we now participate, and the fulfilment of which we anticipate.
Advent is not a frantic countdown to the stuffed stomachs and broken toys of Christmas. Advent is to Christmas what Lent is to Easter; it is a time of both patient waiting and discontented longing that fuels our hope in the coming Kingdom of God. Amidst this season where our time feels so scarce, dashing from party to party and present shopping, Advent teaches us to watch, to wait, and to hope for the appearance of the one who makes all things new.
Advent helps us wait for God
In Advent we join with Israel awaiting the deliverance from their sins, release from their exile, and the return of their King. We join with Israel’s prophets that proclaim this good news, and in doing so, we come to see that the story of Israel’s exile from God is part of the story of the world’s alienation from God. This is how one writer, James K.A. Smith, puts it:
“During Advent each year, the Christian year teaches us to once again become Israel, recognizing our sin and need, that waiting, longing, hoping, calling, praying for the coming of the Messiah, the advent of justice, and the in-breaking of shalom. We go through the ritual of desiring the kingdom – a kind of holy impatience – by re-enacting Israel’s longing for the coming of the King. We are called to be a people of expectancy – looking for the coming (again) of the Messiah.”
Advent offers hope
The season of Advent is about hope that human existence has meaning and possibility beyond our present experiences. It’s also a reminder that God does some of his best work with small beginnings and impossible situations. This time of year, we contemplate that hope embodied, and incarnated in a newborn baby, the perfect example of newness, potential, and possibility.
The spirit of Advent is expressed well in the parable of the bridesmaids who are anxiously awaiting the coming of the Bridegroom (Matt 25:1-13). There is profound joy at the Bridegroom’s expected coming. And yet a warning of the need for preparation echoes through the parable. Advent therefore prepares us to celebrate Christ's arrival, the coming of God to dwell with his people
Advent reminds us Jesus will return
And so during advent we are reminded once more that we continue to inhabit a world scarred by sin and evil. Advent trains us in these last days to hope in the One who came to save. Although these days can feel at times like a long dark night – and that’s been the case this year – dawn is coming, and Jesus will return to set the world right. Advent directs our hearts to long for this, to believe that the Kingdom of God is at hand, and so repent and believe the gospel, and put our trust in the Lord Jesus.