Advent

This year during the holidays I’m doing something I haven’t done as an adult - I’m celebrating advent.  When I was a boy one of the churches that my family attended celebrated advent but for the most part the others didn’t.  Honestly the only part I remember about it was there was a wreath, candles and something we read everyday.  Once I became a teenager I went my own way spiritually. My family was in a different Christian tradition by then and they didn’t include the advent tradition in their celebration either.  Now because of some personal spiritual discipline I am putting in my life, the advent tradition is back in  my life.

Advent is the Christian season of waiting. We remember how the nation of Israel waited for the coming Messiah.  We see the promises made to them that a deliever was coming.  They waited and prayed that God would come.  Finally their waiting was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. 

Now we wait for the return of the Lord.  Believing and hoping.  All our prayers take place with the fulfillment of the old covenant behind us and the fulfillment of new covenant waiting still before us. We wait for a savior to redeem and heal God’s broken world. 

The Advent celebration of waiting started this year just after America’s new holy-day is “Black Friday,” the day when the national messiah is born: bargains on presents. At the heart of it: we can’t wait to get what we want. The power, the pleasure, the purchase: it’s all ours to take as long as we show up and rush for the prize of the high calling of cheap gadgets.

Jesus has come to bring God’s kingdom in power and to fill his Good News with victory over sin, death and the grave. Until Jesus returns, we are watching, on guard, waiting, serving as those trusted by the master to do his work until he returns. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

What do you do during the holiday season that helps you grow in love for God’s gift of Jesus? Have any of you used the Advent tradition as a part of your celebration?