Often around this time of year when I notice the date on the calendar I feel my heart rate quicken. The time until Christmas Day is no longer counted in weeks but in days. There is a feeling of dread in amongst the delight and anticipation, because the Christmas season is usually so full. Full of busy and bustle, obligations and appointments, expectation and shopping – all the things that must be done before the hard deadline of the 25th.
It is not that I don’t like Christmas – I really do. December is my favourite month of the year. I delight in saturating the house with Christmas songs (both the silly and the serious), sparkling tinsel and jingling bells. I’ll light the gingerbread scented candle and set up my four (yes four!) nativity sets around the house. I deeply appreciate the celebratory events of the season as a chance to mark the good and be with people.
But, oh, it can be tiring! The trappings of Christmas can have a heaviness that does not bring life to my soul.
Advent on the other hand feels light. Advent is the season of the Church calendar that begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends on Christmas Day. Coming from the Latin word Adventus, meaning arrival, Advent is the time of preparation, allowing God to prepare room in us for the coming Jesus. We look forward to marking the arrival of Jesus, as in his birth. But we also look towards Jesus’ return one day as King. Advent reminds us that we’re waiting in this time in between the two arrivals of Jesus. The kingdom of God is both here and is still to come.
In the same way that Lent was a little foreign to me until recent years (a wrote about Lent here), other than the calendars with little doors, the practice of Advent is something I’ve arrived at more as an adult. As part of the rhythm of spiritual seasons in the year, Advent brings an invitation to stillness and reflecting. It let’s me refocus on the type of abiding in Christ that I want my life to be about. It pairs the more sombre themes of waiting, longing and anticipation with the wondrous gifts of hope, peace, joy and love offered in Jesus. I find walking through the former makes my understanding and experience of the latter so much richer.
It isn’t so much the doings of Advent that does something remarkable. Sure, the enticement of a daily checklist of practices with candles, scripture readings, family activities, playlists and devotional readings and art draw me in. But it is the permission of Advent to bring both the hard thoughts and emotions, and the joy-filled ones, before God. Both have a place, and that to me is an invitation closer to the heart of God.
It is inevitable that even as we have so much to be thankful for, that we hold a deep longing within us for the redeemer Jesus to come. Advent lets us hold the tension and become more whole before God by doing so. We acknowledge the hard things, that there is brokenness and pain in the world and in our lives. But we don’t nullify the celebration of the goodness of God and his “withness” of us.
God’s arms are big enough to hold us in our celebration and our grief, whatever is needed, both at the same time.
And that seems especially needed this year. Advent this year feels like even more of a relief; like a deep breath that’s been long coming.
This stormy year 2020 has left us feeling at sea and in motion much of the time. We’ve had less normality to ground us and higher stakes keeping us constantly stretched taut. The unprecedented challenges of 2020, from the global scale right down to the personal, make the familiarity and grounding of Advent extra welcome. It also feels fitting to give space in the final month of 2020 for lament for what’s been lost and longing for Jesus to redeem and restore this broken world.
Perhaps in journeying through the hard things of longing, grieving, lamenting, acknowledging pain and disappointment we can more fully get to a place where joy and hope and peace and love can let fly.
So in my house this December there will be advent calendars with chocolate. There will be baubles and sparkles. There will be some very silly songs. But there will also be spacious time beside the flicker of a candle. There will be the telling and retelling of God’s story of inbreaking and rescue of humanity through the coming of the baby Christ. There will be the acknowledgement of pain in and around me, and the bringing it to Jesus with lament and longing. I hope to move through the Christmas season in a slower lane, with time and space to let God do his inner work in me as well as to take in the wonder.
Jesus, Prince of Peace, thank you that you are with us. Thank you that you are with us in the hard things and the wonderful things, and in every moment in between. Let this season not pass by without us inclining our hearts to you for you to work within us. May hope, peace, joy and love abound in our lives and our world, even as we embrace longing and need for you.
What practices of Advent are you practicing this year? How does Advent draw you closer to God?
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