One week out from Thanksgiving and it is so tempting to rush headlong into Christmas, skipping right over Advent. So that is another reason I appreciate the lectionary and liturgical calendar. It gets our attention, plants us firmly in this time of waiting, and gives us a gift of four weeks to fully ponder what is about to happen.
Skip Advent and we miss the deep truth of Christmas. We miss Isaiah’s invitation to walk in the light of the Lord, and we stumble into the season wrapped in darkness. Skip Advent and we trade the Light of the World for the fleeting giddiness of artificial twinkle lights and cheap merchandise wrapped in shiny paper. Skip Advent and we can get obsessed with all the wrong things – the perfect Christmas card, the perfect Christmas tree, the perfect Christmas gifts. Well, you get it. We miss the point entirely. The Light comes into the world and we don’t know Him.
So before we jump in and celebrate Christmas, let’s observe Advent and wait together for the Messiah, waiting both for the remembrance of the Incarnation in the birth of Jesus, and for the future return of Jesus. This future aspect to our waiting is made clear in our Gospel lesson for the first Sunday in Advent. Jesus will come again. His return is promised, but the time is unknown. So we are instructed to keep awake, to be alert, to keep the faith, to walk in the light, to put on the armour of light. Already, and yet again anew each Christmas, we have received/do receive the gift of God’s Son in the manger in Bethlehem. We can live boldly because of what Christ has done for us, secure in God’s promises even though our earthly lives still have illness, heartbreak, tears, and death. But there is a day when death will be defeated and there will be no more tears. A day when Christ returns. Until then, we watch and wait, prepare and hope.
Think of Thanksgiving like Mardi Gras and Christmas like Easter with Advent the Lenten period in between. The time to slow down, to reflect, to have the courage to see just how lost we are when left to ourselves. We need a Saviour. He has come. He is coming. We don’t want to miss His arrival in a blur of busyness. In slowing down to breathe and pray this Advent, may we awake to be surprised anew by the coming of the Light.
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