Advent

December 15, 2023

We didn’t observe Advent when I was growing up. I never even heard the term till I was a young adult. December was merely “the Christmas season,” filled mostly with store Christmas displays and Christmas carols being played over loudspeakers in the department stores of downtown Rochester, NY. The 1983 movie “A Christmas Story” pretty well depicted my childhood at Christmastime in the 1950’s. 

Advent has become more significant and meaningful to me than Christmas Day itself. Except for those years when Christmas falls on a Sunday, the religious part of Christmas culminates in the midnight Christmas Eve service. Four Sundays previously, the themes of Advent have prepared the way, enlarging our capacity for worship and wonder. I’ve come to believe that one of the most important reasons for observing Advent is that one single day cannot contain all God has for us. It’s like trying to stuff a large gift in a tiny box. Advent is the larger box for all God has prepared for us in Christ. 

It’s not all nostalgia, tinsel, and lights. There is no shortage of trouble this time of year. People are stressed, tempers flare, while some sink in depression and despair. Much of this is because people observe the Christmas season, but are expecting it to deliver more than it can. The wonder of my childhood Christmases aren’t adequate to carry the weight of adulthood. Only the reflection Advent affords, turning our attention to the Gift of Christ to a sad and lonely world, and to a Cross where Christ died for our sins—only this is able to lift us from both human frivolity and human fear to the Savior whose coming we both remember and anticipate during Advent.