As many of my friends know, Christmas is my favorite time of year, and by “time of year,” I really mean all of December and sometimes more, to many people's annoyance. This love of the Christmas season comes with the surface reasons that many get giddy about - putting up the lovely decor; watching cheesy Hallmark movies; drinking warm, cinnamony drinks; wearing cozy sweaters on your back, feet, and legs...you get my drift. It goes beyond that, though.
For any of you who are familiar with Advent, the window of time before Christians celebrate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (yes, the same time frame as ABC's 25 Days of Christmas), you know that every day before Christmas is actually less a time of cozy, mindless celebration and more a time of expectant waiting and preparation. How many of us are familiar with the pain of waiting for something? Waiting for a loved one to come home; for a loved one to change; for Mr./Mrs. Right to come along; for a successful pregnancy; for that raise at work; for clear medical scans; for forgiveness; for snow to melt; for our pain to go away; for retirement to be possible; for a better political climate; for an end to war, racism, poverty; for a good job fit; for anxiety or depression to go away... Many of us are or have spent a good amount of time wishing, wanting, and waiting.
As someone who struggles with patience and living in uncertainty, I've come to realize that the season of Advent has been one time in life where I don't want to rush the wait for the desired outcome (Christmas), one time where I find meaning in holding on and seeking peace in the period of expecting and preparing. Obviously, it helps knowing that in 25 days, we will indeed celebrate Christ's birth, and that it will be whatever I and my family make of it. But, I've come to realize that Advent involves so much more.
Advent literally means “coming” or “arriving,” and is borrowed from the Latin word "adventus." The original season of Advent was believed to be a time of preparation for new Christians to be baptized at Epiphany in the 4th and 5th centuries. The season was originally composed of 40 days of prayer, fasting, penance. It was not linked to preparing for Christ to come until the 6th century. At that time, the waiting and preparation was only geared towards Christ's second coming, and the second meaning of awaiting Christ's birth at Christmas was not added until later in the Middle Ages. Now we celebrate Advent as a way of awaiting Christ in both ways, often reading passages about both the Nativity and about His second coming. You can read more about the history of advent here and here.
In awaiting Christ's birth during life A.D., perhaps we have the advantage of knowing the end of the Nativity story. But the real fruit lies in looking to those who didn't know the ending, in particular to Mary and Joseph during their time of waiting and preparation. The beauty we can find in their waiting and in their faith in God and the plans He had for them I'm guessing they would not have wished for or ever imagined. I highly doubt that Mary always wished to bare the son of God, to give birth surrounded by animals, or to watch her son die at the hands of those around her. If I imagine her as anything like myself, she had the biblical version of my hopes to meet the man of her dreams in college, to settle down shortly after and raise a quiet and loving family in a cozy home. How far from quiet and cozy were God's plans for young Mary? And yet she responded with such grace and strength, and had faith that God had it figured out. Mary responded with a resounding Yes in her fiat to the Lord, “Behold, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her." (Luke 1:38)
I can't imagine waiting for 25 days to begin such a large and scary chapter of my life, let alone 9 months! I also cannot imagine saying Yes to the Lord with such confidence, and not just once, but in every moment. Are we open to God working in our lives even if it means not working towards the outcome we expect or desire? I long continuously to trust in God at every moment in the way Mary must have, instead of experiencing a skittishness of faith I at times feel I present. How often do I doubt Him and lean on my own desires, or doubt Him and His plans, turning instead towards feelings of darkness?
Advent, in particular, draws on the symbolism of light amidst darkness and the warfare between light and dark. It comes at a particularly dark time for us in the Northern hemisphere as we march on into the shortest day of light, literally living in darkness for more hours than in light for many days. And, as the days grow darker (and colder), the Church lights more candles, lighting one Advent candle per week until Christmas, signaling the need and importance of light. John 1:5,9 puts it beautifully, "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it […] The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." In a special prayer for the start of Advent that comes from a letter from Paul, Paul writes about putting on the armor of light to cast away darkness. You can read a great reflection on this here. The prayer goes like this:
May God grant you the grace
to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light,
now in the time of this mortal life,
in which Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day…
we may rise to the life immortal. Amen.
May we look for and put on the "armour of light" during our seasons of waiting and darkness. Searching for this light is sometimes difficult, but we can find this light in Christ as referenced by many scriptures, "For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of man. (Matthew 24:27).
Perhaps the more difficult intention of Advent, is our waiting for Christ to come again. This narrative we do not know the exact outcome of. We don't know exactly when our waiting will end and what it will look like, though we have some ideas. This expectant waiting does come with fear and pain, and a definite test of patience. We have already been waiting for 2,000 years! Yet, God has asked us to trust in Him. He has given us a taste of what we have to look forward to in Christ's first coming. He also gives glimpses of our life to come all throughout scripture and in many signs through the Holy Spirit in our everyday; in the small and large amounts of light we find throughout the darkness.
I also find it largely humbling, and no-pun-intended, earth shattering, when I am reminded by the promise of Christ's second coming of our ultimate purpose here. Suddenly my desires and needs, no matter how dramatic or sorrowful, feel much smaller, when I remember that my time on Earth is very small in comparison to eternity with Christ. THIS is what we are ultimately waiting and preparing for, is it not? This is not our true home. Why is it so easy to lose sight of this? Because we get so lost in our waiting, and in the darkness. May we look for that light in any way we can and find joy in it. May we find in Advent another nudge to look up toward what really awaits, and may this help us through any of our seasons of waiting, large and small.
Wishing you a meaningful and *lit Advent
*check out the Advent playlist I've compiled if you are looking for some music that isn't quite rocking around the Christmas tree, and includes notes of expectant waiting and looking for light https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0oHkUKb95Adxz1UytUri5s?si=3C45o7crQ3qb57x3fqpVQw
Comments