An Overlooked Season

Advent, as a season, is often overlooked by our fast paced world where Christmas season takes place months before Christmas (in actuality the Christmas season begins after Christmas), even before Thanksgiving and often just after Halloween.  Despite what the stores and the television commercials would have you believe, it isn’t Christmas yet.  In fact, the Christmas season doesn’t begin until December 25th.  We are, instead, in the season of Advent. 

Advent is something of an unusual time.  On the one hand it is the time of preparation for Christmas and the stories of the nativity, Joseph, Mary, the birth of John the Baptist and the birth of Jesus.  On the other hand, Advent is a time of reflection and anticipation for the second Advent, or the second coming of Christ.  In that respect it is a time of not merely remembering the first Christmas, but looking forward in hope for the fully realized Kingdom of God.  As such, Advent is a time of reflection and preparation for what is to come in Christmas; it is a reflection on the hope of the Messiah that was, for Christians, realized in the person of Jesus.

But you are hard pressed to find that idea during the frenzy that is the ‘shopping’ season.  Perhaps that has to do with the fact that Advent is about expectation, patience, and reflection.  These are things we are not good at as a country, it would seem.

Pastors can be pressured greatly to sing “Christmas” hymns this time of year – and why not?  Every store and station seems to be playing them.  Why isn’t the church on board with the season, since it is the Christian season, after all?  And it seems to be a losing fight.  Pastors struggle to communicate the fact that we don’t sing Christmas hymns until the Christmas season. 

It never gains too much support. 

And Advent season can make pastors very unpopular with their congregation.  As Diana Butler Bass wrote, “During these weeks, churches are not merry. There is a muted sense of hope and expectation. Christians recollect God's ancient promise to Israel for a kingdom where lion and lamb will lie down together. The ministers preach from stark biblical texts about the poor and oppressed being lifted up while the rich and powerful are cast down, about society being leveled and oppression ceasing. Christians remember the Hebrew prophets and long for a Jewish Messiah to be born. The Sunday readings extol social and economic justice, and sermons are preached about the cruelty of ancient Rome and political repression. Hymns anticipate world peace and universal harmony.”[1]

While I do enjoy the Christmas season, both secular and religious, I find that without a recognition of Advent, the meaning of the season becomes less and less clear.  And perhaps that is why Advent is overlooked by so many – we don’t want to have to think what it means to follow Christ when we are fighting over specials for the new Xbox. 

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