The surprising doubleness of the Advent season
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I don’t know when or where I first learned about the Advent season as the four weeks before Christmas. Maybe as a child at the Lutheran church where I went to Sunday school. Or as a youth in the Anglican church I attended with a friend from high school. Or in one of the many different churches my husband and I visited as a young married couple looking for a church home.
Somewhere along the way I came to understand Advent as a time of preparation for Christmas, a time of preparation to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Advent meant lighting the candles on the Advent wreath one by one for the four Sundays before Christmas. With each candle anticipation mounted until Christmas Day when all the candles on the wreath would be lit, including the Christ candle at the centre.
Advent meant waiting until the Sundays closest to Christmas before singing Christmas carols in church. It meant waiting until Christmas Eve to add the babe in the manger to our Nativity scene. Advent was about waiting for the birth of Jesus – or so I always thought.
Why then did so many Advent Scripture readings speak in ominous tones of judgment?
The contradiction of Advent
Alongside the growing light of the Advent candles, we’d hear the dark words of John the Baptist. "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near" (Matthew 3:2).
We’d read the words of the adult Jesus near the end of His earthly ministry. "Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left" (Matthew 24:40–41).
We’d listen to James warning the Early Church, and by extension warning us. "Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!" (James 5:9).
I didn’t know why such words of judgment were regularly read during the Advent season. To me they seemed more suitable for the season of confession and repentance leading up to Easter, not the glad expectation of Advent.
How could these texts prepare the way for Christmas? Where was the joyous expectation? Where was the excitement of the birth to come?
As a church member and then later as a pastor, I faithfully observed Advent each year. I loved marking the weeks before Christmas with the traditional Advent themes of hope, peace, joy and love. I even read and occasionally preached on the more difficult Advent texts of judgment.
But I can’t say I understood why they were part of the Advent season at all.
My aha moment
Then I read a collection of sermons by Fleming Rutledge. I knew of Rutledge’s reputation as a scholar and preacher who taught other preachers, and that relating the Bible to our world today was one of her specialties.
Help My Unbelief (Eerdmans, 2000) was already dated by the time I came across it on a table of discounted books. But I figured I could learn a lot even from one of her older books. Besides, this one was on sale.
I soon discovered Rutledge’s book covered all the seasons of the church year, and to introduce Advent she wrote, "No other time of the church year presents us with so much contradiction."
Yes, I thought. Exactly. Advent as a time of joyful preparation for the birth of Jesus, yet Advent as a time for words of judgment. Rutledge pointed out the contradiction I’d long felt.
But for her the contradiction of Advent went even deeper – not so much the contradiction between joy and judgment, but the tension between looking back and celebrating the birth of Jesus and looking forward to the second coming of Christ and His Kingdom.
Although I had been steeped in some liturgical church traditions, I’d never understood Advent that way. For Rutledge that was the great contradiction of Advent. For me seeing the first and second coming of Christ together came as a great revelation.
…it also looks forward to the second coming of Christ, to that time when all people will see the glory of the Lord.
Rutledge called her sermon "Beyond the Valley of Ashes." The title references Isaiah 40:3–5, often read during the Advent season:
A voice of one calling:
"In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken."
As an Advent reading this text recalls John the Baptist heralding the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry. Yet it also looks forward to the second coming of Christ, to that time when all people will see the glory of the Lord. When every dusty valley will be raised up and we will finally be lifted beyond this valley of ashes – beyond all the confusion, pain, suffering and death of this world.
As Rutledge wrote, "Advent, you see, is not about the past. It is about the future. It isn’t a season of remembering something that happened a long time ago; it is a season of preparation for the great coming Day of the Kingdom of God."
ILLUSTRATION: FAST INK
That was my aha moment – the moment I realized how small my understanding of Advent had been, the moment I discovered Advent was – Advent is – much bigger than I’d thought.
For Advent is not only a time of preparation to celebrate the first coming of Christ. It is also a time of preparation for His second coming.
Seeing Advent anew
I began to see the songs of Advent in a new light. My favourite "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" was not only – or even mainly – about waiting for the birth of the baby Jesus. It’s a song of anticipation for Christ’s second coming.
"Come and open wide our heav’nly home. Make safe the way that leads on high, and close the path to misery."
It longs for the final fulfilment of God’s promise of peace. "Bind all peoples in one heart and mind. Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease. Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace." The words are not about Christmas past, but about Christ’s Kingdom to come.
The classic Advent hymn "Oh, How Shall I Receive Thee?" is an Advent prayer. In the second verse it speaks of the birth of Jesus as a past event. "Love caused thine incarnation; Love brought thee down to me."
But the third verse speaks just as clearly about His coming again in the future. "We welcome thee, our Saviour; come gather us to thee, that in thy light eternal our joyous home may be."
Now I see them also as signs of His coming again, as acts of faith in anticipation of the fullness of His coming reign.
In contemporary music People & Songs released the Advent song "Oh Come Divine Messiah" in 2010. It’s an English adaptation based on the 16th-century French Advent song "Venez, divin Messie" that looks forward to the second coming of Christ: Venez. Venez. Venez. Ô Fils de Dieu, ne tardez pas. Come. Come. Come. O Son of God, do not be late.
Celebrating Advent then and now
This Advent, I’ll set out the carved Nativity scene my husband and I bought for our first Christmas together in our tiny rented apartment. We’ve moved many times since then, but I’ve kept the Nativity and added some extra figures around it – a large glass angel given to me by a coworker, a small wooden reindeer handmade by a friend, two miniature Christmas mugs that say Gary and April representing my husband and me worshipping at the manger, and assorted other figures.
There’s even a bright green octopus crocheted as a Christmas party favour by another friend. It wasn’t meant for a Nativity scene, but after I got home from the party I added it as a touch of whimsy – and a reminder of the coming day when all creation will be gathered and restored as part of God’s Kingdom. Now every year Christ’s first and second comings are represented in my Nativity scene.
In Advent I used to look back at Jesus, the infant King born long ago in obscure circumstances, who would then as an adult proclaim God’s Kingdom and call disciples to join Him, who would suffer, die and rise again by the power of the Holy Spirit so we might know forgiveness and the power to live a new life.
Now in Advent I also look forward to Jesus, the risen King, who even now reigns on high, who will one day return to this world in power and glory to fulfill all God’s Advent promises of hope, peace, joy and love.
I used to think of my extra end-of-the-year donations as gifts in honour of the newborn King. Now I see them also as signs of the coming of God’s Kingdom – when food banks will no longer be necessary, when persecution will give way to justice, compassion and love, when the brokenness of this world will finally be healed and made whole.
I used to think of acts of kindness and justice in response to Jesus’ life and ministry as ways of following His example recorded in the Gospels. Now I see them also as signs of His coming again, as acts of faith in anticipation of the fullness of His coming reign.
What things remind you of the coming of God’s Kingdom? How will they become part of your Advent waiting and Christmas celebration this year?
May you have a thoughtful, prayer-filled, joyous Advent in anticipation of the coming King – the One through whom all things were created, who came long ago at that first Christmas and who will come again one day to reconcile all things to Himself.
Venez, divin Messie. Nous rendre espoir et nous sauver. Vous êtes notre vie. Venez. Venez. Venez. O come, divine Messiah. Give us back hope and save us. You are our life. Come. Come. Come.
April Yamasaki is an ordained pastor, resident author with a liturgical worship community, editor of Rejoice! devotional magazine, and the author of books on living with faith and hope (AprilYamasaki.com). She lives in Abbotsford, B.C. Illustration: Spacepixel Creative