Advent 2023

This time of year is often referred to by Christians as the Advent Season. ‘Advent’ simply means arrival - the prominent arrival of an important person or an important event. The Advent season is the four weeks leading up to Christmas Day. The season rehearses the first advent of Christ - the Incarnation, and it also looks forward to the second advent of Christ. As we remember the longing and anticipation that God’s people had for His first coming, we embrace that same longing and anticipation for His second coming. A lot of Christians across many denominations have found this seasonal Christian practice very helpful as an aid to push back against the commercialization of Christmas in our culture. And, actually, the origin of the Advent season had a similar reason for its birth. Around the fourth century Christians in Spain were pushing back against a heresy of dualism that said, in essence, the body is bad and the spirit is good. Jesus’s birth shattered that heresy: His incarnation gave honor to the body. So, they took four weeks leading up to the celebration of His birth to celebrate the Incarnation. In our day the Advent season pushes back against a set of different threats to the church: greed and materialism. This is not a season to bolster our own kingdoms, but an opportunity to corporately long for the fullness of Jesus’s kingdom to come.