The Meaning of Advent

Today is the first Sunday in the season of Advent. The American Heritage Dictionary gives as its first definition of “Advent”: The coming or arrival, especially of something extremely important: the advent of the computer.

I love that. In the Christian tradition, the Advent season is truly that – a season where we are looking forward to the arrival or coming of something extremely important: the advent of Christ! During this season, we are looking forward to the coming of Jesus!

It’s proper to quickly discuss the origins of Advent. Originally, Advent wasn’t to recognize the coming of Christ, but to prepare for several other “comings”, which were usually celebrated on Epiphany. Epiphany was the date to recognize the coming of the Magi to present their gifts to Jesus. It was also the date for recognizing Jesus’ miracle at Cana – turning water into wine. Finally, it was also a date used for baptism. In this last respect, as new converts prepared for baptism, there was a time for preparation for the baptism: prayer, fasting and repentance was a large part of being baptized into the faith.

As time progressed, the Church in Rome re-focused the Advent season from Epiphany to Christmas and to the coming of Christ. Today, we keep this same spirit of the holiday. It is no wonder that the whole world anticipates Christmas of all the holidays during the year. It is because the celebration of Advent caused us to look forward to the date. As the culture has become increasingly less Christian and more secular, the connection is not made. Most of us only know that the “Holiday Season” is upon us, but we haven’t made the connection that there are holidays in almost every month. In America, although there are a couple of months with no holidays, there are several with two or even three! Yet, December, with only Christmas is considered the Holiday Season! WE might have forgotten why that is, but history tells us it is because of Advent. (So we can thank Advent for all the hustle and bustle that we love to hate!)

However, one thing we have not remembered as well is that the Advent season not only looked forward to Christmas and the coming of Jesus as an infant into this world, but also it is to look forward into the future, waiting for Jesus to come again and to take us from this world. It is a time that we should be remembering the promises that we have in the Bible - of God making all things right again by sending His son to judge the world and to rule forever in Eternity. We need to remember that when that happens, those of us who believe will be vindicated and we will live forever without any more pain, tears, or suffering – without evil and sin to bring us down. How we should look forward to that day!

Imagine that you are about to head out into the African wilderness, on a safari. Or imagine that you are going to fly into space on the Space Shuttle to assist in a routine repair of the Hubble Telescope or a non-transmitting satellite. How exciting would that be?! Can you imagine how you feel, how your heart is pounding, how your adrenaline is flowing? Why? Because you are embarking on an adventure! The word adventure comes from the same words in Latin as the word Advent. When we enter into Advent, we should recognize we are entering into an adventure! The adventure is one of the imagination, one where we remember what God has done for us and what he is going to do for us in the future! When we truly ponder these things, we find that our hearts are pounding, our adrenaline is flowing and we feel excited. This is the season of Advent.

So how should we approach this most excellent time of year? Today, what we do is: we buy lots of presents we can’t afford. We also run around harried by the amount of work and preparation we need to do – but not for the coming of Jesus – but for the coming of guests and family. We’re cleaning, cooking, preparing, gift wrapping, gift buying, and extending the credit cards beyond what we can afford. Is that the adventure that Advent is supposed to be? Absolutely not!

We should be doing the same thing the early church did during this time. First, they prayed. Prayer puts us in the mind of Christ. It sets our minds on things above and not on earthly things. It keeps us focused on what the priorities in life are – what the important things are. It takes our minds off the worldly things, the unimportant things, the things that hold us down and keep us imprisoned in this world – the jealousies, the hates, the angers, the resentments. When we pray, we let go of all those earthly things and we concentrate on what is important – God’s will for us and for the world.

Next, they fasted. We hate fasting, especially in America, because it’s all so easy for us. We don’t have to work to get our food. We don’t have to worry about not eating for days. Even the poorest of the poor in America get food stamps, soup kitchens and leftovers. In the days of old, if someone didn’t work for their food, they went hungry. If someone couldn’t afford to pay for food, they went hungry. Even today, in many third-world nations, people are starving from lack of food. We have no idea what it means to have to go without. It’s that comfort level that causes us to hate to fast. Fasting takes us out of that comfort level and forces us to control our appetites, our desires, our bodies. If we can’t control our desire to eat for 24 hours, how are we going to control our desires for other temptations?

Finally, they repented. They recognized their sinfulness, didn’t see themselves worthy of anything from God, and knew that for all the good things they did, they did many more bad things in thought and in deed. Today, we think God owes us. We all think we’re going to heaven because we deserve it. We think we can put God on the back burner and do whatever we want because it’s all ours for the taking and we did it ourselves. We are not sorry for anything we have done – if we did do something wrong, it wasn’t our fault – it was the other guy or an accident or God’s fault – but not ours. We need to repent of our prideful thinking and recognize that we don’t deserve anything. The sooner we realize how broken we are, the sooner we will allow God to fix us. We need to repent of our wicked ways and humble ourselves. Then God will forgive us and will bring healing to us.

This Advent season, let’s go back to the reason for the season. Let’s remember what Jesus did for us and prepare our hearts for His coming. Let’s be ready to celebrate Christmas for all the right reasons. Let’s look forward to His coming again.

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Last modified: Dec 3, 2006

The Ark Church - Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, NY - A non-denominational church for Jesus Christ