Advent

Happy new year to my readers - new church year that is. Today is Advent Sunday, the beginning of a new church year and the beginning of the traditional season of preparation for Christmas.

How might we mark this season? What does marking advent really mean, beyond putting up an advent calendar and beginning the Christmas countdown.

For me there are two indispensable parts of celebrating and reflecting on advent, which can be summed up as looking back and looking forward. The two activities are not unrelated of course. There is something beneficial in the looking back that helps us look forward more effectively. That is the balancing act involved in keeping advent well.

Looking back each year, we try to imagine how it must have been to be part of Israel in Old Testament times, waiting for the long-promised King and Saviour who would be sent by God, or for the characters in the New Testament stories waiting for the birth, especially Mary and Joseph. Though the events of Christmas are already long in our past, during advent, we somehow try to put ourselves back before the birth of Christ came to catch a sense of the anticipation and longing they must have felt. And so many of our Bible readings look at prophecies concerning the Messiah and our sermons and hymns at this time reflect upon the promised Messiah.

But advent is also about looking forward to Christ's second coming. Just as Old Testament Israel looked forward to the coming of the Messiah that would change the world, the New Testament church looks forward now to the second coming of the Messiah that will end the world as it is and remake it perfectly for eternity. So we also focus on Bible passages, sermons and hymns that look forward to Christ's return in glory.

I hope that this year we will seek to keep the advent season in both ways and prepare for the celebration of Christmas spiritually as we inevitably prepare for it in many practical ways too.