What is Advent?

A few weeks ago, someone asked me what Advent was. It was a simple question about the church calendar, but my mind went in a dozen directions at once, and I’m pretty sure that the answer I came up with was almost completely useless. I’ve been thinking about the question ever since, though. What is Advent? And why did I find that question so hard to answer?

First, the facts. Advent is a season of the church year—a season just like Christmas, Lent, and Easter. It starts today, four Sundays before Christmas Day. It’s actually the first season of the year. On the Church calendar, today is New Year’s Day—so happy new year! The word “advent” literally means “to come” or “to arrive.” In the early church, Advent was a time of fasting in preparation for Christmas—much as Lent was for Easter.

That’s probably how I should have answered the question: “What is Advent?”

But that simple recitation of facts leaves so much out. Advent is more than the sum of its parts, more than the dictionary might lead you to believe.

Advent is a time for quiet—a quiet that’s very much at odds with the commercial Christmas season.

For me, Advent is most of all a time of anticipation, a time of waiting.

I love the tradition of setting up a nativity scene during Advent—but leaving the baby Jesus’s place empty until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. All the pieces are in place, the scene tells us. All the pieces are in place, but still we need to wait. We need to wait because Advent takes time. Just as life takes time.

So many Advent traditions draw attention to the passage of time. You might buy an Advent calendar and count down the days until Christmas with small toys or pieces of chocolate. Or you might set up an Advent wreath at home, lightning one new candle each week—just as we do here in the church.

In Advent, we wait. We wait for the birth of a baby.

But we also wait for the end of the world.

And that’s where the themes of Advent become a bit more challenging.

Many of us shy away from apocalyptic talk because so many prophets of doom have been proven wrong—and because prophesies of doom have too often been used to manipulate and to do harm.

I have no particular desire to stand on a street corner waving a sign that says “the end is near.” But Jesus’s second coming is part of our faith, whether we like it or not.

It is pretty clear that Jesus’s first disciples expected the world’s end and Jesus’s return to occur within their lifetimes.

You can hear proof of that in today’s Gospel reading: “Jesus said, ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.’… Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.”

The world didn’t end two thousand years ago, of course, but warnings of an impending end never really went away. We still say these words every Sunday in the Nicene Creed: “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.”

As we say these words each week, here’s one thing we should remember: When we listen to the Bible’s warnings of apocalypse with modern ears, we’re likely to miss something important. Apocalypse can be terrifying to those who are prosperous and comfortable. Judgement can be terrifying to those with much to lose. But that’s not who Jesus was talking to. Jesus was talking to the poor, the suffering, the outcasts, the desperate. For them, a promise of coming judgment was a promise filled not with threats but with hope—hope that all the injustices of their lives would at last be put to right.

Advent is a time of hope.

Advent is also a time of preparation. It’s a time when we’re called to stay awake, to keep alert. A time to remember that whatever the fate of the world as a whole, we will each face our own apocalypse. Advent is a time to remember that every one of us will someday die.

In my line of work, I hear a fair amount about death. Again and again, people tell me that they hope that they’ll die suddenly in their sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone wish for a lingering death. I don’t disagree, but that’s a very modern notion. The Great Litany, the oldest part of our prayer book, contains this prayer: Deliver us, good Lord, “from dying suddenly and unprepared.” If their prayers are any indication, it seems that our ancestors cared more about the state of their souls than they did about the manner of their deaths.

Advent is a time for that sort of preparation. A time for taking stock. A time to prepare for death. And a time to prepare for the work God calls us to do here and now.

Advent is a time to pray in the words of today’s opening collect: “Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light.”

So what is Advent?

Advent is a time of quiet. A time of waiting. A time of anticipation. A time of preparation. A time of hope.

Advent is always. And Advent is now.

“Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”