WHAT IS ADVENT ALL ABOUT?

Advent is a time expectation and preparation for the coming of Christ in his Incarnation, and also a looking ahead to his coming again in glory, when he will come as judge at the end of time. So Advent is about both Christ’s first and second coming.

Advent also marks the beginning of the new church year. Liturgically speaking we don’t run a calendar year, we start in the winter with four weeks preparation for the central event of the Christian faith: the incarnation. The celebration of the idea that God became a human being and lived among us - not a god who hovered through life not really being touched; and not a very good chap who was elevated after his life because he was so holy: but right from the very start God stepped into our shoes.

So the New Year marks the importance of Christmas and the incarnation. This is God’s hugest seal of approval on Creation. There are some people who act as though Creation was somehow impure, or tainted, or of much less importance than spiritual things. But the incarnation gives the lie to that. God made all we see and experience, in the beginning he said it was Good (Gen 1.31) and proved that it was good enough for God himself to inhabit in person.... So there are all sorts of implications that come hurtling out of the incarnation about sacraments; about ecology; about natural theology; a rethink needed about sin and evil; and abut the very nature of things... and so of course about ourselves...

But we are running away with ourselves..

There are four traditional themes which used to set the scene for the preaching during the four Sundays of Advent: death, judgement, heaven and hell... which in years like this one would have meant that the sermon on Christmas Eve - which is Advent 4 this year - was all about hell, and the very next day was celebrated as Christmas Day!

In recent years these four themes have been replaced with looking at four groups or individuals who played a part in the Christmas story:

• our ancestors in the faith - people like Abraham & Sarah; the patriarchs and matriarch of the OT on whose faith we build. (and we’ll be thinking more about that this evening)

• Then the Prophets who announced God’s new way of dealing with human beings - those who looked forward to the great and terrible Day of the Lord, fulfilled in Jesus.

• Then John the Baptist - the last of the OT prophets and the first of the NT who physically pointed to Jesus as the Lamb of God and hailed him as the Messiah;

• and finally his Mother Mary, the one who said “Yes” to God and brought to bear the Christ child. In Catholic circles we talk quite freely about “Mary the Mother of God” - which is ridiculous to think that God has a Mother! But of course saying anything about Mary is actually saying something about Jesus - Mary is the mother of God because Jesus is God. The Orthodox talk of Mary as “Theotokos” - or “God bearer” - and the icon on the notice sheet today depicts that idea.

The four characters of Advent are tied in with the Advent wreath - at the beginning of mass each Sunday in Advent we light a candle and give thanks for those who prepared for the coming of Christ.

In the northern hemisphere Advent falls in the darkest part of the year, and the natural symbols of light and darkness are powerfully at work in Advent and Christmas. Jesus as the one who comes as the light in the darkness, and as we hear in the prologue to John’s gospel which makes such a powerful statement at the Midnight Mass - “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (Jn 1.5). So our Advent and Christmas lights are actually making a statement about the triumph of light over darkness... the foreshadowing of the resurrection... the coming of God into a world which seems to have chosen darkness over light. But since the first Advent of Christ things will never be the same again.

The tone of Advent is about expectation rather than penitence, but there are some parallels with Lent in the colour and simplicity - so we don’t have flowers or the Gloria and the colour is a sombre purple. And the cry and prayer of Advent is “Come Lord Jesus” - Maranatha (the last word in the bible). But remember that this cry is just as much for the here and now rather than the Second Coming of Christ: the Advent preparation is to make ready a place in our hearts for the Christ child this season.

Hence Posada: it’s a custom from Latin America when a young couple used to dress up as Mary & Joseph and go from house to house on their “journey” to Bethlehem, encouraging the houses they visited to get ready for the coming of the Christ Child, and receiving hospitality and refreshment on their journey. This has been adapted into the journey made by the crib figures of Mary & Joseph. They too will be passed from home to home; they too will challenge each household to prepare for the coming of Christ; they too will be accompanied by acts of hospitality and refreshment.

In one sense yes we know that Christ lives in our hearts by faith the whole year round... but we also know if we’re honest that we don’t always act every minute as though Jesus was Lord... our attitudes, words, thoughts and actions are not always Christlike... so in this season of expectation and preparation our prayer is that Christ will be born afresh in our hearts, that we may indeed live for Christ more and more.

But how can we observe Advent when the world has been celebrating Christmas since about August? Ironically in the shops the Easter Eggs get rolled out on Boxing Day, whereas in the Church the Christmas season only starts on Christmas Eve and ends at Candlemas on 2nd February!

So how can we be “Advent Christians” while the world goes bonkers with Christmas? Rather than being killjoys and mincing around complaining that everybody’s playing Christmas Carols instead of Advent Carols, how can we keep Advent?

I have a couple of suggestions:

1. Try to spend a little time each day thinking about the “so what” bit of the incarnation. What does it mean for me that God lived a human life like me? Why did God do that? What then if God does know what my existence is like, first hand, what then? If God has said that “things’ are OK, how do I react to that...?

2. Try to read through the Christmas story from the gospels in one sitting sometime between now and Christmas Day - once Christmas kicks in we devour it all in bits and pieces, but it’s good to have an overview.

3. Christmas has become terribly materialistic; perhaps Advent could be a time when we live a little more simply - to give something up - to help those with less material things than us.

We could also pledge to look for the gifts of the season, to see where Christ is already prompting and working around us:
so the Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes are an excellent way of practically showing love to those less well off;
the animal for Christmas Cards is another practical way of loving our neighbours, and groups like Oxfam who have 60 years experience of working in these areas, are convinced that sending animals, including goats, does help improve people’s life styles - and it is patronising nonsense to suggest that people cannot look after them properly...

Also we could look at the positive movements around this time of year that resonate with the sharing of gifts and the distribution of love in the world - so the Make Poverty History campaign; BBC’s Children in Need; the money raised from ventures such as Strictly Come Dancing and I’m a Celebrity Get me out of Here
- these are all very much Advent and Christmas ideas which - although the organisers may not realise or acknowledge it - all stem from the incarnation and it’s implications!

So let’s not be po-faced or party pooping about Advent, but lets use it wisely to look, to think, to ponder, to look forward with great Expectation and amazement at God stepping into his world and celebrating!

Fr Andrew Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea