Advent is precise. There is no sloppiness in it. Start at Christmas Day, count back four Sundays, and the first day and first Sunday of Advent appears. Advent begins today. In retrospect it has always seemed like the season on the Christian calendar the church does not want to observe, or celebrate. When the page on the secular calendar is turned from November to December, the rush to Christmas is fast forwarded. For most folks, even those within the church, December is about Christmas and not Advent. Advent is about slowing down, paying attention to the present, and waiting. December never knows such concerns as it races forward.
The heart of the Advent season is about looking ahead, anticipating the celebration of the Christ child being born in Bethlehem, and quietly waiting. Christmas is the moment of celebration Advent anticipates and without the anticipation the celebration is diminished. It might be compared to celebrating Easter without the sorrow and horror of Good Friday. Without the cross the empty tomb is diminished and so it is with a Christmas without Advent. In some ways the children with visions of Santa in the their head point the way for the church. Once Christmas appears on the horizon of the child, there is a growing sense of anticipation and wonder which is finally culminated on the long anticipated gathering around the Christmas tree on Christmas morning.
It is this element of anticipation which is missing in so many churches as its people push the waiting season aside for the day of celebration. By the time Christmas comes everyone is worn out and only looking forward to Christmas being behind us. When we long not for Christmas to come, but long for it to be behind us, there is something wrong. A proper observance of Advent holds the solution, but no one, not even the church, is listening.
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