Advent I (The First Week)

Advent is an easy season to figure.  Advent demands that there be four Sundays before Christmas Day. It always begins on the first of those four Sundays.  It is an easy season to figure, but hard to understand.  It is even harder to flesh out.  It is a season on the Christian liturgical calendar which is very counter culture.  Culture says that December is about Christmas.  Advent speaks a word which brings culture's month long Christmas party to a screeching halt demanding that Christmas wait until December 25th.   

Advent is about waiting.  It is about anticipating.  It is about expectancy.  To think of Mary and Joseph is to know that they like any parents knew something important was out there on the horizon, but they still had to wait and anticipate nine months.  It brings to mind the story of Abraham and Sarah who were promised a son by God; yet, who lived for twenty five years with no sign of their son except the promise given to them.  One of the things which confounds us about December is that we are a people accustomed to instant gratification and we grow weary in a hurry when life is about waiting.  One of the strange moments of Advent comes on the very first Sunday.  

Those who think Advent is somehow all about Christmas, or that it is simply a season of preparation for Christmas in much the same way Lent is to Easter, find themselves seriously frustrated with those readings from the Word which announce Jesus is coming again.  Advent begins not with baby Jesus of Bethlehem, but with the risen, ascended, glorified Lord and King coming once more to be among us.  We are not sure what to do with such a message.  The church often tries to do an end around run hoping no one will notice that the message of that first Sunday is being ignored.  Advent's early message is easy enough to ignore, but it does not change the fact that the One who has come is coming again and that we need to live ready.