THE MEANING OF ADVENT

                                          Nancy Gammill, Sr. Pastor

The season of Advent in the church marks the beginning of the church year.  It is a season of four weeks, including four Sundays, and this year it begins on November 29.  The traditional color for this season that you will see reflected on the altar, the pulpit, the lectern, and the pastors’ stoles is purple, and sometimes blue now, both of which are colors of royalty, signifying the kingship of Jesus.  This season proclaims the coming of the Christ, whose birth into our hearts we prepare to welcome and celebrate once again, the Christ who comes continually to us both in Word and Spirit, whose death and resurrection we celebrate at Easter, and the Risen Christ who lives eternally within our lives and hearts.  I often tell people that one cannot celebrate Christmas without understanding the significance of Easter, and vice versa.  The infant Christ of Christmas would have no meaning if the cross event and resurrection had never happened, and the Risen Christ would have no significance if we did not understand how God was born into our world, “incarnated” into our world in the human form of an infant. 

We light an Advent wreath traditionally during our four weeks of Advent, which has sitting among the evergreens, three purple candles, one pink candle for Joy, and a central white Christ candle added at the Christmas Eve services.  Other symbols in our church include the beautiful Christmas trees and poinsettias which grace the sanctuary.

One of the scriptures that I consider to be the most significant at Advent and Christmas comes from the Gospel of John, the first chapter.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that had been made.  In him was life, and life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it…. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Word of God, the part of God that has been creating,  making covenant with God’s people, intervening in the lives of humanity since the moment of creation, that communicating, compassionate, loving, caring part of God, has somehow, in some mysterious way, become flesh in our lives, through the person of Jesus.  Through that “incarnation” we can see and know God. The Christ part of God has become flesh and lives among us.  The word “dwelt” in the above scripture translates in the Greek into “tented” among us.  Thus we have a picture of a God who is not static or still or immovable, but a God who is always on the move, dynamic, urging us forward, calling us to take risks or a leap of faith as we enter into new relationships and new service in his name.  This is the God that we prepare our hearts to receive this Advent season, the God who embraces us with his grace that has become flesh and then Spirit through Jesus Christ. How this happens is fully a mystery, a beautiful mystery.  Embraced by his grace, we are called to embrace others with the love that invites new relationships, new opportunities for change, transformation from the life we know now into the new life we share by living “in Christ” and in the new kingdom he introduces to us.

                       May you have a wonderful Advent and a blessed Christmas!