Here comes Advent! Advent begins to a sort of Liturgical Trilogy that includes Christmas and Epiphany, three short seasons focused on different aspects of the mystery of Incarnation. The four weeks leading to Christmas day are a season of anticipation, expectation, and a deep longing for Christ to appear once more and make all things right. “Advent” means arrival, emergence, birth, the coming of something or someone that changes everything. It’s the beginning of the Christian liturgical year, the marking of time that begins in the hope that just as God put on flesh in the birth of Jesus to show the world God’s deep love for all, so we long for the full reign of Christ to come and make all things right.
Advent is a season of patience, of looking full into the darkness and allowing ourselves to be unsettled by the sinful realities that continue to destroy lives. There is a tension here, and I think most people feel it every year, between sorrow and delight. Everyone with a sentimental view of the Christmas holidays is longing for a good feeling, happy nostalgia, deeper connection to others that reminds us that there is good in the world and reason to hope for a better year ahead. To take Advent seriously is to admit that Christ is our only reason for hope, the only way that things can get better, that Christ is the promise and fulfillment of God’s love for creation.
This link is an Advent playlist I’ve asked Charles Wesley to put together for you (it’s what he was doing on his iPad in the comic above). It’s full of sacred and secular songs focused on longing for more. There are some beautiful lyrics in here that I love to listen to each year as I prepare the way in my heart to accept once again that I was, I am, I always will be accepted by the love of Christ. So if you’re looking for something different than the regular Christmas tunes, please follow Charles Wesley’s Songs for Advent!
One last plug: now’s the time to order your Wesley Bros Comics Year C Liturgical Calendar! I’ll be shipping calendars every day this week. Click here to look through the Etsy store. Have a blessed Advent, my brothers and sisters!