This will be a short post, as I have a lot of work and am also due to play squash this evening. (Which probably means I won’t have the energy to post later…)
I’ve published a number of posts recently with the tag Advent. Some of these have genuinely been about Advent, while others have been related to Christmas more generally. While I was vaguely aware of the difference, it’s only this year that I’ve come to appreciate it more.
Where Christmas is the celebration of the incarnation, that final bursting forth of God onto the stage of human history, Advent is about the waiting that precedes that coming. Advent is the long, dark night; Christmas is the morning, bathed in glorious sunlight. Advent is about living in the tension between the harsh realities of the present and hopes of a promised brighter future.
As usual, Richard Beck has something good and useful to say about the matter:
Advent is being the slave in Egypt, sitting with the experience of exile. Advent is about looking for God and hoping for God in a situation where God’s promises are outstanding and yet to be fulfilled.
Rushing through Advent to get to Christmas is like rushing past Good Friday to get to Easter.
Waiting for God and enduring the pain of that waiting is a spiritual discipline. Advent is a time to cultivate that discipline. A time to chasten the rush to happy endings in our spiritual lives.
You can read the whole article here.
So what is the tension you are living in during this season? What are the hopes you are holding onto, sometimes seemingly against all odds? Where is the darkness into which you are longing for the light of Immanuel to flood?
