What is Advent?
This year, this special season of the Church Year starts on December 1
Today, December 1, begins that part of the Church Year called Advent.
Advent starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, an occasion always celebrated by most Christians in the world on December 25. Christmas is the festival of the birth of Jesus Christ to a virgin named Mary.
Advent is a time that remembers the expectant waiting of God’s people, the Hebrews or the Jews, for the coming of the King, the Anointed One, promised centuries before the birth of Jesus. In the Hebrew language of God’s people, the title for that King is Messiah. In the Greek language in which the New Testament was written in the first century, that title is rendered as Christos, Christ.
Advent is also a time when we modern day Christians expectantly anticipate the coming or return of the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ Jesus to bring an end to this fallen universe and usher in with finality and perfection His new creation. All in whom the Gospel message about Jesus has worked lives of repentance (turning away from sin) and faith in Christ will live eternally in His new creation. But even now in this fallen and dying world, Christians have the joy of being reconciled with God and covered in Christ’s forgiving grace.
The word Advent comes from the Latin and means coming.
The color of the season is blue. With its connection in our imaginations to clear skies, blue suggests the hope that we have as those who trust in Jesus Christ as God, King, and Savior, knowing that through Him, we have a certain hope of eternity with God.
One tradition associated with Advent is the Advent wreath featuring three blue candles and one pink candle surrounding a single larger candle in the middle. The peripheral candles are lit on succeeding Sundays of the Advent season, all of the blue except the one used on the Third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete is the Latin word for rejoice, as in the words, “Rejoice in the Lord always and again, I say rejoice!” found in Philippians 4:4. The Christ candle signifies the presence of Christ with His people. An example of an Advent wreath, versions of which many Christians have in their homes, can be seen below.
