Celebrate Advent

"The Newborn" - Georges de la Tour (1593-1652) ALL SOULS MISSOULA Daily Advent Readings December 2 - December 25, 2018 www.allsoulsmissoula.org Welcome to Advent Once again, the Christmas season is upon us. And (like it or not!), we will all celebrate it in one way or another – as consumers, caught up in a sea of sales; as indentured servants, anxiously wondering how we're going to pay for everything we just put on the credit card; as sentimentalists, wistfully longing for the way Christmas used to feel when we were kids; or perhaps even as agnostics, too busy with the tyranny of the urgent to really even give it much thought. Or we can choose to celebrate it differently – intentionally – as followers-of-Jesus. Christians throughout the ages have been doing just that, and there's a rich tradition from which we can benefit as we seek to follow in their footsteps. That tradition is Advent, and this guide is designed to help all of us be more thoughtful in our faith, to use this season as an opportunity to grow in our spirituality. So where do we begin? For starters, we invite you to grab your family or a few close friends and make a commitment – to spend a few minutes every day between now and Christmas doing something liturgical: reading a Scripture, lighting a candle, saying a prayer, pausing to reflect. You can do it in the morning over breakfast. Or in the evening at dinner. Just grab this guide, find the right day, and read what's there. All you need to get started are a few candles (three purples, one rose, and one white) and a box of matches. This guide will give you everything else – quotes, scripture readings, prayers, and plenty of reflections to stimulate your thinking. Everything in this guide is simply a suggestion, a starting point. There's no “right” or “wrong” way to do this. Feel free to adapt, to tweak, to run down rabbit trails. The important thing is to do something. Counter the cultural gravity; celebrate Advent. If you are a follower of Jesus, this is a great way to nourish your faith. And if you are someone who is skeptical, it's a great way to better evaluate what Christians believe. It's also a great way to rediscover Christmas – not just the Americanized “Hallmark” version, but one that spans cultures and continents and millenia... two thousand years of rich tradition. We'd love to hear how it goes for you... Setting the Stage – What is Advent? Advent (from the Latin adventus, which means “coming”) is the beginning of a new year in the Christian calendar. It is a season marked by a spirit of expectation, of anticipation, of preparation, of longing. In Advent, there is a yearning for deliverance from the evils of the world, initially expressed by the Israelites in Egyptian slavery as they railed against their bitter oppression. It is the cry of those who have experienced the tyranny of injustice in a world under the curse of sin, and yet have hope of deliverance from a God who hears our cries and promises to come and rescue us. It is this hope (however faint at times), and this God (however distant he can sometimes seem), that sets the world up to anticipate a King, one who will rule with truth, justice, and righteousness over his people and his creation. It is this hope that Israel once sought and we now anticipate anew – an Anointed One, a Messiah who will bring peace to this broken world. So we celebrate with gladness the great promise of the Advent of Jesus, as we remain faithful to the arrival of the King who will come to rule, judge, and save the world. The focus of the entire season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ in his First Advent, and the anticipation of the return of Christ the King in his Final Advent. As such, Advent is far more than a marking of a 2,000 year-old event in history. In it we celebrate the fact that God's faithfulness then gives us great reason to trust in his faithfulness yet to come, a time when all creation will finally be reconciled to God. This is the process in which we now participate, and the completion, or perfection, of which we anticipate. Advent is a time of preparation marked by prayers of humble devotion and commitment, prayers of submission, prayers for deliverance, prayers by those walking in darkness who are awaiting a great light. The spirit of Advent is embodied in the parable of the bridesmaids, anxiously awaiting the coming Bridegroom. There is profound joy at his expected coming, amid the echo of a warning: You need to be prepared! Even then, the prayer of Advent remains: Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel! Explanation of the Advent Candles – Why Do We Do This? Here's a little background on the symbolism of our Advent traditions... The wreath: Its circle reminds us of God's endless mercy: He is the Alpha and the Omega, with no beginning and no end (Revelation 1:8). We use evergreens to represent the hope that we have in our God – of freshness, of renewal, of eternal life. The candles: They remind us that Jesus is the Light of the World, coming into the darkness of our lives to bring newness, life, and hope. They also reinforce Christ's command that we ourselves are called to be light to the world, reflecting God's grace to those around us (Isaiah 42:6). Each of the four outer candles represents one of the Sundays in Advent, which symbolize the four centuries of waiting between the prophet Malachi and the birth of Christ. Every week we light one more candle to symbolize our experience of waiting. And every week there is a little more of the light of Christ here in our midst – the darkness of fear and hopelessness receding, the shadow of sin falling away. Even the colors are significant – purple for Christ's royalty, rose for the joy that burns within when he is near: • the first week we light a purple candle – to remind us of our Hope; • the second week another purple candle – our longing for his Peace; • the third week we add the rose/pink candle – the experience of his Joy! • the fourth week, the final purple candle – the passion of his Love; • then finally, on Christmas Eve – the white Christ candle in the center of the wreath, a sign that the promise of ages has come, and God has kept his covenant! The Gospel of John speaks of Christ as the true light coming into the world. In commemoration of that coming, we light candles for the four weeks leading up to Christmas as we reflect on the coming of Christ. It is significant that the church has always used that language — the “coming” of Christ — because it speaks to a deep truth. Christ is coming. Christ is always coming, always entering a troubled world, a wounded heart. So, as we begin the celebration of this Advent season, we invite you to join us in these traditions, as we eagerly await the coming of our King! The First Week of Advent – Hope The first candle represents Expectation or Hope. This draws attention to the anticipation of a Messiah, a longing that weaves its way like a golden thread throughout Old Testament history. As God’s people were abused by power hungry kings, led astray by self-centered prophets, and lulled into apathy by half-hearted religious leaders, there arose a yearning that God would raise up a new king who could show them how to be God’s people. They longed for a return of God’s dynamic presence to their midst. And this is what God promised through the prophet Isaiah: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined. ~ Isaiah 9:2 Yet even as they waited for the coming king, their expectations fell far short of God’s answer in Jesus, who boldly proclaimed: I am the light of the world; the one who follows me will not walk in darkness but have the light of life. ~ John 8:12 Yet still the world is not fully redeemed. And so we too wait, with expectation and hope, longing for God’s coming work in history, the final Advent, in which He will once more reveal Himself to the world. And we understand in a profound sense that the best, the highest of our expectations will fall far short of what our Lord’s Final Advent will reveal! So we invite you to join in our Advent tradition at All Souls, by reading the Scripture passages provided, by lighting the first advent candle – the candle of Hope – each day for the first week of Advent, and by concluding with a simple call and response: [Reader lights one purple candle] Reader: Behold Jesus, the light of the world! Family: Thanks be to God! Sunday, December 2nd Traditionally, the season of Advent begins with readings from the book of John. John focuses on Jesus as both the Word and the Light. Who is this Jesus to whom we look with both expectation and hope? Here's the way John introduces Christ in his gospel: John 1:1-18 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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