Advent

Advent is the first season of the church year, beginning with the fourth Sunday before Christmas and continuing through the day before Christmas. The name is derived from a Latin word for “coming.” The season is a time of preparation and expectation for the coming celebration of our Lord’s nativity.  Instead of rushing ahead to the end of the story (Christmas!), we read the Psalms and the prophets and practice waiting with the children of Israel in the long dark times when they hoped against hope for a messiah.  Their anticipation is understood as of a piece with (and a model for) our own anticipation, as we wait (sometimes in deep darkness).  We are practicing the Christian virtue of hope. We prepare our hearts for the coming of the Light, by looking squarely into the world’s and also our own darkness. Then we rest and wait together, trusting that new life and light will always come.