Getting Antsy

Did you know that this time of the year is not actually the Christmas season?

Nope.

I have been reminded in a couple of ways lately that this part of our yearly calendar is actually Advent.

Now, before you yawn and close the page, bear with me. I know, it's a boring word, and most of us don't know what it means and perhaps couldn't care less. "Cut the chatter; I've got 15 gifts to buy and wrap, 3 Christmas programs to prep for, and 70 dozen Christmas goodies to make, so I really don't care that I use the wrong semantics when I tell people goodbye."

I get that, really I do - but there's something worthwhile to realizing the difference, something that could revolutionize the way you experience this holiday. I know this because it is happening to me.

So, Advent. What is it?

Wikipedia, the almost-all-knowing, says, "Advent is a season observed in many Western Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. The term is an anglicized version of the Latin word adventus, meaning 'coming'."

Or, in normal English, "a coming into place, view, or being; arrival; the coming of Christ into the world." (Thank you, Dictionary.com!)

Traditionally, this is symbolized through the lighting of candles, more being lit as the celebration of Christ's birth draws nearer, showing the light of the Word coming into a world dark with sin.

It's a nice little exercise, but like a lot of churchianity, it can become rote when we get too busy to think about what's going on around us - or even what it is that we are playing an active role in.

Think about the world that Jesus came into:
There was no New Testament. The people of Israel had their stories of God's Creation, passed down from Adam (he probably got it from God's own mouth!), canonized by Moses. They knew the who and where of where their people had come from, how God had called them as a nation out of Egypt, given them the law, and promised the beautiful gifts of His presence. They had learned, from the cradle, of the judges and kings; of idolatry and exile; of prophets of doom and hope and warnings and promises. And then? And then there was nothing. For three- or four-hundred years, there was a heavenly - yet how lonely - silence. The Romans swept through on the heels of the Greeks and became the most recent model of oppression. The proud Jewish people once again had to bend to the will of an earthly power rather than their all-powerful God and had to submit to the indignity of the conquered rather than living up to their dream of independence and freedom. I have to think that somewhere in there, children watched parents and grandparents living their faith and yet receiving no compensation, no assurance of being heard, and started to wonder if maybe God had forgotten to listen, forgotten His promises, forgotten His people. But they kept trying, kept waiting, kept hoping.

And then.

And then God came. He showed up in a way that few expected, but He was there all the same. He rescued them from chains they did not know they had but that had consequences extending far beyond the reach of the Roman empire. He brought freedom from sin rather than from earthly problems, and He formed a people out of all peoples rather than regathering anyone with a drop of Hebrew blood in their veins.

He didn't meet their expectations, but how far better was His plan! Salvation for all, not some; blessing for the many, not the few.

And so we have Advent, anticipation leading up to the full-blown presence of God on earth, the Divine becoming tangible, the Creator amid the creatures.

But that's not all!

Think about our world today:
Here we are almost 2,000 years since the final "Amen" was written, and we have the 66 books. We know God's great story. The Holy Spirit indwells us while Christ Himself intercedes for us before the Father who has good planned for us. But how dark it can be here in the day-to-day! The present is so real, so demanding, so all-consuming, that our mansions in the New Earth acquire the feel of a fairy tale - it feels good to think about it, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in our cleaning and laundry and jobs and vacations. Besides, faith is rapidly leaching out of vogue; the public mention of Christ is being ground out of what is permissible and decent - even during the Christmas season! Say anything except that Christ came to save us, the voices scream, Love anything rather than the Trinitarian God!

And then.

And then, God will come again. Someday, we will look back on it from a beautiful future, but for now we get to live in the anticipation of divine intervention. The story was begun in the Old Testament and brought to fruition in the New. We were even told the ending. But today, we get the privilege of living in the tension of the already-not yet. We are already saved; justice is not yet fully wrought. We have already seen God on earth; He has not yet come to make His final dwelling here.

Remember Christmases as a little tyke? Recall that feeling of nearly jumping out of your skin to see those presents under the tree! And you knew that some of them, a few of them, were wonderful gifts just waiting for the moment when you could unwrap them and then they would belong to you! There were the ones that filled out the paper in a shape suspiciously like the doll/Legos you'd been begging for; then there were the ones that gave no hint of their contents, yet beckoned promisingly with bows and bright paper of the excitement they contained.

That is what Advent is. It's knowing that there is a future planned for you full of good gifts. It's knowing that soon, God is going to break in on our humdrum life. It's knowing that these little glimpses we get now are just general shapes and shadows of the glories to come.

He has come, and He is coming again.

That is Advent.