Advent: A Season of Unhurried Anticipation
I am willing to pick a fight with just about anybody over the fact that the Christmas season is the best part of the year. Regardless of where you find yourself on the ever-present debate of Christmas music being played before or after Thanksgiving (I’m in the November 1st party), this season is life-giving. One aspect of how the Christmas season is life-giving for my family is through the observance of Advent.
Advent comes from a Latin word that means “coming” and is a tradition the Church has practiced for a long time. Advent takes the four weeks preceding Christmas to meditate on the gift of Christ’s first coming in the incarnation and anticipate his future return to save his people.
Why are we talking about Advent?
Now some might say, “Christianity is about Jesus, not tradition.” I love that spirit, but let me gently push against this idea and its neighboring sentiments. Several years ago, J.V. Fresko wrote this line in a book that has stuck with me: “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”* What does he mean? He means that tradition is an expression of the life-changing Christian faith of the many individuals and generations who have gone on before us; traditionalism, by comparison, he means, refers to going through the motions of certain practices without heartfelt meaning or contemplation. We want to avoid the second and joyfully practice the first!
Every family has Christmas traditions. The key question is whether your seasonal habits are distinctively Christian. Do they deliberately celebrate God’s grace in your life? Or do they look no different than the world?
How can I include Advent in my Christmas traditions?
You can get an advent calendar with a treat or Bible verse for every day leading to Christmas. You can observe it by worshiping with the gathered church on the four Sundays of Advent. You can read an Advent devotional. There are many ways of “anticipating” Jesus!
At KingsWay, starting Sunday, November 27, we are going to anticipate Immanuel (“God with us”) by pausing our current sermon series in Deuteronomy to preach a 4-week series from the Gospel of Matthew entitled, “Behold the King.” I also encourage you to check out two Advent devotionals. The first is Sinclair Ferguson’s 24-day devotional Love Came Down at Christmas, which takes the various descriptors of love in 1 Corinthians 13 and shows how they relate to the coming of Christ. My family has done it before, and I cannot tell you how much it has served our souls!
Marty Machowski's Prepare Him Room is another excellent resource for families with younger children. This is a wonderful book with devotionals and activities for the family that is already thought through (so you don’t have to go over the moon to make special memories).
We will have copies of both volumes in our bookstore at KingsWay for those interested in trying out an Advent reading this season.
Let’s take the next few weeks to think about how Christian tradition can inform our present traditions as we anticipate celebrating the birth of Christ and his future return!
*J. V. Fesko, The Need for Creeds Today: Confessional Faith in a Faithless Age (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2020).
When will we celebrate Christmas at KingsWay?
Christmas Day falls on Sunday morning this year! Instead of hosting our traditional Christmas Eve service and gathering again for worship the next day, we’re going to make Christmas Eve our only service Christmas weekend, enabling families to spend Christmas morning together at home. Anticipate the Christmas Eve service (6:30-7:45pm) feeling a bit more like a typical Sunday meeting, with the addition of candlelight singing and our kids choir. It remains a fantastic opportunity to bring a friend with you to church!
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Isaiah 9:6