It’s a time of short seasons. Advent draws us out of Ordinary Time, and even though it’s a season of waiting, it may also be the single busiest season of the year. Once December 25th has come and gone with its attendant family gatherings and unwrapping and happy (or not-so-happy) kids, the season of Christmas begins–but celebrating after the fact doesn’t fit terribly well with a culture that wants to keep moving forward at all costs. Epiphany comes next and is the culmination of Christmas, a celebration of Jesus being revealed to the world as Lord, a season in which we look back toward Christmas and ahead toward the resurrection. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it time of year.
But to miss it would be to miss the whole point of the church calendar, so I hope you’ll take some time to slow down and reflect on what these seasons might be doing in and for us. ADVENT, for example, is a season in which we wait–but it’s not a passive kind of waiting. Instead, we read passages and learn stories of people whose lives were put on hold, people like Abraham and Sarah, like John the Baptist and Mary, people like us. In Advent, we wait every year for the birth of Christ, and we also anticipate the day, as the Apostles Creed says, when Christ will come again. In Advent, we don’t only put up with waiting; we learn to love it. And that goes against every productive bone in our bodies. We have nothing to show for the waiting, nothing concrete to wrap a bow around or put on display.
When we wait, we let go of any sense of urgency we might have been operating with, because the time is not ours. Instead, we grow expectant, knowing that God does good work in us when we relinquish the illusion that we are in control of our own time. It’s a lot easier said than done, but there are practices we can undertake individually and as a church that will help us live into the waiting–prayers of longing, talking with our children about the importance of waiting, giving time and gifts to other people who may need what we have more than we need it. We wait because there is something good happening in us while we wait, something like surrender.
Then we come to CHRISTMAS, the day and the season, the time when all our waiting is fulfilled by the coming of Christ. The twelve days of Christmas are a time set aside to live in gratitude for the gift of Christ’s coming, for the power of our salvation and the goodness of a God who would come near to us, dwell among us, become one of us so that we might never have to be separated from Him. It’s a little strange to think of celebrating this gift over twelve days when we often think of December 25th as the one day set aside to do it, but the church has been celebrating this season for centuries. Our waiting is over, and God has come to earth, and we are meant to engage in the serious business of joy, to slightly mangle a phrase from C.S. Lewis. The season of Christmas begins on Christmas Eve and ends with the Feast of Epiphany.
EPIPHANY–which means “revelation”–begins on January 6th, with a celebration of the Magi. These were the people who came in obedience from far away to meet and worship Jesus, people who undertook a journey without knowing what the outcome would be. The season of Epiphany takes us all the way to Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Out of the unexpected journey to meet their Lord, the Magi learned a lesson that many of us spend our entire lives learning; that Jesus is revealed to us in direct and immediate ways, that he is knowable and near to us.
That nearness is the light that breaks through the darkness that can feel so constant in the winter season. The days can be full and overwhelming, and in the light we find a respite and a rest and, perhaps, in the waiting we find a new way to live.
Advent Resources
In order to combat the overwhelming busy-ness of spirit that sneaks up on us in the weeks surrounding Christmas, we have put together a list of resources for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. These books, music, meditations, and family activities are meant to serve you in pursuit of joy and peace in a hectic season.