Advent - prepare for the Lord’s coming
Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash
The lights and trees are lining the streets and a definite sense of anticipation is hanging in the air. Parties and presents, concerts and carols: it’s all ahead of us, the great rush towards Christmas. Advent can be as much a stressful time as a joyful one, adding as it does an extra layer of engagements and responsibilities on top of our already busy lives. There’s so much to prepare for, so much to buy, so much to cook – and so much pressure to imitate the glossy, perfect festivities that beam at us from ads on every screen and magazine page we see. It’s easy to get lost in that headlong rush of getting ready, and then arrive at Christmas day too worn out to even appreciate the tremendous healing joy of the central fact of the feast – the Incarnation.
Having grown up in a culturally Catholic country, it’s easy to take the Incarnation for granted. We forget that for first-century Jews, the idea of God lowering himself to take on human form was so shocking as to be actually blasphemous and that in the pre-Christian, pagan worlds of Ancient Greece and Rome, gods were capricious creatures that interfered in human life as they felt like it, frequently dealing out arbitrary suffering. For the first-century pagans, the thought of a God who cared enough for the human race to be born as one of us and share all our griefs was a seismic revelation that literally altered the course of the world. Because while the Incarnation did not bring easy answers to the problem of pain, it made God’s attitude to it very clear: he will not leave us to suffer alone, nor will he leave us to suffer forever. By sending his only Son to be born as an ordinary baby in a shed with farm animals, he has given us his continuing presence in the mass and the Eucharist, as well as the promise of his future coming in glory.
This is why the Church encourages us to live Advent as a time of focused, expectant longing. It is a time to recall the Jewish people’s urgent yearning for the promised Messiah so that we can appreciate the enormity of what God has done for us in sending us Jesus to fulfil that promise and live on earth and in our hearts. However, it is also a time to look forward to the Lord’s second coming, of which we do not know the day or the hour. We simply know that when Christ our Lord does come again, He will abolish the unjust order of this world and definitively establish the kingdom of heaven. And this is no ordinary kingdom. As the liturgy on the feast of Christ the King puts it, it is “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.” It is the place where every tear will be wiped away.
We are blessed to have such a wonderful hope to treasure and celebrate. However, hidden as it is in something as humble as a helpless baby, it is easy for this great truth to be drowned out by the hubbub of festive preparations, delightful as they may be. Fortunately, there are plenty of small, practical steps we can take to cultivate a sense of eager anticipation for the Lord. Some are external, like putting up an Advent wreath somewhere in our houses. While this does not have to be a complicated affair – all you really need are five candles, three purple, one pink, and one white – its symbolic meaning is fantastically rich. The purple represents repentance, the pink (or, to be technically correct, rose) stands for our joy at the Lord’s approach and the white symbolises victory, because Christ’s victory over sin and death began with that cold night in a dirty stable. Taking a few moments every day or a few times a week to light the candles in their proper order can be a powerful reminder of the deeper meaning to the season. And well, who doesn’t love candlelight? Listening to traditional carols (like these) can also be a very effective way of reflecting on the Christmas story, almost without meaning to – not only is Christmas music probably the most beautiful in all the Church’s year, but the ancient songs have incredible theological depth that can effortlessly take root into our subconscious minds if we hear them repeatedly.
Other steps are more internal and less obvious, such as fasting, for example. While the Church does not prescribe fast days in Advent the way it does in Lent, it does view these few weeks leading up to Christmas as a penitential time. In the same way as you would clean up the mess in your house before the arrival of an important guest, the Church encourages us to try and clear away our spiritual clutter during Advent, so that there is room in our hearts for the Lord’s arrival. Abstaining from some little pleasure like chocolate or a distraction like social media can actually heighten our ability to experience wonder, as our brain is no longer numbed by constant endorphin hits. Or we could adopt the even simpler practice of frequently repeating the traditional short prayer: marana tha, or in English, come Lord Jesus! We can say this when we are happy, and wish for our happiness to be eternal, or – as is perhaps more common – when we feel sad, inadequate, frustrated or irritated, and we desperately want to see the day when the world is finally put to rights. This little phrase encapsulates the deepest spirit of Advent, because it expresses a holy sense of impatience for the arrival of the Lord, who comes to fulfil all the longings of our restless hearts.