Living Faithfully in Advent
Photo by KaLisa Veer on Unsplash
Advent is countercultural. And I’m afraid that it’s countercultural even within the church. This past Sunday the faithful around the world entered into the season of Advent, the season of expectation, hope, darkness, and light; but for many within the church, this season is either truncated or forgotten altogether. I have to admit that I was disappointed to see so many believers on social media post about the beginning of the “Christmas season” on the first Sunday of Advent. They took their cues from the secular calendar and not the sacred, and designed the worship of the church according to the standards of marketing agencies rather than the church’s historic witness.
The problem isn’t simply one of high church or low church; it’s not a repeat of the “worship wars” of the past. Instead, it’s a failure to offer the formation that we actually need to live in the “now-but-not-yet” of life after Christ’s nativity, death, and resurrection, but before the consummation of all things. When we’re honest about the challenges, the suffering, and the darkness that inevitably accompany life, we need to be formed in life-giving hope. We also need to learn once more what it means to prepare for Christ’s coming – his first advent, his presence now, and his second advent. This is what the season of Advent can provide, if we’ll only let it.
On the first Sunday of Advent, many churches around the world sing the rousing Charles Wesley hymn, “Lo! He comes with clouds descending.” I will always remember singing that hymn at Westminster Abbey in 2011. I was sitting in the northern transept of that historic church. Most of the people around me didn’t know the tune very well. So I sang a little louder to help them out. By the last verse we were all singing “lustily,” as brother John instructed. The text, however, is a striking description of Christ’s second coming in glory accompanied by the faithful of all ages:
Lo, he comes with clouds descending,
once for favored sinners slain;
thousand, thousand saints attending
swell the triumph of his train.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.
This Advent hymn is just one of the many rich texts that enable us to enter into this season of preparation. Looking under “Advent” in the latest pan-Wesleyan hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise, reveals a treasure-trove of Advent hymns including: “Come, Thou long-expected Jesus”; “Jesu, joy of our desiring”; “Let all mortal flesh keep silence”; “Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming”; “O come, O come, Emmanuel,” and many others.
In his sermon for Advent 1 this year at St. Paul’s, K Street, Washington, DC, Ambassador J. Peter Pham boldly proclaimed that as Christians we live year-round in Advent. We live in expectation. But we also live as Christians in a world where we have to face the realities of life and death. Anyone who watches the news can see that disease, war, violence, and strife are rampant around the world. But we also know that this is not simply in the news; it’s something that our loved ones and we experience ourselves.
It goes without saying that we are also an Easter people. This is true. But the promise of Easter – the new creation launched in a graveyard with the resurrection of the same Jesus who died for our sins – is still a promise, even for those who touched the resurrected Christ. When we die, unlike Christ, we do not usually rise from the dead after three days. We know that we will rise like Christ, but that hope is set on the Second Coming, the culmination of Christ’s work. For now, it is hope based firmly on the faithfulness of God. In the funeral service, we hear the words of scripture as promise: “I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.”
Many of the church’s challenges come down to our inability to acknowledge the full story of Christ’s redemptive work, a work that includes – in the “between time” – suffering alongside those who suffer, mourning with those who mourn, weeping with those who weep, and working together for a better world in the expectation that Christ will complete his work and make all things whole. One of the beautiful prayers of Compline asks God for aid in this time of waiting, to “tend the sick,” to “give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for thy love’s sake.” This is essentially what Advent is all about, forming us for a life that walks through the shadow of death, but knows both the present and ultimate comfort of our Good Shepherd.
The prayers during the season of Advent, the lectionary readings appointed for the Sundays of the season, and the hymns of Advent are an immensely rich resource for leaders and people alike. Thomas Cranmer’s collects in the Book of Common Prayer, as just an example, are a rich resource all on their own. The prayer for the first Sunday of Advent asks God to “give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life,” so that when Christ comes in final victory “to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal.” Note the emphasis on the here and now, even as it looks toward the consummation of Christ’s work.
The remaining prayers of the season are also rich resources. The prayer for the Second Sunday asks that God enrich our lives with the Scriptures – or even a scriptural worldview – so “that by the comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.” Note the emphasis on being equipped, or formed, now for eternity. The third collect asks that God, who prepared those who proclaimed Christ’s first coming, might prepare us to proclaim his second. Finally, the prayer for the Fourth Sunday, asks God to “come among us” with comfort, enabling us to overcome the wickedness in our lives so that we might run the race that God has set for us. The emphasis in all of these prayers is the both/and of Advent, formation now for full redemption to come. These prayers exemplify the beauty of Advent. My concern is that in overlooking Advent, we fail to form the faithful. Proper formation is important not simply because it is liturgically correct, but because it is correct formation for the faithful in the full story of redemption. Our people should expect nothing less.
Over the last few months, I have traveled extensively speaking to church leaders and to everyday believers. What I have found is a deep yearning for the substance of the faith. This is particularly acute in traditions that are experiencing division and realignment. But it can be seen throughout the church as more and more believers – and even non-believers who are watching us – know deep down that the Christian faith offers more substance and more power than they have heard about or experienced in their faith journey thus far. I met some who have stopped going to church altogether, not because they have lost their faith but because they could see very clearly that what was on offer was shallow and less than useful when the realities of life arise. This yearning for substance is, in part, a yearning for Advent. It’s a yearning for a faith that can look life, and death, in the face.
I have served in parish ministry, so I know that inculcating an appreciation for Advent is not an easy task for leaders of the church, especially if your local church has no experience with Advent. There are practical ways to help your local church. Advent wreaths are widely known and used. But avoid surrounding Advent wreaths with Christmas decorations. It’s liturgically and formatively jarring. Hang the greens at the beginning of Advent, but only gradually add the full color and lights of the Christmas season, waiting for Christmas Eve to unveil the full display.
Keep in mind – and teach your people – that Christmas is a season, not a day. It really is twelve days like the song says. I recently posted something on social media promoting Advent, and some commentators were concerned that if we celebrate Advent in its fullness, we’ll only have one day to celebrate Christmas. But that is not the case. Christmas decorations, carols, and seasonal sermons should continue throughout the Christmas season.
Children’s Christmas pageants will be difficult to avoid during Advent, but don’t make them the Sunday morning service. And if your church has a Christmas program – like lessons and carols – the closer to Christmas the better. And if in the Christmas season itself, even better yet. But if it can’t wait until Christmas because you know that earlier in December is when guests visit your church, design the program so that it is both Advent and Christmas. Don’t allow the season to be trampled over by liturgical impatience.
In some churches, there is a desire to face the realities of loneliness and loss that the holiday season can bring. These churches have started to offer services with various names – “Longest Night,” for example. The service is designed for those who have experienced loss in some form and acknowledges that the holiday season makes this more acute. I applaud these efforts; they are perfectly good. But the church as a whole should be learning how to mourn, how to hope, how to suffer or to be with the suffering, and how to live in the expectation that Christ will make all things new, not just those who have faced loss already. Formation is vital, not as something that we learn after we’ve experienced the trials of life, but well before. And one of the primary ways that we are formed is liturgically, in worship.
But does this mean that we shouldn’t participate in the Christmas parties, parades, and other markers of life in December? No. Put up your tree at home. Bake those cookies. Advent formation does not mean that we need to go around like Scrooge before the Twelve days of Christmas. So go ahead and enjoy those Christmas parties – even during Advent. My concern is the liturgical formation of the faithful, particularly on Sunday mornings, and particularly in the preaching and worship of our corporate gatherings.
Advent is countercultural, even in the church. But it shouldn’t be. The season offers us the formation we need to live faithfully in a world that still yearns for God’s work of ultimate renewal. It teaches us to hope in the unchanging faithfulness of God, to face the darkness, the suffering, and even death, now a part of life. It teaches us to look to that great day when “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” and where “there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying” and “no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Even so, come Lord Jesus. But in the meantime, teach us to hope, teach us how to live in Advent.
Ryan N. Danker is Assistant Lead Editor of Firebrand and director of the John Wesley Institute, Washington, DC. See more at www.nextmethodism.org.