Advent is to be considered, similarly to Lent, as a time of preparation. Unlike Lent, which looks ahead to Easter, Advent is a two-part event. It is a season to look back, celebrating the Christ’s birth, and a time to look ahead with anticipation to the second coming of Christ. It is, therefore, a season that brings us out of the past and into the future. But I want to try to look at Advent differently. Let’s try to remove ourselves from the preconceived notions of celebrating Jesus’ birth (because it really did not happen December 25th anyway) and avoid looking to the Second Coming as a “rapture-like event” (which I think misses the whole point). Instead, let’s ask, “What can Advent mean for us as Progressive Christians in a postmodern philosophical era?”
The first part of Advent, which looks back to laud the coming into the world of Jesus, fits with many celebrations. It is not at all uncommon to celebrate great people of history. In Jesus’ case however, with no actual recordable date for his birth and the lack of actual written accounts, it is not at all unthinkable that his peasant birth would have been unnoticed. Later, when church leaders were looking for a date on which to celebrate his birth they opted to choose a date with great symbolic meanings. In what the church leaders considered to be one of the darkest hours of history came the one that would save the people from despair and bring hope to a world fraught with darkness and evil. Thus a date was chosen: it was the darkest day of the year, the winter solstice.
The second part of Advent looks ahead to the second coming of Christ, and I believe it has been misinterpreted by many. I think many people understand The Advent of the Second Coming as a looking forward to a more literal return to earth by Jesus to reign over a new heaven and a new earth. Scripture uses those words and points us toward the desire to believe that this present world will come to an end.
I would contend that the second coming language suggests that in every age, in every generation, indeed even in every life there is the possibility for a new way of being in the world for each person. I believe that the hope, peace, love and joy of the Advent songs are possible for everyone and that belief brings us hope.
When we look at the world and see such stories as the rioting in Ferguson, the Ohio State athlete filled with so much despair that he takes his own life, and we are witness to a country divided on nearly every issue, we are awakened to the fact that we still live in a troubled world. It is enough to cause one to feel shrouded in darkness and imagine that there is no hope in the world. Yet here, in literally the darkest weeks of the year, we are once again reminded that there is real hope in the world. We don’t need to believe the literal stories of the birth narrative, or the unimaginable talk of a new heaven and a new earth with the old being utterly destroyed; there are teachings that can save us from the darkness of despair. There is an acknowledgement that compassionate, neighborly love can lead us out of the downward spiral of hateful talk, and lift us into the light. I hope we can accept that within ourselves there is a new way of seeing the world, a way that calls us to be people of the light, people of compassion, people of the law of love. I believe in a love which can ‘save us’ from solitary despair and lead us into a community of caring people.
Advent: it is a time to celebrate the ancient teachings that remind us of the hope that lies ahead.
