Join us for Sunday Service at 9:00 am
Seeking to know Christ and to make Him known

Two Advents

By Pastor Tedd Mathis

This year we are using the Advent wreath and lighting Advent candles. Church members will begin our Sunday service by reading a short reading to bring our minds to the truths of hope, peace, love, and joy. They will then light the candle in the wreath. Our church choir will help us consider those themes, singing the first four Sundays of December.

Here is a little background to the tradition that has become known as Advent. I have gleaned this from several sources.

First, the word “advent” means the start of an event or arrival of a person. In relation to the biblical record of Christ, “advent” should bring to mind both His first arrival and His second arrival. I will come back to that in a minute.

When the tradition of celebrating Advent began is murky.

Here’s one helpful observation: The early Christian community distinguished between the identification of the date of Jesus’ birth and the liturgical celebration of that event. The actual observance of the day of Jesus’ birth was long in coming. In particular, during the first two centuries of Christianity there was strong opposition to recognizing birthdays of martyrs or, for that matter, of Jesus. Numerous Church Fathers offered sarcastic comments about the pagan custom of celebrating birthdays when, in fact, saints and martyrs should be honoured on the days of their martyrdom—their true “birthdays,” from the church’s perspective. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Christmas)

Here is another: The word “Advent” is derived from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming”
or “arrival,” which translates to the Greek word 
parousia. Scholars believe that during the 4th and 5th centuries in Spain and Gaul, Advent was a season of preparation for the baptism of new Christians at the January feast of Epiphany, the celebration of God’s incarnation represented by the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus (Matthew 2:1), his baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist (John 1:29), and his first miracle at Cana (John 2:1). During this season of preparation, Christians would spend 40 days in penance, prayer, and fasting to prepare for
this celebration; originally, there was little connection between Advent and Christmas.
(https://www.christianity.com/wiki/holidays/what-is-advent.html)

Reflect and Rest

We at PWBC are Bible people. Many of us learned early to ask two questions when told what to do or told what to believe: Who says? And, How come? We want chapter and verse.

The Bible offers no specific commands to celebrate Advent with candles in December. However, His word teaches us our lives will have a pattern shaped by Christ’s first coming with its birth, sinless life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, and His second with its judgment and salvation (e.g.  I Cor. 15:50-16:2; I Peter 1:3-2:1; II Peter 3:10-18; Hebrews 9:27-28; 10:25).

While we may debate as to the exact date of Jesus’ incarnation, and we do not know the time of His return, since our faith is one rooted in Jesus being a real human being who lived here on earth for several decades, himself inevitably bound to days, weeks, seasons and calendars, so too we are inevitably bound to patterns tied to days, weeks, seasons and calendars.

In attempts to honor their Lord and Savior the past 2,000 years, Christians have developed Christ-honoring traditions that reflect and rejoice in His two comings. As the knowledge of Christ has spread around the globe, those traditions have become part of cultures and civilizations.

While we acknowledge how shallow and twisted those traditions are for some, we also acknowledge we humans can never honor Christ to the depth and purity He deserves. If Advent traditions had never developed, whatever filled our Christ-honoring days would be imperfect at best. Just as there is a long tradition of imperfect traditions, there is a long imperfect tradition of insisting on not having any.

Our own simple ceremonies reflect being a part of a larger whole. They in a sense unite us to the long line who came before us who made the confession. We would do well to consider the mystery of what we stake our eternity on was not made in America. The eternal God who took on human flesh to humble himself and die is the glorious God-Man who will return dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus as He comes to be glorified in His saints (II Thess. 1:8-10).

By common confession,
great is the mystery of godliness:

He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.
I Timothy 3:16

0 Comments

Add a Comment