A MESSAGE FROM THE REV. J.C. AUSTIN: ADVENT – IT’S ALREADY HAPPENING
When I was a child, Advent always made a lot more sense to me than Lent. In the Christian church, we typically talk about Advent as a season of waiting, and that’s exactly what Advent felt like: waiting for Christmas to come.
As I’ve mentioned before, we had an Advent calendar in my house 
that was made to look like a Christmas tree, and each day of Advent had a little pocket that held an ornament. So each morning in Advent my brother and I would get up, and we would take turns snapping the ornament of the day onto one of the branches of the Advent calendar tree. It was how we waited in Advent, marking the time on the tree, even though sometimes it felt that time was somehow slowing down as we did so: “how is it still 16 days before Christmas?!? It’s been forever since we put that first ornament on!”
The first time I saw one of those movies where a prisoner is marking time in a jail cell with little scratches on the wall, I felt like he was making his own Advent calendar to show how long he had been waiting and how long he still had to wait. And that’s often how Advent feels, though as an adult it often feels like time is speeding up as Christmas comes: “how is it only six days before Christmas?!? I’m not ready!”
But that understanding and experience of Advent, though common, is missing a few important things. First, the word “Advent” literally means “coming” or “arriving.” So any “advent” is not about something that is still off in the future; it is about something that is already in motion, already beginning to happen. Which is why, when we light the Advent wreath this Sunday, the Scripture that we read says “the people who walk in darkness have seen a great light,” not “…will see a great light.” It’s already happening!
Second, Advent is not simply about marking time, anticipating the arrival of Christmas and the celebration of Christ’s birth. It is at least as much about anticipating Christ’s final coming at the end of time to “make all things new,” as the book of Revelation puts it.
That’s why our theme for Advent this year is “How Does a Weary World Rejoice?” There is no question that our world is weary: the ongoing social, political, and economic polarization in the United States is an increasingly heavy burden; the horrifying violence between Palestinians and Israelis continues in the very land where our attention is particularly drawn in the season of Advent; and even in this holiday season, the already-high levels of stress in so many of our lives usually gets kicked up to a new level in this holiday time, whether that is stress within families, from work, from loneliness, or because of grief and loss. And yet it was also a world that was weary with violence and division and injustice and despair that Jesus was born into as our hope and joy, as a literal embodiment of God’s love and peace.
So, over the next four Sundays, we will be exploring ways to answer that question, “How Does a Weary World Rejoice?” And as we do so, I encourage you to enter more deeply into the season of Advent in your own devotional life through prayer and reflection. One way to do that is by following this online daily devotional which will turn to Advent reflections on a daily basis starting on December 3. But whatever you choose to follow, I wish you a meaningful and blessed Advent season!
Grace and Peace,
J.C.