I love Advent, and I lament that it often gets short shrift. Our deep affection for Christmas nudges it out. Maybe it’s because we, as a culture, don’t like to wait. We would like what we want now, thank you very much.
But maybe, on behalf of Advent, we can redefine waiting; we can reclaim not only Advent’s time, but Advent’s purpose. A better word for Advent than waiting, then, is anticipating, a word that literally means, “to take into possession before something happens.”
Advent isn’t only reclaiming its time; it’s reorienting our time. Our time, as Christians, is calibrated to the risen Christ. Our time isn’t established by clock time—atomic or otherwise.
The risen Jesus, you see, resets time. And Advent is here, happy to reclaim its time and reclaim our attention.
This message is an excerpt from “Reclaiming Advent” by Anna Madsen in the December 2017 issue of Gather magazine.Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent.
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