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.
Continue reading at Firebrand here.
Comment by Pastor Mike on December 6, 2023 at 7:01 am
I spoke recently with a fellow Pastor, and I expressed to him how this Advent Season was markedly “different” than past ones. Both our churches left the UMC this year. I told him our church was operating in a new spirit of hope, joy, and love. There was a renewed commitment to our mission and the bounds of our fellowship as a church family had grown stronger. God had led us to a place where we no longer gazed inward on internal denomination strife and conflict. Instead, we are focused outward to our local communities and the great needs that exist there.
“O God, You have caused this world to shine with the illumination of the true Light. You have given us Your only begotten Son to take our nature upon Him to reveal to us Your glory and grace. As You have given this gift in love, may we receive it with joy. Grant us, we pray, that as we have known the mystery of that Light upon the earth, so may we also reflect that Light in a darkened world; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. AMEN.”