With the fast pace of life, sometimes holidays tend to sneak up on us. Many people are surprised feeling that Christmas comes out of nowhere! We are often concerned with Christmas parties (not this year!) and gifts that we want to give to loved ones and friends. But what is the real point of Christmas?
I want to share with you about Advent. It is a season before Christmas, for about four weeks, that helps to explain the purpose behind Christmas, and also to prepare our hearts and minds to think about the purposes of Christmas. I that nothing to do with gifts or Santa Clause, but it has to do with the most central story in the Bible.
the Bible is one of the oldest books in history, and it has been the most influential book in History. It is the most widely translated and read book in the world. And its words are powerful.
Yet for many centuries, people didn’t have access to own a copy for themselves, and people often couldn’t read anyway. So the church instituted seasons and holidays; rhythms in the calendar to help people remember the stories and lessons in the Bible. Advent and Christmas are some of those seasons.
Advent is full of symbolism, storytelling, and reflection. Some churches still celebrate it today, and I love celebrating it with my family. I’d like to share about the meanings behind and underneath advent with you over the next several weeks. And today, I’ll start with this introduction.
Chiefly Advent prepares us for the celebration of Christmas, which celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, is the central character in the Bible. He is the One the Bible writes about. Why is He important? In short, the Bible tells us about God who created us and cares for us as a king and father. But it tells how we have chosen to ignore him, to follow our own way, and to rebel against His laws and good will. The hatred and destruction in the world is a testimony to this fact: we have all sinned and fallen short of the expectations and glory of God. So the Bible is about how God has a plan and a purpose to make a way for us to have a restored relationship with him, and for us to realize a harmony and joy in our relationship with Him and with each other. Jesus is the one who makes the way.
To help us reflect on this and prepare our hearts, Advent is a season with four weeks each that have a specific focus. And I’ll treat each individually as we approach Christmas. Advent also employs many symbols, and in preparation for our journey, I want to share a few of those symbols today.
First, the number 4. The season lasts four weeks before Christmas. In the Bible, the number four represents creation. When we see the number 4 in the Bible, that is the inference. The four winds, the four cardinal directions. The four seasons. Creation in this sense is the physical reality that we interact with, having been created by God, but also, being mortal and transient in a sense. In Chinese, the number four is sometimes related to a symbol of death. This is appropriate because, as we all know, death is a universal aspect of life. Everything dies, everything is mortal, everything is temporary. From humans, to animals to fish to trees to stars. So why would this be appropriate? We are preparing ourselves to celebrate the coming of Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God, and Jesus is God. And the great mystery is that God, being immortal, clothed himself in mortality as Jesus for our sakes. He entered creation, he subjected himself to the frailty and weakness of this life, he became like us.
Second symbol is the time of the year. No scholar that I am aware of actually thinks that Jesus was born in December. But we celebrate Christmas in December for some important reasons. It is near the Winter Solstice. What is that? It is the time during the solar calendar when the night is the longest and the daytime is the shortest. We are reaching, in our course around the sun, the point when the North Pole is farthest from the Sun. This is significant because in Scripture, our waywardness or sinfulness has plunged humanity into a darkness. And without the grace of God, things tend toward darkness and destruction. In physics, we call this entropy. And if we think about things to deeply, we may find ourselves in a hopeless state of mind, seeing the danger, hatred, and futility of the world around us. The Bible calls Jesus the morning star. The morning star is a bright star that appears in the sky at around 3 or 4am. It is a herald of the dawn. It is a light in the darkness that reminds us that the day is drawing near, that the time of darkness will end soon. Jesus is that star, Jesus is the dawn, Jesus is the light in the darkness giving hope, when hope was almost smoldering out of existence. We celebrate Christmas during the darkest time of the year because it is a celebration of hope in the midst of hopelessness. This is why candles are an important part of the celebration of Advent.
Not only that, it is winter time. Everything has died. Trees have lost their leaves, all of our garden fruits are dead, the songbirds have left, and clouds fill the sky with gloom. Yet we use evergreens as part of Advent and Christmas. Why? When all other trees have lost the green of life, the evergreen, even in winter, holds on to its vitality as a way of hope and anticipation, that the winter will not last forever.
Finally, we use the shape of a circle as a symbol in Advent. Often a wreath of evergreens is used to hold the candles that form the centerpiece of the Advent celebration. The circle represents the eternity of God; it has no beginning, it has no end. It is important for us to remember this. God has promised, God has done, God has foretold etc. We cannot trust God’s promises if God has an end! If God was only alive and relevant 2000 years ago, but is not today, then we have no use for belief in or hope in God. But God is eternal.
Over the next four weeks we’ll explore other themes and symbols of Advent. by sharing this with you I hope to share the salvation story of the Bible with you, the true meaning of Christmas, and help you understand why this important season can have such a profound and deep meaning above and beyond the material garments it typically wears in this modern age of Black Fridays and internet shopping. Tomorrow we’ll start by discussing the Promises of God. The first candle…
My hope is that this will not only help you understand a very important part of Western culture and history, but that this may perhaps spark a curiosity in reading a little more of this amazing book called the Bible that has changed so many lives.