Advent - the Disappearing Season?

I sometimes think that Advent is in danger of disappearing as a season. The radio starts playing Christmas Music on Black Friday, and the chances are that the grocery store started before that. Generic Evangelicals tend to ignore Advent altogether, and seem, if the local big box churches are anything to go on, to observe Christmas on the Third Sunday of Advent, so as to not interfere with "family time." For better or worse, I was got at by an older generation where Advent was a serious business - scarcely less serious than Lent - so no Christmas carols until Christmas Eve, an emphasis on the Four Last Things - heaven and hell, death and judgement - and as for decorating the church that was a covert activity conducted between Advent 4 and Christmas Eve!

The one thing I have backed off on, mainly because of the Generic Evangelical obsession with the end times, is devoting the whole of Advent to the contemplation of the Four Last Things. I think it is more useful today to focus on the idea of advent - of Our Lord's coming. The four Sundays of Advent addresses this topic in various ways. The first Sunday has as its Gospel the entry into Jerusalem - Christ coming to be sacrificed for the sins of the world. The Second Sunday has the 'little Apocalypse' from St Luke which makes us focus on Christ coming in judgement, though the centrality of the Bible to the Church's teaching is a secondary theme on this day. The third and fourth Sundays both address the ministry of St. John the Baptist, with the third Sunday recounting Jesus' testimony to John, as well as the proofs of His Messiahship, and the fourth John's testimony to Jesus in the form of the "This is the record of John" passage - John 19: 1ff. Each is intended to encourage us to contemplate aspects the coming of Christ as we prepare to celebrate His coming in the flesh at Christmas.

At Good Shepherd we focus our celebration of Christ's Nativity into the tradition twelve days of Christmas from Christmas Eve, to the eve of the Epiphany or Twelfth Night. This leaves Advent free for us to look at the other ways in which Christ comes to us, as Saviour, Judge, Healer, and Messiah. As Christians, our knowledge of God derives very largely from what we know about Jesus, what is revealed of Him in the Scriptures. I often suspect that some folks dismiss Christianity because they never develop an understanding of Christ beyond that of the 'gentle Jesus meek and mild' of liberal Sunday School teaching; they never develop an understanding of Christ's true nature as both the icon of the Father (John 14: 8 - 14) and as Prophet, Priest, and King. Our salvation depends not on the limp, liberal Jesus, but on His eternal sonship, and His ministry as prophet, priest, and king, by which he proclaims the coming of God's eternal kingdom, the true Israel, acts as both priest and sacrifice, and then takes His rightful place as the Lord of Glory.