FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT

Advent begins this weekend, and with it a new Liturgical Year.  In the Church’s current lectionary layout, this Sunday we enter anew into the beautiful Gospel narrative according to Saint Matthew.  Today we also enter a new month, that of December.  It is, therefore, a weekend of new beginnings.
 
Perhaps it seems odd to speak of “beginnings” this time of the year. We are so programmed to focus on reference points such as New Year’s, the tax year, the fiscal year, the growing year, the school year, the secular, commercial, non-religious “Christmas Season” (which began somewhere back in October I guess), and dozens of other calendar points.  None of those times begin right now.  Looking around us, not much of anything seems to really “begin” in December these days.  Even winter, which begins now, is not really a beginning as much as it is an ending to the growing cycle of our part of the world.
 
Advent stands as the one major exception.  Advent always begins right around now, and by nature it is a season about beginnings, namely, the highlighting of the dawning, unfolding plan of salvation at the center of which is the Lord Jesus Christ.  Advent means that God desires to do something new.   The newness of Advent never grows old because Christ’s coming does not depend upon a fixed date or time.  Granted, it is true that once upon a time there was a fixed date, place, and time of his birth as a man.  However, that event itself, while unrepeatable, ushered in a new, repeating reality in the fabric of world history that endures to this very day.  It is the reality of God’s continual and ongoing re-entry into our lives and world in the most intimate and concrete of manners.  His birth in time gave birth to a continual pattern of re-entry and re-encounter with the waiting world.  As we encounter his re-entry into our lives, we encounter newness, life, and the fullness of God’s blessings.   This pattern of entry and encounter will endure until the fullness of God’s manifestation at the end of time, to which we all look forward in joyful hope. 
 
It is easy to overlook how critically important this all is for us as humans, and why Advent is essential to the flourishing of human life that God desires for us.  If we do not correctly identify the continual entry of Christ into our daily lives as the authentic source of newness and hope for which we all desperately long, then we are going to attempt to become our own source of newness, or our own source of hope.  This takes the form of continually trying to invent new solutions to our problems, of always chasing new forms of entertainment, of being obsessed with having more options, of refusing to keep our commitments when they grow stale, and of running faster and faster after competing priorities in life. 
 
Fallen humanity is not capable of being an authentic source of the newness that we all crave. We cannot invent anything that is sufficiently satisfying.  It is our pride that deludes us into thinking that if we just work at it enough, we can solve all of our earthly problems through our own devices:  technology, policies, money, science, etc, etc, etc.   These things all create the illusion of “new.”  
 
Only Christ is new.  Only Advent is new in the truest sense of an intentional focusing on the source of newness that we desperately seek.  Advent is an indispensable season that cannot and must not be passed over in a hurry on our way to the next thing.  Advent must stand on its own merits, with its own tone, and its own unique character.  It cannot ever be “secular Christmas,” which it all too often is even for Christians in our part of the world.  The best way to ensure that its proper character is recognized and sustained is to engage fully all of its themes and rituals.   The Church, in her wisdom, has given us this season for a reason.  Jesus is the reason for this season, and with him at the center, it will be new.   It will make each of us, in our way, new.  
 
Blessings,
Father Nathan