Endeavoring Advent

Advent is an invitation to practice a constant turning toward Christ.

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If I ever tell you that Lent is my favorite season of the Christian year, remind me of Advent. I’m most likely just excited to find myself at the cusp of the discoveries that await every turn of the church’s calendar.

Advent is the January of the Christian calendar. This year, it begins on December 1, a perfect month before the New Year’s Day that gains most of our attention. The beginning of Advent is the beginning of our new year, and this year I hope something different for you and me. I hope this Advent becomes an invitation to set out in God’s direction for us.

Presbyterian pastor and author Frederick Buechner imagined Advent as the sheer but full silence of a packed symphony hall right before the orchestra bursts into its first song. We know moments like that. That’s a kind of silence that captivates. It’s silence that’s full. It’s a waiting that’s packed with expectation. A moment like that holds every bit of our anticipation, excitement, and belief. We wait—even on the edge of our chairs, we wait. Something wonderful is about to begin. That’s Advent, Buechner says.

I love that.

Advent is a season of silent fullness. It’s twenty-four days of standing on our tiptoes as we await the already. Our anticipation puts to rest any notion that our life and each of its days is just a mere succession of twenty-four hour periods of light and dark in the weary round of time¹, but are God-given and Christ-filled opportunities strung one right after the other to witness what’s holy in what’s ordinary. Days like these can make up a life like this—if we let it.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Perhaps it’s better to take it a season at a time. Advent is where we begin, though.

At its outset, I desire to endeavor Advent. To me that begins by practicing a constant turning toward Christ. Advent is a time to be relocated within God’s story and give ourselves to prayerful contemplation about where we stand in relation to the One who wants to guide our lives.

Advent is a season of direction; it has a way for us to go. It’s a time for us to find out where we are and then ask God for better directions.

There is a light up ahead. So, let’s set out and endeavor Advent together.

1. Thank you, Thomas Merton!