As Christmas approaches, I wanted to look at the season of Advent and what it really means. I know we’ve all thought about how commercialized Christmas has become and what a crazy busy time of year it is. We want it to be magical and fun for our families, but we don’t want to miss the eternal significance either. (If you missed it, my last post was about easy ways to create Christmas traditions that last) I knew that Advent is the four Sundays leading up to Christmas, about the wreath with the candles that we light each week, and that there are at least 842 Advent calendars out there to help you count down to the big day. But what does it really mean? What is it for?
First, I want to make a quick clarification. Advent is not in the Bible; it evolved several centuries after Christ. It is not a Biblical mandate – such a gathering together or serving others, or a sacrament – such as communion or baptism. It is a helpful way to focus your heart on Christ, especially during our modern commercialized Christmas celebrations. Since churches have almost universally adopted the traditions that go with it, celebrating Advent can definitely be an important part of connecting with your local church. It’s a good thing! I just think it’s always important to keep in the back of our mind the difference in God’s commands to us and the church traditions which help us understand Him better.
Since I will 100% just make up an answer to a question I don’t know, when my children asked about Advent I told them that the word “advent” meant “waiting”. That was wrong. Advent actually means “arrival” or “coming”. Hopefully my poor children will not be scarred by all of the misinformation their mama spews at them. Aren’t we thankful that ultimately God is responsible for our kids and not us?!?!?! Anyway.
The term advent actually comes from two terms – the Greek “parousia” and the Latin translation of that word, which is “adventus”. Parousia is used throughout the New Testament to mean the arrival of a person, most frequently the second coming of Christ. The Romans used adventus to refer to a celebratory ceremony when a governor arrived in town during or after a military campaign. So this word definitely carries a royal and triumphant connotation.
Because Advent is about the coming of Christ, it actually has a dual focus – a celebration of His first coming and an expectation of His second. It happens in December, the darkest part of the year, as a reminder of Christ coming into the darkness as the Light of the World.
While you couldn’t say, I was technically “correct” when I told my kids that advent meant waiting, I was on the right track. We are in a season of waiting for Jesus to return, and Advent is a time to focus on that waiting. Traditionally, the first two weeks are spent focusing on waiting for Jesus’s return and the second two weeks focusing on his first coming at Christmas.*
Psalm 27:14 says, “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord!” This is not a passive waiting. The word for “wait” here implies eager expectation, without doubt. The Bible’s truths are eternal – this command is just as important for us as we wait for the second coming as they were to the Jewish people waiting for his first.
Galatians 5:5 says “For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness” – we are waiting in faith for our complete righteousness that will come when we are with God. We’re not spending our days trying to earn that righteousness, because we have it through faith. Since we know how the waiting ends, we don’t need to spend this time striving for perfection. We can spend it preparing to meet Him.
When I was teaching kindergarten, I discovered picture books by Jarrett J. Krosoczka and enjoyed reading them to my class. Imagine how excited I was when I discovered he was coming to my school and I got to meet him! (Confession: I was young and single. He was young and cute. But it was about his books. I promise it was about his books 😉 ) You better believe that I didn’t just sit around thinking about what it was going to be like when he came. My class and I read as many of his books as we could, and researched him on the internet. When I read that he was looking for a new baseball cap, I got him a Meriwether Lewis hat. We made welcome posters for him with all of his characters. I was READY to meet him! All of the classes enjoyed meeting him, but for those of us who had been eagerly preparing the day had an extra layer of excitement and meaning. (This story gets a little weird at the end when I got to drive him home, but locked my keys in my car and had to borrow a friend’s car. Then I went the wrong way and he called the woman he was meeting and told her I was kidnapping him. It’s strange that we didn’t go on to become best friends.)
We are masters of actively waiting to meet someone in 2019. But instead of calling it “waiting with eager anticipation”, we call it “Facebook stalking”. Why would we just sit and twiddle our thumbs waiting for the day to arrive when we could be getting to know them ahead of time?!?!?
In the same way, we can prepare for Christ’s return by getting to know Him. We can spend time in the Word, look around us for all the ways He is showing up, and talk to Him about His plans for our lives. Obviously we shouldn’t limit this to the Advent season, but it is a good time to reflect on how we are intentionally spending time with God as we wait for His return. However you choose to celebrate with your family, I think the point is that we are spending time each day focusing on who God is and what He has done. For those of us with a tendency to let this habit slide, Advent helps us get back on track every year. The Christmas season is an especially important time to focus on Christ because it’s really easy for our hearts to become focused on ourselves. As adults, we have an easier time resisting the “I WANT ALL THE TOYS” trap that kids fall into (or at least we’re better at hiding it), but in the busyness of the season, it is easy for us to slip from honoring Christ to just keeping up with everyone else and doing all the things that we feel *need* to be done to just make it through.
Celebrating Christmas and Advent as a mom can feel like a lot of pressure. I want my kids to really know Jesus and why it’s a big deal that He came to earth (and then died and rose again 33 years later), I want us to create family traditions for bonding and memories, I want to make sure everyone around me is celebrated and appreciated and gets just what he/she wants, and I want it all to be fun and seem easy. But looking back on the short time I’ve been doing this, I realized that I learn a little bit more and get something else just a little bit more right each year. So we’re getting there. I think it’s ok to just take each day as it comes and give ourselves grace and time to figure out what works for our family this time of year. And you know what? We might do it differently every single year until our kids leave home. No biggie. Here’s my big takeaway from my time spent on this topic:
During Advent, make a point to spend time every day getting to know God better.
That’s it. We are living in the “already but not yet” time between Jesus’ first coming and His second – we know the ending and are eagerly waiting. We don’t need to spend this time earning our salvation since it’s already been assured. So we can spend it getting to know the One we’re waiting to meet.
I’m not going to give you my suggestions on how to celebrate Advent with your family because – 1. I have no idea. I’m still figuring it out. and – 2. Many other people way smarter than me have already done that. I am, however, going to link below to some resources – some that I have used, some that I’ve heard about others using, and some that just look good. I’m not going to link to a bunch of calendars because you already know that there are as many advent calendars as there are types of kids who will love them. My kids have never had a toy/candy advent calendar until this year when I got the Lego one on sale. They don’t know about it yet, but they are going to be sooooo excited. We have a nativity one (that I will link to below) that they also love and we will use. But I am totally down with doing things just because they’re fun sometimes.
Advent Resources
- The magnetic nativity calendar we use – It’s expensive (ours was a gift), but we use it every year and we all love it. I think the idea of a calendar that builds the Christmas scene because, again, it focuses us on Christ every day. **
- Advent calendar with the Christmas story – I’m putting this one in here for my mom (Hi, Mom!) This was her FAVORITE and the one we used growing up. It’s just a sheet of cardboard with little doors that open each day to tell part of the Christmas story. We had the same one for years and just closed all the doors and got it out again the next year until the doors wouldn’t stay shut anymore. That did not stop us. My brother and sister can recite along with me “Long ago in the city of Nazareth there lived a young woman named Mary…”.
- Little People nativity – This is the one we have, but I really like any nativity that the kids can play with. I like the ones for decoration too (I have Willow Tree – it’s my favorite), but watching my kids act out the Christmas story is so sweet. Plus, they’re learning it well when they do it over and over again!
- Jesus Storybook Bible Advent Calendar – This is a plan for reading through the Jesus Storybook Bible one story at a time leading up to Christmas. The plan is free but you do need to purchase the Bible. We did this last year and I totally fell in love. My kids were excited to read it each night and I learned a lot!
- Truth in the Tinsel – I’ve never done this, but I know lots of people who have! There is a verse and ornament craft to do each day of Advent. Word on the street is it’s a lot of work but very meaningful and fun.
- Children’s Advent House – a friend of mine posted this resource and it looks really fun! (there’s no link here – you’re not missing anything) For this one, you need the YouVersion Holy Bible app. Open it up, click on “Plans” at the bottom, and search for “Children’s Advent House” It will lead you to a 25-day plan with Scripture readings, discussion points, and optional activities. Plus there’s a printable house for the kids to color in each day as they work their way through. It’s all free!
- Jesse Tree – The Jesse tree is another plan that involves making ornaments and building a tree, but this one focuses on Jesus’ human lineage. You tell stories each day about his ancestors as you put another ornament on the tree. We’ve never done this, but I’ve heard of it.
- Risen Motherhood is an amazing gospel-centered blog and podcast for moms. They have already done MAJOR work on collecting Advent resources and I’m just sending you to them from here on out. RM are people that I trust when looking for resources and they’ve got it covered.
*Yes, yes. I know Jesus wasn’t ACTUALLY born on Dec. 25. Does it matter? I don’t think so. GOD was born as a HUMAN. That matters. Dec 25th is the day we celebrate that. I have a feeling Jesus is ok with us celebrating his birthday on a different day. I would be. Feel free to celebrate my birthday any day you like.
**Again, I know. There are wise men there. The wise men didn’t get there for a few years. Mary and Joseph might not have actually been in a barn. I actually mention these things to my kids sometimes but we’re not going for recreating the scene in detail. It’s just a tool to remind us of God coming to earth in human form in the most humble way possible.
For further reading
What is Advent? from Christianity.com
The History of Advent from The Gospel Coalitio