Advent marks the four-week season leading up to Christmas dedicated to the arrival, or “advent,” of the annual commemoration of Christ’s birth. On each of the four Sundays preceding Christ’s Nativity, candle-lighting ceremonies celebrate themes of hope, peace, joy, and love. Historically, the holiday anticipated not only the incarnated presence of God as a manger-child but the return of that same person of Christ in a scripturally predicted Second Coming.
The Roots of Advent
The observation of Advent is cross-denominational and theologically uncontroversial. In American tradition, Advent is largely viewed as a Nativity observance and is often associated with Catholic worship. The deeper roots of the tradition extend to early Christian focus, not only on the anticipation of the earthly birth but also on Christ’s End Times return.
The anticipation of a delivering Messiah forms the thematic foundation for many important Old Testament scriptures. Jeremiah (e.g., 30:9; 33:15) and Isaiah (53) foretold hundreds of years beforehand of Christ’s coming and crucifixion. Daniel, estimated to have been written sometime shortly after 535 BC, predicts not just the corporeal birth of the Messiah but His Second Coming:
“I was watching in the night visions,
And behold, One like the Son of Man,
Coming with the clouds of heaven! ...
“His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
Which shall not pass away,
And His kingdom the one
Which shall not be destroyed.”
~ Daniel 7:13-14, NKJV
Christ’s Birth and End Time Return
Following the birth and crucifixion of Christ, the nascent Christian faith began to take shape and spread throughout the Western world. Advent developed as an anticipatory meditation on Christ’s birth, much as Lent evolved as a preparatory reflection on the central Christian holiday of Easter. Written historical evidence of Advent practices dates at least to the Council of Sargossa in AD 380, yet these early Advent themes focused on both Christ’s incarnation at Bethlehem and His promised return in End Times. The first two weeks of Advent centered around confession, repentance, and prayers for a quick return of the Lord; the second two weeks would transition to observation of Christ’s birth in a lowly manger.
The Latin word “adventus,” from which Advent is derived, is a translation of the Greek word “parousia,” used to describe both the fleshly birth of the Savior and his Second Coming. Understanding this nuanced linguistic reference to the return of the Son of God to judge the world is not typically what Christians dwell upon at Christmastime, yet the insight is instructive. The birth of Jesus does not represent a single moment in which God broke into history but a linear evolution of moral truth and a historical culmination in the returned, resurrected, physical personhood of Jesus Christ as the Wrath of the Lamb of Revelation (6:16).
That is a vision to reflect upon during the Christmas season: the vulnerable infant in a hay pile was destined to be tortured and nailed with spikes to a post so that humanity would spend thousands of years anticipating His hoped-for imminent return to judge the world. This interesting dualism enriches the remembrance of the Christ-child on His birthday.
