Faith Matters | Advent is a time for anticipation and celebration
It was the slowest of times. It was the fastest of times. In a Charles Dickensian sort of way, I imagine many have experienced this paradox during our timeless COVID season.
For instance, when I most long to see the end of this mess, time seems to move at the pace of a Presbyterian Church committee.
Yet in other ways, and sometimes on other days, an upcoming holiday shocks me with its impending arrival. Where did the time go? What did I get done? I certainly didn’t do enough to expect Thanksgiving so soon.
New rhythms have developed. We spend our days checking out new Corona cases, or at night drinking cases of Corona, wondering if we’ll receive a recommendation to put away our holiday suitcases. Just in case. Trends, surges, and transmission rates now mark progress or backtracking. It feels more like a childhood board game of “Shoots and Ladders.” But far more shoots than ladders.
Of course we still have our calendars. However their empty squares taunt us with possibilities no longer feasible, wise, or allowed. In December, where we most often schedule parties, activities, and events, we now understand the true meaning of “penciling in.”
COVID has removed these normal benchmarks, with which we used to “feel” the passing of yet another month. Without markers, we can find ourselves “placeless,” simply existing somewhere along a nebulous continuum. We need more than calendar squares, and what happens or doesn’t get to happen in them, to mark the passage of time.
Never have I found myself so thankful for the Church Calendar as in 2020. While COVID may have hijacked Harbor Community Church’s calendar, “the” Church calendar doesn’t exist to give us more things to do. Instead it reminds us more of what God has already done for us by entering into our time. It “re-places” and “re-homes” us.
While denominational traditions very, the church or “liturgical” calendar presents us with a new and hopeful way to view the passage of time. No matter the level of activity or accomplishment, we move forward in light of God’s grand narrative of redemption.
This calendar has its own markers: seasons and days filled with new colors, directions, and appropriate responses. We see definite “seasons” of repentance during Lent, which then lead us to celebration from Easter to Pentecost. Nothing can hijack this calendar, or us from it, because God has set the markers Himself.
Advent, which means “coming or arrival” marks the beginning of the Church Calendar. It sets apart the four Sundays preceding Christmas as a special “time” to remember Jesus’ first coming (celebration) and to remind us of His promise to return (anticipation).
In a season where we feel lost because we can’t do what we used to do, this “storied” calendar deals with our sense of misplacement. Each year we begin by finding ourselves smack dab in the middle of Jesus’ two “advents.” He first came to do what we couldn’t, and will return to finish what we wouldn’t. But when?
I now have a time, space, and invitation to lament, “O Lord, how long will it be like this?”
At the same time, in the season of Advent, we reject the hopeless scoff:
4 “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” II Peter 3:4
Things don’t continue as they were because Jesus entered into our world. And the truth is He never left. Advent resettles us into this glorious tension of both celebration and anticipation.
No matter what happens to your calendar, remember God has an even better way to tell time, because He has better story: one that tells itself. Will we listen? We have time.
Faith Matters is written by members of the Bradenton area clerical community. Geoff Henderson is pastor of Harbor Community Church (harborcommunitychurch.org) in Bradenton. You can reach him at geoff@harborcommunitychurch.org.
This story was originally published December 1, 2020 at 5:00 AM.