Next week comes Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and, oh yeah, that Christian season of Advent.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve no doubt heard of \u201cBlack Friday,\u201d the day after Thanksgiving that features, along with countless sales, the more-than-occasional trampling of shoppers by their frenzied peers.<\/p>\n
In many ways, \u201cBlack Friday\u201d has become a bigger deal than Thanksgiving. So much so that many major retailers have announced that they are opening their doors on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The hope is that the possibility of buying something you don\u2019t really need for a little less than you would pay a few weeks later will help people work off the turkey and pumpkin pie and get down to some serious Christmas shopping.<\/p>\n
The problem is that it isn\u2019t Christmas yet \u2014 at least not for Christians.<\/p>\n
The weeks leading up to Christmas day are properly called Advent in Western Christianity, from the Latin word adventus , meaning \u201ccoming.\u201d[1]<\/p>\n
Adventus was the Latin translation of the Greek word parousia , which the New Testament most often used to refer to Jesus\u2019 second coming. In antiquity, parousia was usually associated with the arrival of royalty: the leaders of a city went outside the city gates to meet the Emperor and escort him back into the city.<\/p>\n
Thus, for the Christian, Advent is about preparing to greet our King. And it is a time for both looking back to Jesus\u2019 first coming and looking forward to His second coming in glory.<\/p>\n
Like Lent, Advent is a penitential season, a time for reflection and repentance. If we\u2019re honest with ourselves, what Titus 2 calls \u201cour blessed hope \u2014 the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,\u201d \u2014 should provoke both joy and a bit of dread. It\u2019s a time for asking ourselves whether we truly are \u201ca people that are [Christ\u2019s] very own, eager to do what is good.\u201d<\/p>\n
If this doesn\u2019t put you in the mood for shopping, well, congratulations! You are starting to \u201cget\u201d Advent.<\/p>\n
The other emotion associated with Advent is yearning. Specifically, yearning for God to fulfill His promises to His people and to set right what has gone terribly wrong.<\/p>\n
This yearning permeates perhaps the greatest of all Advent hymns, \u201cO Come, O Come Emmanuel.\u201d It\u2019s a paraphrase of parts of the liturgy dating back to at least the Middle Ages. Each verse invokes biblical titles for Christ \u2014 Emmanuel, Root of Jesse, Day Spring, etc. \u2014 and then rehearses why His people yearn for His presence among them.<\/p>\n
Another Advent hymn, \u201cCreator of the Stars of Night,\u201d which dates from the seventh century, captures the season\u2019s emphasis on both Christ\u2019s first and second comings. After expressing the yearning at the heart of the season, it proclaims \u201cThou, grieving that the ancient curse, should doom to death a universe, hast found the medicine, full of grace, to save and heal a ruined race.\u201d<\/p>\n
Embrace the season! But whatever you do, do not let the culture define this most Christian of times for you. That would be a truly black Friday.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
[1] In Orthodox Christianity, the equivalent of Advent is called the \u201cNativity Fast.\u201d It runs for six weeks instead of four.<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Next week comes Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and, oh yeah, that Christian season of Advent. You\u2019ve no doubt heard of \u201cBlack Friday,\u201d the day after Thanksgiving that features, along with countless sales, the more-than-occasional trampling of shoppers by their frenzied peers. In many ways, \u201cBlack Friday\u201d has become a bigger deal than Thanksgiving. So much so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1249,258,3077,4840,4841],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}