Three years ago, in December 2019, I was volunteering with an inner-city after school program at my neighborhood middle school and was asked to give a short Christmas devotional to the kids. Like most youth ministries, the weekly gathering typically consisted of high energy games and activities and encouraging truths about Jesus. The fun and festivities picked up around the holidays with creative Christmas-themed games, treats, and crafts. In many ways, it reminded me of my experience growing up in youth group. But as I prepared my devotional, I was overwhelmed by the fact that many of them would experience Christmas very differently than me.
Earlier that year, me and my family moved to a new city to plant a church. Prior to that, I spent most of my life in the affluent suburbs of Chicago in a Christian home with two parents who were present, attentive, and loved giving gifts. In our home, Christmas was a month-long celebration filled with festive activities, decorations, quality-time with family and friends, and lots of food. Our church transformed into a winter wonderland. Volume, lights, and production were cranked up to ten. My Christmas experience was always more Elf than Grinch. Everything was perfect, and I loved every part of it.
As I thought about the kids that I had come to know and love at my local middle school, I was overwhelmed thinking about what their Christmases might be like. For many of them, Christmas was anything but perfect. Almost 75% of them are living with one or neither of their parents1. We live in a food desert, where my friend and urban farmer says, “It’s easier to find a gun than a tomato”. For some of these kids, no school means no food. Christmas is a time when empty chairs are more noticeable. Broken promises and shattered hopes are more tangible. In the face of this pain and brokenness, anything I had to say about Christmas felt very empty.
Don’t get me wrong, I am so grateful for my Christmas experience growing up. I am still filled with joy and excitement as the season approaches. Though I groan a bit when my wife turns on Christmas music in October, inwardly the sleighbells are ringing. However, as I walk alongside more and more people in and out of the Church over the past few years, my perspective on the season is changing. For many, Christmas is filled with more pain than joy; more sorrow than celebration; and more longing than excitement. I have also come to realize that the Church often misses the mark for many people in this season. The increased hype, production, and over the top festiveness tends to push hurting people away rather than draw them in. What is so bewildering about all of this is that the Church has something to offer in this season that happens to be the very thing that is most needed amidst deep pain and brokenness. That is the reality of advent.
My understanding and appreciation for advent has grown immensely over the past couple years. Maybe it was the change of scenery. Maybe it was the pandemic stripping away many of my beloved Christmas festivities. Maybe it’s the people I’ve been walking with. But over the past few years, I have found myself much more captivated by the hope of advent, than the “magic” of Christmas. The word, advent, is derived from the Latin noun, adventus. This word is formed by the preposition, ad (which means to), and the verb, venire (which means to come). Therefore, adventus, or advent, means “the coming” or “the arrival”. When the Bible was translated into Latin in the late 4th century, adventus, was used for the Greek word, parousia, which means “arrival” or “presence”. This word appears 24 times in the New Testament. Every time it is used in reference to Jesus, it refers to his second arrival, not his first.
This is how my understanding of advent has changed. For most of my life, my thoughts around Christmas have been entirely focused on the Jesus that has come, not the Jesus that has yet to come. Christmas was about Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus in the manger, forgiveness of sins, and personal salvation. Advent remembers the Jesus that has come but then turns our eyes towards the Jesus that is coming again. Advent is about the King who is victorious over death and darkness. Advent is about resurrection, restoration, and new creation. Advent promises justice and equality, peace and eternal joy, new life and healing. It is not that the latter is greater than the former. It is that the truth of the former loses all its weight without the promise of the latter.
Advent invites us to live in between the two, with one hand holding on to the reality that Jesus has come and the other hand holding on to the promise that he will one day come again. Advent is tension. It celebrates what Jesus has done, while longing for him to do all that he promises to do. It recognizes his victory over death and darkness, while also recognizing that death and darkness still consume the lives of many.
I would argue that nothing is more relevant to a hurting world than the reality of advent. Yet, the message the Church often sends during the Christmas season seems to be becoming increasingly irrelevant. Through advent is all about Jesus being fully present in the reality of the world, Christmas is a time when the Church seems most detached from reality. Episcopal priest, Flemming Rutledge, writes:
“Advent is the season that, when properly understood, does not flinch from the darkness that stalks us all in this world. Advent begins in the dark and moves toward the light—but the season should not move too quickly or too glibly, lest we fail to acknowledge the depth of the darkness… Advent bids us to take a fearless inventory of the darkness: the darkness without and the darkness within.”
We focus on our pristine, glittering image of baby Jesus in a stable and invite people to come to him without ever mentioning the most wonderful truth of advent – Jesus came and is coming to us. Jesus entered into the utter mess of this world to be with us. He was born into poverty through an unwed teenage girl and his very existence was immediately threated by those in power. Jesus addressed physical needs as much as he did spiritual needs, and he “[did] not flinch from the darkness”. I love that line. How many people are afraid to share their pain and brokenness with their Christian neighbors because they’ve seen them “flinch”, or grimace, or sneer? How many people see the nativity scenes all over town and think that Jesus is not for them because they have never seen or experienced what he is truly like?
If we want to speak to a hurting world, immersing ourselves in the reality of advent is the place to start. Standing with one hand holding on to the reality that Jesus has come and the other hand holding on to the promise that he will one day come again gives us the presence and power to join him in the work that he is doing now. Henri Nouwen writes: “The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent; life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.” Our world needs a Church who lives in the tension of advent all year around. It needs a Church that never flinches from the darkness but has hope in the darkness when no one else does. True hope is not dismissive of the darkness but sees Jesus at work and joins him in the mess.
I think back on the middle schoolers in the after-school program. I think about the pain and the brokenness that they experience on a daily basis, and particularly at Christmastime. I don’t think they need the typical Sunday school “Christmas story”. I don’t think they need to be told that some far-off God is going to forgive all their sins if they believe he exists. What they need to hear is that Jesus knows them, he understands them, and he is with them even in their deepest pain. What they need is the promise that Jesus will one day restore them and this world, so that there are no more shattered lives, broken families, injustice, and oppression. What they need is neighbors that live like Heaven has come and is coming to Earth. They need a Church that lives in the tension of advent.
I don’t remember exactly what I said to those kids three years ago, but I tried to communicate something like that. I do remember thinking: if this is what life with Jesus is all about, shouldn’t this be easier? That for me has been the biggest take away. Advent isn’t some theological principle that we need to understand. It is a reality that we are constantly called to live within. It is something that we must not only talk about once a year but demonstrate every day of our lives. Jesus has come, and he is coming again.
Charley Dever is a church planter, coach and associate leader pastor of Commonwealth located in Knoxville, TN.