Advent: A Time of Joy

Advent (noun)

Ad·​vent | \ ˈad-ˌvent  , chiefly British -vənt \

1: the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas and observed by some Christians as a season of prayer and fasting

The 3rd Sunday of Advent.

Some of you may recall my post from two years ago. Revisiting that post in the light and perspective of where I am in my life now, I see it as a time of despair - and devoid of the Joy of the Season. I have suspicions as to why I was feeling that way, but I wish to focus on my life as it is now.

This morning we lit the 3rd candle of Advent - the Candle of Joy. And in light of where I am in my life now, I can say with great wonder and contentment that I am truly in a time of Joy. I am enjoying the sight of the tree, with the presents from me to family and my girlfriend strewn about underneath, along with presents for me from my daughter. That is different: for the last few years, since the end of my marriage, I received few presents on Christmas. This year, I'm feeling that sense of love that comes from the gifts. It's not the gifts themselves that I'm excited about: it's the fact that I am loved and that is being expressed to me in the act of my loved ones giving me presents. That is new, and is bringing me joy. 

I find myself filled with Christmas music, even though I am not singing anywhere or in anything. The music is welling up inside of me. Music of both Joy and Reverence: reverence for the birth of the Christ Child. And I'm sharing this music with my beloved, and she's finding the music to be hauntingly beautiful. 

But there's one other aspect of this Advent season that I am truly enjoying: sharing the meaning of Advent with Brenda. I was raised in a very Calvinistic Presbyterian church, where the liturgical seasons such as Advent and Lent were pushed aside for the austere, cold and soulless worship that focused on the sermon. When I married Lorrie I started to attend her family's Lutheran church, and while the liturgy at first seemed strange, over the last 20 years that same liturgy has become the heartbeat of my spiritual soul. 

One of our family traditions that we started with the kids was the lighting of the Advent Candles, which we did each Sunday in Advent and then on Christmas Eve. When the kids were little we'd have them trade off reading the lesson for that particular night, and then conclude with the prayer. But as the kids got older, and as Lorrie and I divorced, that tradition faded away, and for the last couple of years, it was forgotten.

This year, though, I have brought it back as something that Brenda and I have been doing together. And, for the last two Sundays, we have read the lesson and lit the candles, and prayed together. And as we do this, I know that we are starting a wonderful tradition that brings us closer together on a spiritual level, as well as creating once that has significance and focuses us on the birth of the child in Bethlehem some 2000 years ago.

And so this Advent and Christmas season, I am filled with the Joy of Advent and the Joy of Christmas. May you feel the Joy of Advent and the Beauty of Christmas this year in your lives.

Me with Jolly Ol' St. Nicholas at one of my favorite breakfast spots, Christmas 2019

  Soli Deo Gloria