Christmas is coming! But before then Advent

We are just about to enter Advent, a time of awaiting the coming of God in human form, a time of longing for something better, the promise of a new start.

This is often forgotten in the rush towards Christmas, in the frantic shopping and worrying about how we are going to afford the presents we feel our families deserve, or the feast we believe we should spread on our tables. We are caught up, too, in the excitement of sparkling lights, carols sung, mulled wine and mince pies consumed, and the annual game of Whammagedon.

If that is how you feel and you don’t like it, pause for a moment, switch off the radio (you may be about to hear Wham’s Last Christmas in any case, especially if you click on the link I’ve just added!) and reflect on Advent.

Advent is the beginning of the Church’s year and is a time of preparing for the coming of Christ. It starts four Sundays before Christmas which, this year, is December 1 and, as it takes place at the darkest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, reminds us of the need for light. Each Sunday in many churches a different candle is lit, with varying understandings of what each one represents, depending on tradition (anything from the Patriarchs to hope to prophecy) but all pointing to one thing, the coming of Christ, the manifestation of God’s extraordinary, redeeming, overwhelming love.

It also points to the margins of our society, because the Gospels tell of God coming into the world in human form as a refugee, a member of an oppressed culture, not someone most of us would welcome or worship. God is there at the margins as well as in the respectable places of the world. And God holds out hope and love to all.