Advent: A New Meaning

How my Pappaw and Mammaw are now a part of this Advent season … and all the ones to come

Advent: Arrival, coming 

for the birth of Jesus into this world

and for His Second Coming and return 

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My prayer: 

May we find time to pause our lives to be present with You in this Advent season.

Thank You for this gift — hope, peace, joy, and love in abundance because of Your Son’s coming. 

May we show up as we are to You — broken, afraid, weary, doubtful, desperate — and be refreshed by the Good News of Luke 2:10-11: that our Savior has been born. 

He came for us once, and He will come again. 

May we experience renewed hope this Advent season.

May we experience peace as You give.

May we exchange our earthly joy for everlasting joy. 

May we be confident of Your deep love for us, that You would send your Son to us.

May You gently remind us what this season is all about, and us cherish it even more because of its meaning. 

Give us strength to face our circumstances this season.

Amen. 

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During Advent we pause the busyness of our everyday lives, we take a moment to stop our shopping, baking, wrapping, and Christmas-movie-watching to celebrate the good news of Christmas. 

What do you feel during the Advent season? Excitement and anticipation? Financial burden or dread? Loneliness or grief? All of those? Wherever you find yourself this Advent season, I pray that you would accept these words of mine as a companion, wrapping you in an embrace affirming that you are not alone. And may the peace of Christ meet us here and extend to you peace as only He can give. 

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When did “the most wonderful time of the year” get so stressful? So sad? Has it always been like this?

Last year Christmas passed by in a blur of Christmas lights. I lost my grandpa, my Pappaw, suddenly. Just a few days after Christmas, a time of great joy, we were gathered not under a tree, but at his funeral. In the midst of so much loss, so much grieving and brokenness, how can I feel “holly and jolly”? Is it even possible for Advent to be joyful for those of us that are hurting? 

"It’s important to feel all that. To truly know that neither we, nor this world, can fix ourselves. Because without an admission of our little or large terminalities, we’ll have no room for the miracle of hope … Luke wants us to remember that healing starts in our pain, in our darkness. 

But also that to live in the spirit of Advent is to anticipate God in the midst of it. 

Hopelessness beckons the Miracle. 

Touching our longings honestly, and allowing ourselves to feel them, is the true beginning of hope. It necessitates it. In the midst of our great need arises the first in-breaking light of incredible news. Christ is soon arriving" (Practicing the Way Advent Meditations pg 7-8).

Our waiting in this meantime is not in vain. All of creation groans, eagerly waiting for redemption (Romans 8:22). How much more we yearn for it when we lose someone… that is my experience. My Pappaw and Mammaw are forever a part of my Advent season — bringing to life a deeper hope within me for Christ’s return, for God’s redemption. Their mark on me has left me with a desperation for this season to be more than just Christmas gifts, our favorite holiday films, and annual buckeye-making. It is more than just a “birthday party” for Jesus. Advent always meant this: our Christ came and He is coming again. I have known this, believed it, and was thankful for this truth. I loved this season before, but it has come to life in a new way. One where joy is now held in tension with new grief, where hope is held in tension with waiting.

Oh, how I am thankful that our Christmas joy is not found in our circumstances or by our own means. 

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“But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord’” (Luke 2:10-11).

On days when it's hard to get into the “Christmas spirit”, may our Christmas joy be rooted in that sounding joy first proclaimed by angels in the skies near Bethlehem. I can have joy in my mourning because of this — that Jesus came once, and He is coming for us again. All of our grieving and our pain will one day be redeemed. What good news for this weary soul. 

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This year I fly home for holiday on the anniversary of my Pappaw’s passing. One whole year has gone by before my very eyes. And I go home to an unfamiliar house, the first time in 14 years that the home I shared with my Pappaw and Mammaw is not ours anymore. I grieve that loss, that change, yet I rejoice that a new family is there having their first Christmas together. 

Wherever you celebrate this year — somewhere old, somewhere new, a hotel, a car, at work — may the peace of Christ meet you there, may the good news of Christmas touch your soul deeply, and may you experience true Christmas Joy. 

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Advent reflections and resources I recommend this season: 

The Gospels, may Jesus’s words fill you with life and give you hope

Practicing the Way’s Advent Meditations

Every Moment Holy’s liturgies for when you don’t have the words for prayer 

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