Alabama Baptists have a variety of ways to stay focused on the “true meaning” of Christmas — “hanging the greens,” producing Christmas cantatas and dramas and collecting gifts for those less fortunate. But one of the best ways may be one of the least used in Baptist churches.
Through Scripture, ritual and song, Christians who observe the reflective four-week season of Advent will, at home and at church, prepare to celebrate the nativity of Jesus.
But Advent, some say, is more than just a spiritual counterpart to the secular holiday blitz.
“In the busyness of the season, we need time alone with God for prayer and solitude; time to read the Scriptures and meditate on them and their meaning,” said Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University. “Advent prompts us to do that.”
Advent, which began Nov. 30 this year, is traditionally celebrated on the four Sundays preceding Christmas. Its most visible symbol, the Advent wreath, consists of a circle of four candles surrounding a fifth white candle — also known as the Christ candle — and decorated with greenery.
Tommy Pierce, minister of music for First Baptist Church, Boaz, said the church will light one candle each Sunday, culminating in a vespers service the last Sunday evening before Christmas.
After every candle in the wreath is lit, ushers will light smaller candles from the Christ candle and pass the flame from member to member, resulting in a candlelit service. “The light spreading through the congregation is symbolic of Christ’s light spreading through the world,” Pierce said.
Rooted in the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming” or “arrival,” Advent is a season of spiritual preparation both for Christmas, when Christians mark Jesus’ birth, and for his Second Coming on Judgment Day.
Thus the theological reach of advent spans from the messianic prophecies and longings of the ancient Israelites to the end of the world.
Not as old as the feast of Christmas itself, Advent may have originated in fourth- and fifth-century Gaul and Spain, where a pre-Epiphany time of prayer and fasting was observed — likely to prepare for baptisms held on the feast day commemorating the baptism of Jesus.
By the fifth century, another custom had risen of giving sermons exhorting the faithful to prepare for the feast of Christmas. The observances spread; in 567 the Second Council of Tours called on monks to fast from the first of December until Christmas.
It was later expanded to 40 days to mirror the Lenten fast, and laity were encouraged to join in. In the 11th century, Advent was shortened, and now starts four Sundays before Christmas.
Although the penitential dimension of Advent has largely been dropped, George says it mirrors the preparations Christians need to take to prepare for His Second Coming.
“The season reminds us not only to get ready to celebrate His coming as a baby but also that He’s coming again as King and Lord and Judge of all,” George said.
Dennis Bratcher terms this theological link a “dual Advent.”
Bratcher is director of the Oklahoma City-based Christian Resource Institute (www.cresourcei.org), a Web site he created to provide nondenominational biblical and theological resources relating to everyday Christian life.
“We usually associate Advent just with Christmas,” he said, “but it really has a double sense on a theological, spiritual level, as it articulates that sense of hope, of anticipation, that God has worked in history and will continue to work in history.”
An ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, Bratcher said he has noticed a surge of interest in Advent — and all things liturgical — among evangelicals.
“Many of the letters (I get) are from traditions that are just now discovering the liturgical dimensions of Christianity,” he said, noting that some of his more interesting letters come from Southern Baptists, who, like Nazarenes, are not historically liturgical.
Last year, almost 3 million spiritual surfers visited Bratcher’s Advent pages during the month of December alone, he said.
Part of the church year’s appeal for evangelicals, he believes, is its mystical journey. “The church year takes people beyond longing and expectation before Christmas to reflection and repentance in Lent to the celebration of hope at Easter,” he said.
It’s that expectation of Christmas that attracts Bert Fowler, minister of music and senior adults of First Baptist Church, Russellville, to the Advent celebration. “Thousands of years before [Christ] was born, God predicted it and told us about it. He prepared us, and we need to prepare,” he said.
Fowler said church members get involved in lighting the Advent candles each Sunday, with one family lighting one candle each Sunday and reading a passage of Scripture and an explanation of each candle’s meaning.
“It helps us not to lose the important stuff in all the chaos of the season,” Fowler said.
Bratcher said, “The recovery of Advent, or the institution of Advent, is a way … to be deliberately spiritual. … Advent is really a way to recover Christmas.” (RNS, TAB)
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