Advent as Resistance

Advent¹ is a season of the Church that this year begins on December first. It’s celebrated on the four Sundays before Christmas. Advent is the time when Christians prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth and to look forward to Christ’s return. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin adventus which means “coming” or “arrival”. Christians have been celebrating Advent since at least 480 CE.

The four Sundays of Advent are often marked with an Advent Wreath which has four candles, one for each Sunday. The candles signify hope, peace, joy, and love.

We often use words like, expectant waiting, anticipation, reflection, and watchfulness when we talk about Advent. Sometimes these words can make Advent seem like a season, of quiet waiting that we hold in contrast to the overwhelming business and busyness that can make up the holidays. The themes of Advent, hope, peace, joy and love, can come across as passive, quiet gifts we receive from God or attributes of life in the world to come. This isn’t wrong, and also…

What if we thought about hope, peace, joy and love as actions of resistance? What if we consider them to be verbs, strong and resilient? What if hope, peace, joy, and love are ways of being that resist what the powers and principalities tell us is true about our lives and the world? Can claiming and living in and with hope, peace, joy, and love counter the loud, oppressive claims of despair, depression, terror and hate in our world?

As Christians we live in the in-between times. Theologians call this time the now and not yet. Christ has come and is here now, and also Christ has not yet come again. During Advent we look back at what God has done. Because we remember what God has done, we can look forward to what God will do. And not just look forward but live forward. We live into the not yet. We live the values God wants for us and for the world; hope, peace, joy, and love.

What if we claim hope, peace, joy, and love, not as passive, nebulous values, but as the lived experience of Christians. And then, what if we shared this way of life, this way of resistance with the world?

That’s what we’ll be thinking about this Advent. How does the story of Jesus’ birth show us hope, peace, joy, and love as living acts of resistance? How do we learn from that story to live lives of resistance grounded in hope, peace, joy, and love?

1. Here are some resources for Advent, PCUSA, United Methodist, general information, ↩︎