Advent marks the beginning of each church year. As the name suggests, it's the season of "something's coming"! The "something", in this case, is Jesus Christ. We look forward to his coming in the manger as a baby and to him coming again at the end of all things, in both cases healing the world. The color of the season is blue, reflecting the sky, the heavens from which Jesus comes. Blue is also considered a hopeful color, as if looking to the sky for help or in anticipation. Some churches use purple for Advent in addition to, or instead of blue...purple being a royal color.
Textual themes for Advent include preparing, staying alert and awake, announcements and prophecy, the world being stirred up into a frenzy of activity. Symbols include the Advent Wreath and its candles, the baptismal font, and all the people from the Biblical texts who announced things: shepherds, angels, John the Baptist among them.
You may have noticed among pastors a certain resistance to singing Christmas songs during the Advent season. The focus on preparation is a major reason why. Advent isn't supposed to be Christmas, Part I: All the Songs You'll Be Tired of by the 25th. Or, put another way, Advent isn't about getting things instantly, such as Christmas music. It's about the discipline of preparing for something that's on its way and what you do in the meantime. We live in the in-between times, after Christ rose from the dead but before he's returned to bring us to heaven. Our entire lives depend on this story of being alert and doing well even when the Big Moment isn't here quite yet. That's the significance of Advent.
Advent gives way to the Christmas season proper on December 24th, the Nativity of Our Lord. Here the birth story of Jesus takes center stage. Messages are familiar: peace, joy, beauty, prayer fulfilled, the miracle of God among us. The color is white, reminding us of purity and unbroken light. The symbols are so familiar as to not need rehearsal: the manger and stable, the animals, angels, and shepherds, the holy family, the star of Bethlehem.
The Christmas season actually lasts for twelve days, begun on the night of Christ's birth and ending with the coming of the wise men/magi from the East with their gifts. The extra Sunday or Sundays of the Christmas season are always interesting. We're singing Christmas songs and most people are going, "Still? Aren't we done with this? Ugh!" while their pastors say, "I told you so! You shouldn't have gorged on Christmas music early! This is still perfectly good and we're not going to waste it! Starving kids in China would love to have this Christmas music! Now sing!" Depending on the year we get stories about Jesus' circumcision or Herod slaughtering the babies of Bethlehem in an attempt to rid himself of a rival King. Even though the latter is a tough story to hear during the holidays it reminds us that Christ coming wasn't just about pretty decorations. He came to heal the sins of the world which were, and still are, tragically abundant and profound.
The Christmas season ends on the day of Epiphany. It's supposed to be a feast day comparable to Pentecost or any of the festivals we celebrate that lie just under the tier of Christmas-Easter significance. The thing is, Pentecost and those other festivals always fall on a Sunday. Epiphany, coming exactly 12 days after Christmas, rarely falls on a Sunday. (This year it's on Friday, January 6th.) Therefore we rarely celebrate it explicitly. We just see its echoes in the Sundays after Epiphany.
"Epiphany" means "discovery" or "realization". The Epiphany season brings the first revelation of Christ's purpose among us. He arrives through the Christmas story but we discover the meaning of his arrival--his identity, if you will--through the Epiphany texts.
The story on Epiphany proper is the coming of the strangers from the East, men who proclaim Christ a king and give him gifts to match. The Sundays after Epiphany contain the stories of Jesus' baptism, calling the disciples, healing the sick, and some of Jesus' most profound teachings, usually from the Sermon on the Mount. We get a crash course in Christ...all the things he brings to the world bundled into a few Sundays.
The color for Epiphany is green, indicating growth and discovery. The festival days which begin and end the season--Epiphany and the Baptism of Our Lord at the start plus Transfiguration Sunday at the finish--are decked in white. Symbols of the season include water (baptism), light (discovery, illumination, the star which guided the Easterners to Jesus), the gifts of the magi, sometimes salt (symbolizing Jesus' teachings seasoning our lives and him calling us the salt of the earth).
The final Sunday in the Epiphany season is Transfiguration Sunday, when Jesus' true glory is finally revealed on the mountaintop to his chosen disciples. Seeing Jesus in God-like splendor, dazzling white, attended by Moses and Elijah affirms the importance and truth of all of the other Epiphany realizations. It's the, "Whoa! This really IS God!" moment...kind of like seeing Superman takes off his Clark Kent outfit for the first time. Transfiguration Sunday also provides us a second direct message from the heavens as God's voice booms out, claiming Jesus as his Son and urging us to listen to him. This provides a nifty bookend with the same declaration that happened at the beginning of Epiphany when Jesus was baptized.
And there we are...Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and the feast days in between. We'll update you as the seasons change throughout this church year. Hopefully we can all view these changes in worship with as much fondness and familiarity as we view the changes in weather and scenery during the Spring-Summer-Fall-Winter progression. A happy Epiphany to us all!
--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)
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