We finally made it to December. It felt touch-and-go for a while. More than any other year, there might be a temptation to relax, to treat ourselves, or to let ourselves go upon reflection of the many difficulties and trials that occurred.
There are times when this is an appropriate and even recommended activity. We know that our Lord approves of rest, as it was part of the created order. But Christians are often far too hard on themselves and refuse to rest, confusing rest with sloth.
I am very pro-rest, pro-celebration, pro-feasting.
But let me plead my case with you.
Don’t do it yet.
There is no harm in celebrating early. There is no law that says one must keep Advent. But to do so would be missing out on one of the most important seasons of reflection and prayer on the Christian calendar.
The Advent season is a fast in preparation for the Christmas season. Fasts are kept with some amount of sacrifice. Intentionally withholding food from oneself is meant to allow something else to come in and take that space. For some, the hunger of the fast is meant to remind us of something else: that God is the provider of all our needs. The hunger of the fast is meant to remind us to be grateful for the feast when it arrives.
In Advent, we fast and we remember the period of uncertainty and silence that Israel awaited before Christ came to earth as a newborn babe, carried in the womb of a young woman, as all children have entered the world since time began. We identify with the people of God who waited in faith, giving ourselves to prayer, reflection, and penitence. Counter culturally, we look toward “emptying” instead of “acquiring”. In preparation for abundance to come spiritually and perhaps physically at Christmas, we keep Advent by giving up something in the present.
You may be thinking, “But this whole year has been a time of giving up things.” Perhaps you feel that you’ve been waiting for the kind of joy that comes at Christmas for the last 8 months, so what’s the harm in celebrating a little early? “It’s been a miserable year,” you might say, “and I need a little Christmas now.”
Don’t do it.
Not yet.
Christmas is coming. The day of rest approaches and it is nigh.
In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon declares that different measures are appropriate depending on the season. There is a time for fasting and a time for feasting. There is a time for celebration, and a time for refraining from celebrating, such that in our refraining we aren’t “giving ourselves a break, because we need it.” In our abstinence, we aren’t wallowing in the pain of “a lost year” or “cheering ourselves up”. Instead, we are allowing ourselves to reflect upon the blessings we have.
Rather than turning Thanksgiving through New Years into one long holiday of excess, what if we, following our Thanksgiving feasts, took the 4 weeks of Advent to fast, to pause, to remember with gratitude the work of the Lord, and build anticipation toward the real holiday (literally “holy day”): the celebration of the Nativity of our Lord! Christmas is meant to be a season of feasting (12 days of it, in fact, just as the song indicates). In the intentional withholding of the fast, we are making ourselves ready for the feast.
We are also developing the spiritual virtue of patience, resting in the hope of a faithful God who reminds us with each passing December that he truly did come to earth as a holy infant, tender and mild. This is the same patient hope in which we rest in the season of Lent, when we faithfully remember his temptation, his passion and his death and burial, ultimately in preparation for His resurrection, when we joyfully declare to one another on that ultimate holy day, “He is Risen”.
Advent is also a time of looking forward to the second coming of Christ. While we think back to the time of his first coming, we recognize our place in the story and identify with those who waited for his birth as we await his return, to set right all things, “on earth, as it is in heaven.” Preparation during Advent is being made ready for the day of the Lord, which comes, as Peter warns, “like a thief” (II Pet 3:10). Advent is a time to get ready to meet our Maker.
Take the opportunity to practice patient preparation again. In this season of planned and intentional waiting, “let every heart prepare Him room” by not skipping the opportunity to recognize our need for a Savior and instead, going to Him in penitent prayer.
To everything there is a season. Don’t skip this one.