We have become very good at waiting this year, waiting for restrictions to lift, waiting to visit friends, waiting to see grandchildren, waiting to see grandparents, waiting to travel… yet there is one wait we do every year and it is a type of waiting which we all look forward to. . .Waiting for Christmas. This weekend the formal journey of that period of waiting for Christmas begins with Advent.
It may seem perhaps that Advent is a little later this year with Christmas lights up a little earlier, and shop windows although closed displaying a myriad of joyful scenes invoking nostalgia of better times – however it is a time to be hopeful, a time to await with expectation.
Advent does exactly just that. It looks back in order to look forward. The Celebration of the first coming of Christ in that stable in Bethlehem is symbolic and has meaning and purpose
Christmas is not a sterile memorial of an event thousands of miles away which has past and gone, but in fact it is preparation for what is to come. Advent brings us on that hopeful journey.
So Advent begins this weekend with the colour purple, the symbol for Christians of preparation and forgiveness. It is a time for reflection before we look forward in anticipation and hope towards what is coming.
This hope and expectation is symbolised in the ever increase in light – the candles lit in ever greater numbers towards the End. Let us all enjoy this journey together; waiting in hope and expectation towards December 25th..
