Advent Now

Advent (which literally means coming or arrival as in the sense of a dignitary) is a wonderful time of year during which Christians celebrate the coming of God to Earth in the person of Jesus.  As the Bible puts it in John 1:14, "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood." (MSG) There are traditionally four Sundays of Advent, each pointing to a different focus of the season: hope, peace, joy, and love. Advent is an amazing time of hope, anticipation, and preparation for the upcoming year (advent begins the liturgical year for many denominations).  The beauty of Advent is that, as we wait with eager anticipation the redemption of all creation, we also take joy in the fact that Christ is here and among us now through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

Advent Then (Historical Setting)

Many believe that the term Advent was used by the early Church as a form of protest against the Roman Empire.  The Roman Empire was ruled by a consecutive line of Caesars and by the time the Church was born in the 1st Century, Emperial Worship had been established in the Roman Empire.  Slogans and phrases such as "Caesar is Lord" appeared throughout the land.  The term advent as used in the Roman Empire, referred to the advent, or the coming of the Caesars - the sons of god.  Such is the world that Jesus was born into.  When the first Jesus followers, or Followers of the Way as they were known, began to emerge in the 1st century, they were faced with the important question: is Caesar god, or is Jesus God?  As a way of showing that Jesus, not Casesar, was the true Son of God, the early Christians began to adopt phrases used by the Roman Empire such as advent and ekklesia (church). The early church was adamant that the "gospel of peace," the pax roma, spread by the Roman Empire through military might was inferior to the true Gospel of Peace offered through Jesus. (Gospel, euangelion, is itself a phrase used by the Roman Empire to speak of the good news of the Caesars.)

For more information regarding the history of Advent and the life of the early Church in light of the Roman Empire, check out the following:

Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder by Richard Horsley

God and Empire: Jesus against Rome, Then and Now by John Dominic Crossan

The New Testament and the People of God (V1) and Jesus and the Victory of God (V2) both by N.T. Wright