Advent Isn't Just For Catholics
Want to prepare for Christmas? Focus on Advent, even if you're Protestant!
Our family celebrates Christmas. I know not all Christians choose to do so, and I also know that many unbelievers throw themselves into the holiday wholeheartedly (though with a decidedly different intent). Over the years, the season has looked different depending on our circumstances, but the overall focus has remained intact: preparing our hearts to delight in celebrating the fulfillment of the promise given in Genesis.
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,—Titus 2:11-12
I grew up with a “hybrid” faith experience. My mother, the youngest daughter of a Baptist preacher, had converted to Catholicism when I was very young. My Mamaw was a fervent Missionary Baptist. (She never said she was “Baptist,” always, “Missionary Baptist.”) This gave me dual experiences (such as kneeling during Mass versus raising hands during worship) as well as dual vocabulary (what one denomination calls the Lord’s Prayer the other refers to as the Our Father, for example). Obviously, I eventually landed on the Protestant side, although that wasn’t a given. I admit that the beauty inherent in a legacy of tradition as well as the reverence of a liturgical approach to corporate worship speaks to my soul. There is something to be said for a faith that encourages you to balance approaching the Lord with fear and trembling as well as the understanding that you have been called His child through the blood of Jesus. I liken it to the feelings most of us have when a beloved guest is coming for a visit: we know they love us, and they will forgive our mess, but we go ahead and tidy up anyhow because we want to always give them the warmest welcome we can offer.
This, I think, is what I subconsciously brought with me into the Christmas season when I became a parent. I didn’t give it much thought before then, because frankly, I wasn’t terribly intentional about many things until I had to be. But raising children to know and love Jesus was something I didn’t want to approach half-heartedly— and walking into one of the most important milestones of the Christian calendar wasn’t something I wanted to sneak up on me, either. I wanted us to use the weeks leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ birth to ask questions, study Scripture, and find meaning in the symbols and sights and sounds all around us.
I wanted Advent.
Now, this wasn’t very Protestant of me. Advent comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming.” The origin gives you a hint to the fact that this is a Catholic concept. It doesn’t appear in the Bible. It’s simply tradition, which is something we Protestants tend to shy away from when it comes to faith practices. We don’t do things just because someone back in the fourth century said it should be done. Traditions reek of rote action, of obligatory motions and works, not faith. But this tradition? It’s good.
When I allowed myself to embrace the spirit of Advent, to dive into the Word to remember the why of Jesus coming, the anguish of the Jews awaiting a Savior, the people who were transformed by the physical presence of God With Us, the setting into which Jesus was born, the weeks leading to Christmas became so much more rich. Instead of eyeing things to buy on every shelf and wondering what play or light display or movie we’d watch next, we saw decorated trees and thought of their historical significance, or heard hymns and remembered why the composer was moved to write them.
In short, we relished that “coming” that Advent promises.
I’m writing today to encourage you to make plans now to steer your family away from what passes as “the magic of Christmas” that the world celebrates and instead towards what C.S. Lewis would call the '“deeper magic” of the Gospel evident in a Christ-centered celebration of Advent. There are so many wonderful resources available. You can find individual studies, family devotions, even story-based journeys that take you from the beginning of December all the way to Christmas day. You don’t need a guide, of course. Grab your Bible and read to your children every day, focusing your reading and ensuing discussion on sin and salvation.
If you are in the market for an open-and-go, all ages study, I humbly suggest the one I wrote for my own family. Called Experiencing Advent, it’s a four week walk through Scripture, history, symbols, activities, and songs that I designed to immerse every member of the family into a deeper understanding of the season. It’s flexible enough to give you options— and also let you choose to pass if making a batch of special cookies isn’t in the cards for the day. The heart of the study is the Word of God; everything else is icing on the cake. I’ve used it at least seven times with my own crew, and I love seeing the connections they make as we journey from Decmber 1 to 25.
I do hope you will join me in preparing your heart for the celebration of Jesus, who fulfilled so many promises when He was born more than 2,000 years ago. He alone is worthy of our praise, friends. Whatever denomination you claim, setting aside a small portion of each day in the coming month to remember the great gift we were all given when the Word became flesh and walked among us is the very least we can do to celebrate and worship Him!
In Christ,
Heather