Just this week, North American Anglican published this essay of mine on the nature of Advent as suggested by the metaphors that govern it. It has received many fine responses from folks saying they resonate with the challenges and images there, and a little pushback as well, which is probably natural given the corrective nature of the essay. So, I wanted to offer here a little more evidence for why I think we should consider Advent a time of joyous anticipation rather than one of solemnity, mostly for the unconvinced.
One commentator, the good Rev. Ben Jefferies, noted:
This is an excellent proposal for how Advent should be inhabited, and very compelling, but it is unfair to claim that those who (like myself) treat Advent as a Lenten season are the innovators, when that is clearly the dominant motif for Advent up until the Reformation in all quarters, and in many beyond.
…to which I offer the following thoughts. First, this fellow clearly knows more about church history than I who am just a poor poet trying to think about how the human heart works and what might be best for it.
Second, as the liturgical resurgence tears across the globe, making converts and drawing people into the depths of church practice, most will encounter the negative Advent as a revision. Persons who have been Christians their whole lives will have their favorite season suddenly re-defined as not-joyous. Which is to say, there is an historical level here, but also a human one. And since we are talking about human practices within the span of an individual life —viz. “what we should do” and not “what has happened”—I think it’s fair to talk in person-scale.
But third, I don’t know why we’d need to go back to the Reformation for rhythmic templates. Times have changed rather drastically since then, obviously, so if the practice of a joyful, decorative Advent was the dominant practice in England in the nineteenth-century and in the early c20, as I think it was, and then the church started moving (back?) to a pre-Reformation practice, maybe sometime in the 1970’s I think I’d still call that latter group the innovators. We know from essays and novels from the likes of Alexander Smith, or Trollope, or Dickens clearly, that Advent was celebrated with the glittering joy and gusto I am recommending here, but that sometime between then and now, it was changed toward solemnity. I think that’s probably in response to the rise of Commercial Christmas, (which I take to be a 1950’s phenomenon). In any case, it is still a change, even if a change back.
Fourth, even if it was the dominant motif pre-Reformation, I think it was not the only one. One instance is the opening anecdote from Constantine. That was definitely pre-Reformation and was definitely a celebratory season leading up to Christmas. So we could say, originally, Advent was a street party for a coming king, and only later was morphed into a little Lent. Or we could get even more original than that: John the Baptizer fills the Issaic “Prepare ye the Way of the Lord.” And isn’t that what we do at Advent as I describe it here? The alternative is not to prepare the way, to side imaginatively with those intertestimental lonely hearts wondering how long they’ll wait for Messiah. So in another way of thinking about it, the ORIGINAL original Advent from Isaiah, through John, through Christ’s life, through Constantine was joyous and outward, then there is a period where I lose the thread, not being a scholar of such things, and pick it up again around Samuel Johnson and into the Romantic era, where it has, to my ear the exact same tenor: feasts and eager gratitude.
Or as another commentator glossed it:
I have been formed into a person who frankly gets more excited about weekly Seahawks games than high holy days. Let us be honest, after all! This does not mean my loyalties are more to NFL than the faith, but my rhythms are shaped that way. BUT, if we can learn from the "star" and the "pregnant", can we learn from the "game"? ADVENT=anticipation of this week's game against divisional opponent! I can't wait! CHRISTMAS= a nail-biter win! CHRISTMAS SEASON = Remember when Russell threw that pass to DK? And how did Lockett catch that pass? It's a miracle! I can't believe they won! Joyful anticipation / Experience / Reflection.
I think that’s exactly right.
I’ll turn comments on for this post if people would like to engage more here. I am very happy to be corrected here, and realize that there is an element of both in Advent, which is what makes it so wonderful. Also, I’m looking very forward to my library’s purchase of the new Oxford handbook of Christmas, which might clear some of this up for me.
In any case, happy (joyous!) preparations to you and yours!